Invoices
What this is for
Sometimes money doesn’t come through registration. A studio owes you for a
late add. A sponsor bought a banner. A vendor is splitting a cost with you.
This is where you write the bill, send it, and keep track of who has paid.
Look for Receivables in the left-hand menu, under Add-ons. It opens
on an Invoices tab. If Receivables isn’t in your menu, it’s not in
your plan yet — ask us.
Making an invoice
Go to Receivables, Invoices tab, and click New invoice
The New invoice box opens. It tells you the plan up front:
Invoices start as drafts — send one to post its revenue and start
collecting.Pick the Customer
Choose a studio from the list. If you’re billing somebody who isn’t a
studio — a sponsor, a photographer — pick One-off customer. Two more
boxes appear: Bill to (the name that prints on the invoice) and
Email.Set the Issued date and Due date
Leave Due blank for a studio and Herding Cats uses that studio’s
normal terms — the hint reads Blank = studio’s net terms.Pick a Brand if you run more than one
Add the Lines
Each line has a description (What is this for?), a Qty, and a
price ($ each). You can also point a line at an event so the money
lands on that event’s Financials tab, and choose which revenue bucket it
belongs to. Leave that on Auto — by stream and Herding Cats picks
for you.Add a Memo if it helps
Optional. It prints on the invoice.Click Save draft
Your invoice gets a number and sits as a Draft. Nothing has posted
to your books, and nothing has gone to the customer.
Sending it
Sending is the moment the invoice becomes real money owed to you.
Send marks the invoice as issued and puts the amount on your books. It
does not put anything in the customer’s inbox. Emailing is a separate
step — the next section.
Emailing it to the studio
Herding Cats picks the address in this order: the Email you typed on
this invoice first, then the studio’s billing address, then the studio’s
general address. If it can’t find any of the three, it will tell you rather
than send into the void.
The email arrives with the subject Invoice {number} from {your company
name}, shows the amount, and carries one button: View invoice.
The private link the customer receives
That View invoice button opens a web page that belongs to just that one
invoice. Nobody needs an account or a password. The link is a long random
string that can’t be guessed, and it only ever shows that single invoice —
never your other customers, never your costs, never anything else about
your company.
On that page the customer sees your company name and logo, the invoice
number, the issued and due dates, the lines, the total, any payments
already recorded, and the balance. There’s one button at the top:
Print / Save as PDF.
You can hand somebody the same link without emailing: three-dot menu,
Copy link. Paste it into a text message. If your browser blocks the
copy, the link is shown to you so you can grab it by hand.
Drafts and voided invoices can’t be shared. Email invoice and
Copy link only appear once an invoice has been sent — which is exactly
right, because a draft isn’t a bill yet and a voided one isn’t a bill any
more.
Recording money when it arrives
Open the three-dot menu and choose Record receipt
The Record a receipt box opens.Set Received on
The day the money actually landed.Pick the Method
Four choices: Check, ACH, Cash, and
Card (recorded manually). Use the last one for a card payment you
took somewhere else and are only writing down here.Check the Amount
Defaults to the whole balance. Type less if it’s a part payment.Add a Reference and a Memo
The check number, the confirmation code, a note. All optional.Click Record receipt
Pay in full and the status becomes Paid. Pay part and it becomes
Partially paid.
What the statuses mean
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Written, not issued. Fully editable, deletable, invisible to the customer. |
| Sent | Issued. The amount is on your books and counts as owed to you. |
| Partially paid | Some has come in. |
| Paid | Settled. |
| Void | Cancelled. Its revenue comes back off your books. |
| Written off | You’ve given up on collecting. The revenue stays on your books, but the balance stops counting as owed. |
Fixing mistakes
A draft that’s wrong — three-dot menu, Delete draft. Note that its
number won’t be reused.
A sent invoice that should never have gone out — three-dot menu,
Void. You can only do this if no money has been received against it.
Voiding takes the revenue back off your books and leaves the invoice on
record at zero.
A real invoice that will never be paid — three-dot menu, Write off.
Different from voiding on purpose: the sale stays in your history (it did
happen), but the balance stops showing up as money you’re waiting for. No
more receipts can be recorded after that.
A void invoice — nothing more to do. The menu shows No actions.
Paid and written-off invoices can still be emailed and shared, so a
customer can always get a copy.
The other two tabs
- Statements — what each studio owes you, studio by studio, rather than
invoice by invoice. Good for the “how do we stand?” phone call. - Credit memos — a credit you’re giving a customer, to offset against
what they owe.
The overdue strip
Like the Bills page, the Invoices page has boxes across the top showing how
much is Current and how much has slipped past due. Use the filter
buttons under them — Open, All, Draft, Paid,
Void & written off — to narrow the list.