The step that turns recorded work into money. It produces a draft invoice, which is the important part — you look at it before the client does.
What it takes
Everything on the project that is billable and not yet invoiced. You can narrow that:
| Choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| Up to a date | Only work done on or before it. Use this to bill a month cleanly. |
| Particular tasks | Only those. Useful when one stage is being billed separately. |
| Approved only | Skip anything nobody has checked. |
| Group by | Task (the default) or person. |
Task or person?
| Group by task | Group by person |
|---|---|
| The client sees what was done. | The client sees who did it. |
| Right for most work. | Right where rates differ by seniority and the client expects that breakdown. |
| “Logo concepts — 14 hrs” | “Arjun Nair — 14 hrs” |
What the rate is
Each entry uses its own rate if it has one, and the project’s hourly rate otherwise. So the usual setup is one rate on the project and nothing per entry, with exceptions where somebody genuinely bills differently.
The money is not computed here
The figures come from the same tax engine the sales module uses. The invoice is the one the sales side would have produced for the same lines — same GST treatment, same rounding, same totals.
That is worth saying because it is the sort of thing that quietly goes wrong in other systems: a project invoice that computes tax its own way, disagreeing by two rupees with every other invoice you raise.
What happens after
- A draft invoice is created against the project’s customer.
- The time it used is marked invoiced, so it cannot be billed twice.
- The draft is yours to check, edit and send.
It refuses rather than guessing. No customer on the project and you are told to set one. No unbilled billable time and you are told that, with what to do about it. Neither produces an empty or half-right invoice.
Billing a month, in order
- Make sure everybody has logged their time.
- Approve it, checking the descriptions.
- Invoice up to the last day of the month, grouped by task.
- Read the draft as the client will.
- Send it.
Where to go next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.