Invoices and payments: bill, send, and match every payment

What does EasyTaskr do with invoices and payments?

It raises the bill, sends it, and keeps the customer's balance right as money comes in. Invoices, credit notes and payments are all documents, and the customer's balance is worked out from them, never typed in by hand. That is why the balance on screen, the statement the customer gets and the ageing report always agree.

Invoices come from three places: from an order when it is dispatched, from a proforma or quotation the customer accepted, or written fresh with New invoice.

How do I create and send an invoice?

New invoice opens an editor that says what it does: bill a customer, and it stays a draft until you send it. Each line has the item, quantity, price, a discount percentage and the VAT rate, and the line total works itself out. VAT is calculated on every line with your rates and shown on the invoice, so a mixed invoice with standard and zero-rated goods adds up correctly.

When it is ready, choose Save draft, Save and send by e-mail or Save and send by WhatsApp. Any invoice can also be downloaded as a PDF. Before printing, the preview shows the invoice exactly as it will come out, and you can pick the printer type: laser or inkjet, dot-matrix for carbon copies, or thermal.

What do the invoice statuses mean?

Overdue is not a label someone has to remember to set. It is worked out every time the invoice is shown, from the due date and what is still owed.

How are payments recorded and matched?

Open Record payment, enter the Amount paid and choose How they paid: cash, card, bank transfer or cheque. Part payments are fine; the invoice shows what is left.

When a customer pays a round sum against several invoices, you have choices. Pay everything this customer owes covers all their unpaid orders and invoices, oldest first. Or enter the amount and let it be paid against the oldest invoices first, or pick the invoices yourself. One payment can be split across methods, such as part cash and part transfer. Anything extra can be left on account as an advance, or used to pay their other bills, oldest first. Each payment gets its own receipt number.

Matching payments to the right invoices is what keeps the ageing report honest. A payment left floating against no invoice makes an old invoice look unpaid, and the customer gets chased for money they already sent.

Step by step: from invoice to paid

1. Open the invoices list and press New invoice, or raise it from the order or accepted proforma.
2. Choose the customer and check their address and payment terms.
3. Add each line with quantity, price, any agreed discount and the right VAT rate.
4. Check the totals: net, VAT and the total to pay.
5. Press Save and send by e-mail or Save and send by WhatsApp.
6. When money arrives, open the invoice and press Record payment.
7. Enter the amount and how they paid; for a part payment, the balance stays on the invoice.
8. For a payment covering several invoices, let it pay the oldest first or choose them yourself.
9. If goods come back or a price was wrong, raise a credit note with the reason.
10. Approve the credit note so it is applied to the customer's balance.

How do credit notes work?

A credit note reduces what a customer owes without deleting the invoice, so the record of what happened stays. Each one carries a reason: return, damaged goods, pricing error, short delivery, quality issue, adjustment or other. It starts as a draft, waits to be approved, and is then applied to the customer's balance. It can be linked to an invoice or raised on its own, for example as a goodwill credit.

Can the AI raise an invoice for me?

It can prepare one. Ask the assistant to invoice an order and it shows the order, the customer and the amount with VAT, with Confirm and Cancel. Nothing happens until you confirm, and the request expires after ten minutes so an old one cannot be confirmed by mistake. Confirming raises a real invoice through the normal process, and only staff allowed to invoice can do it.

How do I make invoices look right?

The document designer sets how invoices, proformas and receipts look. You can save named designs, for example a plain one for retail and a detailed one for trade, and give a customer their own design on their customer page. There is also an option to ask the AI to design one, or to match it to your logo. Every printed copy, PDF and preview comes from the same design, so what you approve is what customers get.

How quickly do invoices get paid?

Faster when they go out the same day and are easy to pay. A worked example: an invoice of 2,400 net with 20% VAT is 2,880. Sent the day the goods go out on 30-day terms, it is due on day 30. Sent a week later, the customer still takes 30 days, so you wait 37. Across 50 invoices a month, that week is about 33,600 of your money held up for no reason (50 × 2,880 × 7 ÷ 30). Numbers like these are only a sample. Our guide on getting invoices paid faster has more on terms and timing.

What should I set up first?

Check your VAT rates and payment terms in settings, then make your default invoice design and print a test copy. Agree one rule with staff: every payment is recorded against an invoice on the day it arrives. For how this fits your cash flow, start with that guide.