Invoicing

What it's for

Invoicing is the org-wide rulebook for money movement: how invoices are taxed and numbered, whether a deposit or call-out fee is charged automatically, what payroll cadence drives payout timing, and how billable time gets rounded. It's one long settings form, grouped into named sections, rather than a record you create — every field here is a default that other screens (jobs, quotes, invoices, payroll) read from.

Reach it from Settings → This company → Invoicing in the sidebar, at /settings/billing.

Tabs

This screen has no tabs. It's a single scrolling form broken into named sections: Invoicing defaults, Quote defaults, Payroll, Prevailing wage, Time validation, Deposits, Call-out fee, Billable time rounding, Not-to-exceed (T&M), Subcontractor insurance (COI), Invoice emails, Credit notes, Document numbers, Price Book, AP matching, and Service agreements.

Panels and controls

Invoicing defaults

Tax engine picks how new invoices are taxed when QuickBooks is not connected: Manual applies the flat Sales tax rate below (a percent from 0 to 100 with at most two decimal places, for example 8.25; blank means no tax); Stripe Tax resolves a jurisdiction-aware rate from the service-site address, falling back to the flat rate if unavailable; None never charges tax. A rate that does not fit is refused: "Tax rate must be a percentage between 0 and 100 (e.g. 8.25)." When QuickBooks is already connected, those two controls are hidden. The section says QuickBooks holds your tax setup, lists the tax codes from QuickBooks, and an owner can use Refresh from QuickBooks to pull them again. Payment terms sets net-days until an invoice is due. Default invoice notes pre-fills every new invoice. Billing engine picks what drives rental and lease cycle invoicing. Prebill approval policy decides whether invoices need department-manager review before they can be sent — Optional, Required above a dollar threshold, or Always required. Escalate overdue prebill approvals turns the Prebill escalations list on or off; Escalate after (hours) sets how long an invoice waits for approval before it counts as overdue (whole hours, 1 to 8760; 48 by default). Escalation approver and Default approver are optional and list active owners and office staff who can see every branch; a name outside that list is refused.

Quote defaults

Default validity window (days), the APR and term months shown on a quote's financing teaser, and a toggle requiring internal approval before a draft quote can be sent to the customer.

Payroll

Cadence (weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly) and an anchor date — any real date that fell on-cycle — that the Commissions screen's payout stat and the payroll-export window are computed from. Payroll export format picks the file Time entries Export payroll downloads: Generic CSV (Thermal) or ADP RUN — Time Sheet Import. ADP RUN also asks for ADP company code (IID) and ADP rate code (default BASE); a blank company code refuses the export. Each staff row needs a Payroll employee id before a provider-format export will run.

Prevailing wage

Track prevailing-wage jobs is off until you turn it on. It does not change pay rates, and it does not build a certified payroll file. While it is on, a job and a project each show a Prevailing wage checkbox. Check it and choose Save. Department P&L Export to CSV or Excel includes a Prevailing wage column, Yes or No, on each ledger row. The on-screen table and the PDF do not.

Time validation

Minimum hours per pay period, a maximum-hours-per-day flag (never blocks a save, just flags), and a late-entry window in days. Two toggles: require job or phase attribution on chargeable time (travel and non-chargeable time are always exempt), and require a work location once the org has more than one branch.

Deposits

Off by default. When on, an accepted quote generates a payable deposit invoice, computed by basis — a percent of the total, a fixed dollar amount, or parts-and-materials cost only. A mandatory-above dollar threshold, once set, means the office can no longer waive the deposit past that total. Treatment decides whether a paid deposit is credited on the final invoice or held as a refundable hold.

Call-out fee

Off by default. A flat fee per visit, covering either drive time only or drive time plus the first hour, with an optional toggle to bill a full first hour as a minimum even on a shorter visit.

Billable time rounding

Rounds the billable on-site duration computed from arrival/completion timestamps — never the raw audit timestamps or the daily timecard. Pick a labor pricebook item to auto-generate the appointment labor line, and a rounding mode (exact, round up to 5/15/30 minutes, or add a flat 15 minutes).

Invoice emails

Attach invoice PDF starts off. Turn it on when a customer should get the invoice file as well as the link. Invoice emails and an explicit send then include the PDF. The link stays in the email. If the PDF cannot be built, the email still goes out.

Credit notes

GST/HST registration number is blank until saved. When it is saved, the invoice shows that number. With the field blank, that line is not on the invoice. The same fact is in Send and collect an invoice.

Not-to-exceed, COI, document numbers, Price Book, AP matching, service agreements

The remaining sections set: the NTE warn threshold and whether it blocks adding items past the cap; the subcontractor insurance expiring-soon window (assignment requires an approved certificate with current coverage — see Manage subcontractors); the INV/P/WO/PO document-number prefixes; Price Book margin floor, rounding, and Member/Commercial tier defaults, plus PO receipt costing method; AP matching's dollar and percent tolerances for auto-matching a bill line to its receipt; and the service-agreement renewal horizon, expiry grace period, and default renewal escalation percent.

What it accepts

Every field on this form is optional — blank falls back to the system default, not an error.

How to configure it

This screen configures everything downstream of it: new invoices, quotes, payroll runs, deposit invoices, call-out fee lines, billable time lines, and service-agreement renewal transitions all read their defaults from here. Labor rate scales (a separate screen) prices labor itself — Invoicing only sets tax, terms, and fee behavior around that price. Branches can override the tax rate, NTE settings, and Price Book tier deltas per location; a blank branch override falls back to what's set here.

Who can see it

• Owners see Invoicing in the Settings sidebar and can change every field on this form.
• Office managers have access to the Settings area, so the screen and its fields are open to them if they navigate directly, even though the sidebar link is shown to owners.
• Dispatchers and technicians cannot reach Settings at all. The save action is checked on the server, so the gate holds regardless of what the sidebar shows.

The full role matrix is on Roles & permissions.