Estimates and invoices

The point of capturing work as structured data is that you do not type it a second time to bill for it.

From a job to an invoice

Completed work carries into an invoice: the parts a technician recorded, the quantities, the prices from your parts table. You review it rather than assemble it.

Building one by hand

Invoices → new. Set Bill To, the Invoice Date and the Due Date, then add Line Items. Each line has a description, a quantity and an amount; discounts and tax apply to the total.

Estimates

An estimate is the same document before the work. Send it, get it approved, and the approval is recorded — so when the invoice is queried later there is a dated agreement behind it rather than a memory of a phone call.

Change orders

Extra work discovered on site should become a line on the form while the crew is still there. Discovered at invoicing time, weeks later, it becomes a discount — nobody can show it was ever authorized.