Issuing an Invoice

Generate a draft invoice from a rental, check it, issue it to the customer, and know what changes once it is issued.

Last reviewed against source: 2026-10-29

Generate a draft from a rental#

1. Open the rental and choose its Invoices tab.
2. Choose Create invoice. The same action is under Documents in the rental's actions menu. The button is offered only when you can create invoices, the rental is not already fully invoiced, and the rental is in a state allowed for standard invoices. By default that is an Order; an Enquiry or Quote does not offer it. A fully invoiced rental shows Fully invoiced instead.
3. In the Generate invoice dialog, read Remaining to invoice, then pick a Mode:
   • Full (remaining) invoices everything not yet invoiced.
   • By items shows each line's Remaining quantity and a Qty box for the quantity to invoice now.
   • Percentage invoices a Percentage of full total.
   • Amount invoices a fixed Amount (inc. tax).
4. Add a Reference and Notes if the customer needs them.
5. Choose Generate invoice.

Signals creates a Draft invoice. Nothing has been sent and no legal number has been allocated yet. A draft shows as Draft invoice #… until it is issued.

Deposits and pro-formas. Under Documents you may also see Generate Deposit and Generate Pro-forma. By default these are offered on a Quote as well as an Order. Both produce documents that do not create financial postings when issued. See Invoicing & Payments.

Rental project costs are invoiced from the project instead; see Rental Projects. Period-end batches are covered in Running a Billing Run.

Create a manual draft#

1. Open Finance → Invoices, or go to /invoices/create.
2. On New Draft Invoice, choose the Account (Company) and Warehouse, and pick the Type: Standard, Deposit or Proforma.
3. Add a Reference and Notes if needed, then choose Save.

A manual invoice has no source rental or project. The form is for the invoice header only; an invoice cannot be issued while it has no line items.

Check the draft#

1. Open Finance → Invoices and select the draft, or open it from the rental's Invoices tab.
2. Review the totals, tax and lines on Overview.
3. To change the header, open the actions menu, then Manage → Edit. On a draft you can change Reference and Notes.
4. To discard the draft, choose Manage → Delete and confirm Delete this draft invoice?. Workflow → Void is also offered on drafts and asks Void this invoice?.

If a foreign-currency draft shows Base exchange rate unresolved, the Issue action is disabled. Resolve the base exchange rate first; see Multi-currency.

Issue the invoice#

1. Open the actions menu and choose Workflow → Issue. The menu item needs the invoices.issue permission and access to the invoice's warehouse.
2. Confirm Issue this invoice to the customer?
3. Read the Invoice issued. message. The status changes from Draft to Issued.

Issue does the following:

• Allocates the legal number if the draft does not have one already.
• Sets the due date by adding invoices.due_days (default 30) to the issue date.
• Locks the lines. An issued invoice is changed only through payments, credit notes, void or write-off.
• Creates the financial posting for a standard invoice. Deposit and pro-forma documents do not post.
• Locks the source rental when invoices.lock_rental_on_issue is on (the default).
• Emails the invoice to the customer when invoices.auto_email_on_issue is on (the default).

These three invoices settings are not on the Finance settings screen. Change them through the API with PUT /api/v1/settings/invoices.

After issue#

A posted standard invoice cannot be voided. Use Workflow → Cancel posted invoice, which asks Cancel this posted invoice with a dated credit for its remaining amount? Recorded cash will remain refundable., or raise a credit note.

Related#