Creating Your First Invoice

Billing is where you create invoices out of recorded time entries. You choose the client, choose the billing period, and generate. This guide covers what gets billed, when an invoice locks and why, and the practices that keep invoicing routine.

What gets billed

Before you create an invoice, three things need to be in place: time entries, a client attached to the project you want to bill for, and the billing settings like tax and bank information filled out.

Time entries must be on the record. When you load time into an invoice, you get recorded entries in new or approved; draft entries that nobody has accepted, including anything sitting in Review Drafts, cannot be billed. If you want that time on an invoice, accept it first.

The project needs a client. Invoices are organised by client: you pick the client, then load time from that client's active projects. You cannot bill a project that has no Client Name, so set the client in the project settings before you invoice.

Invoice information for your organization needs to be filled in under Settings > Billing. This includes selecting an optional logo for your invoices and crucial information like taxes, terms and banking. See Billing Settings Invoices and Billing History for details.

There is one other optional setting regarding backlog entries, which in AbleTime is classified as time spent on research, discussion and specification before any actual work on the actual task. See Backlog for details on this optional feature. Some organizations bill for this type of work, others do not. The decision to include backlog hours is global, for every project and client, and is set in Organization Settings → Billing. The invoice builder will clearly indicate whether backlog time has been included, so you are aware of this before you generate the invoice.

Time entry locks

An invoice's status moves in one direction: draft while you build it, generated when you commit it, then due, paid, overdue, or uncollectible as you record what happens, with void as the final option.

A draft is a workspace. Each time you open a draft you get the latest recorded time for its projects and dates; nothing is frozen until you generate. The total shown in the invoice list is only a snapshot from the last time the draft was opened.

Generating is the commitment. The generated invoice is the document the client sees; you can no longer edit it, and crucially the time entries attached to the invoice are now locked. This ensures the billed entries cannot be altered afterward, and that you cannot bill the same hours twice.

If a mistake was made, you can however Revert to Draft. This option is available only while the invoice is generated and no status has been set. Reverting unlocks the time entries. Once you have set a status, the only exit is Void Invoice: you must write an admin note, and voiding releases the time for rebilling.

Building it

In Billing, create the invoice and choose the client. Once you save the draft you cannot change the client; if you picked the wrong one, create a new invoice.

Load time with Add Project: pick one of the client's active projects and a date range, then press Load. Repeat for each of the client's projects the invoice should carry. Loaded time is grouped by category with its rates, and you can add a per-project note that prints alongside it.

To avoid losing any billable time, AbleTime automatically looks backward to see if there are any "loose" time entries that might have appeared since you last invoiced the client. Any time you did not bill in that earlier period appears on its own collapsible line. If that line is full, you can add the second entry to the invoice to cover that time period.

Use Add Item for lines that are not time (fixed fees, licenses, expenses). Discount and tax follow your organization's billing configuration. There are two notes: the billing note prints for the client, and the admin note never prints.

When you generate the invoice, you can choose to include a line-level record of each time entry. Those entries are appended as an addendum via the print dialog.

A steady billing rhythm

• Accept time before you bill. Sweep the drafts and approve the period first, so the invoice is built on accepted time rather than provisional entries.

• Bill on a fixed cadence, and keep the date ranges butted against each other, so the unbilled-time line stays empty and every hour is billed exactly once.

• Keep the backlog policy stable. If you flip backlog inclusion between invoices, two months with the same recorded time end up billed differently.

• When a generated invoice is wrong, decide which it is: a wrong record (revert, fix the time, regenerate) or a dead invoice (void it with the reason in the admin note, then rebill). Either way, the time record and the invoice stay in agreement.

Field-level detail for every screen in this flow is on Billing Overview, Creating and Editing Invoices, Invoice Preview and Printing, and Invoice Lifecycle.