Invoices: bill a customer, get paid by card or transfer

Sales → Invoices lists every invoice with its number, customer, amount, status and due date. Create invoice opens the editor: the form on the left, and on the right a live preview of the PDF, the email the customer gets, and the payment page, which changes as you type. Hide preview gives the form the whole width. The list shows 50 at a time with pages; the search box finds an invoice as you type by number, customer name, email, phone, reference or amount (press / to jump to it), and the dates and order beside it narrow and sort the list; each status shows how many it holds. Export CSV downloads every invoice the list is showing, not only the page. Each row has its PDF and, while it is open, Receive to record a payment.

1. Customer: find one in your contacts by name, email or phone, or Add a new customer (they join your contacts). Edit details changes the name, email, phone or billing address on this invoice only.
2. Currency: your bookings currency to start with. Changing it clears the items, since their prices were in the old one. Yen and won have no cents: their prices are whole amounts everywhere. An invoice in another currency than your home currency asks for the exchange rate (up to 6 decimals), its date and its source, and prints the tax in your home currency (Malaysia, Singapore and the UK: the net, tax and gross; Japan: the tax per rate in yen).
3. Document: the title (Invoice, Tax Invoice, 請求書, 청구서, 账单 or Bill), the language it is printed in (English, Bahasa Melayu, Japanese, Korean or Chinese), and a date of supply or a service period when the goods or service were supplied on another day.
4. Items: find an item on your menu (services, products and packages from Settings → Sales → Menu and prices) or Add item for a one-off line. Each has a description, quantity and price; Discount and tax takes an amount off the line and picks its tax: one of your rates, Zero-rated or Exempt.
5. Payment collection: due on receipt, in 7, 14, 30 or 60 days, or on a date you choose. The days count from the day it is finalised.
6. Payment methods: card payment online, when your own Stripe account is connected under Settings → Sales → Online payments, and bank transfer with your bank details. A workspace whose store runs on Shopify takes cards through its own Shopify checkout instead (see “Shopify stores” below).
7. Additional options: a template, a memo, a footer, up to four custom fields, a PO or reference number, the customer’s tax ID, and the PDF page size (A4 or Letter).
8. Review invoice shows the summary. Send invoice finalises it and emails it; Finalise without sending finalises it so you can send the link yourself.

Statuses

• Draft: still being written. Save draft keeps it; anyone on the team can carry on with it. It has no number and no public link.
• Open: finalised. It has its number (your prefix and the next number, such as INV-0001), its date and its due date, and it is locked: to correct it, issue a credit note (or, if it should never have been issued, void it and duplicate it).
• Past due: open and past its due date. Nothing is stored for this; it is read from the date.
• Paid: the payments on it add up to the total. A card payment online marks it paid by itself; a transfer, cash or a card at the counter is recorded with Record payment.
• Void: withdrawn with a reason, only while nothing is paid or credited on it. The number stays, and the PDF is stamped VOID (CANCELLED for a Malaysian business).
• Uncollectible: open, and you do not expect the rest. A payment that still comes in online marks it paid.

Sending it

An invoice’s page has its actions: Download PDF, Copy link, Send again (by email), Open in WhatsApp, Record payment, Void, Mark uncollectible and Duplicate. Open in WhatsApp opens your own WhatsApp on a chat with the customer, with a short message and the link filled in; nothing is sent until you press send. The link opens the customer’s invoice page without signing in: the amount, the due date, the PDF, and the ways to pay. Anyone with the link can see it, so send it only to the customer.

The timeline on the invoice’s page shows when it was created, finalised, sent, viewed by the customer, paid, and any reminder.

What the invoice prints, and the tax rules

Set your country under Settings → Sales → Invoices, and the invoice labels your numbers the way your tax office does and prints what it asks for. You remain responsible for checking that your invoices meet your local rules.

• Your legal business name, the registered name your tax office asks for (such as “… Sdn Bhd” or “… Ltd”), set under Settings → Sales → Invoices; left empty, the invoice prints your workspace name.
• Your company number and your tax registration number under your business name: Company no. (SSM) and SST reg. no. in Malaysia, UEN and GST reg. no. in Singapore, Company number and VAT reg. no. in the UK, 法人番号 and 登録番号 (T and 13 digits) in Japan, 사업자등록번호 in Korea, the EIN in the US.
• “Tax Invoice” is offered only once your tax registration number is set: in Singapore a business that is not GST-registered must not issue one.
• A tax summary under the totals: for each rate, the amount taxed at it and its tax. Zero-rated and exempt lines are summarised apart, as Singapore and the UK ask. In Japan the rows read 10%対象 and 8%対象, and lines at the reduced rate are marked ※ with the note ※は軽減税率対象.
• Tax rounding: once per rate (the default) or on each line. Japan requires once per rate, so with a 登録番号 set it is always once per rate. What was worked out when the invoice was finalised is kept with it, so its PDF and email always print the same figures.
• Korea and China: doTask’s document is a bill (청구서) or a statement (账单), never a 세금계산서 or a fapiao (发票), and it says so on the page. Issue those in Hometax or a certified provider, or on the State Taxation Administration’s platform.
• An invoice finalised keeps your business details, numbers and figures as they were that day, even if you change your settings later.

Credit notes

To correct an invoice the customer already has (goods returned, a service not given, a price changed), open it and press Issue credit note. Choose how many units and how much of each line to credit (never more than is left), and give the reason; the tax is worked out per rate as on the invoice.

• On an open invoice, the credit note comes off what is due; when nothing is left to pay, the invoice is marked paid.
• On a paid invoice, the money is owed back to the customer: record it as credit owed, or as refunded with how you paid it back and a reference.
• A credit note has its own number series (CN-0001 to start with; change the prefix in Invoice settings), shows the invoice’s number and date, and has its own PDF, link and email. It can never be changed or deleted.
• The invoice’s page lists its credit notes, with PDF, Copy link and Send, and its timeline shows them. Sales → Invoices → Credit notes lists them all.
• If the sale is a Shopify order, the credit note does not change Shopify: refund it in Shopify too. The page links to the order.

No gaps in the numbering

doTask guarantees your invoice numbers have no gaps: a number is given only when an invoice is finalised, never to a draft, and never twice. A finalised invoice or credit note can never be deleted, by anyone (only a draft can); a voided invoice keeps its number, stamped VOID. The next number in Invoice settings can only move forward.

Shopify stores

When doTask is installed on your Shopify store, an invoice’s sale lands in Shopify too, so your stock and sales reports stay right.

1. Approve the permission once: Shopify asks you to approve doTask’s new permission to create orders the next time you open doTask from your Shopify admin (Apps → doTask). Until you do, invoices work as usual but are not added to Shopify, and the invoice page says so.
2. Items: the item search also lists your Shopify products. Pick one to see its variants with their picture, price and stock, and choose the variant. One-off lines and items from your menu still work.
3. Paid by bank transfer (or cash, or any payment you record): when Record payment makes the invoice paid in full, doTask creates the order in Shopify, marked paid, with a note such as “doTask invoice INV-0012, paid by bank transfer, ref …” and the tag “doTask invoice”. Its products come off your stock. The invoice page shows “Shopify order #1234” with Open in Shopify.
4. Card payment: tick “Card payment through your Shopify checkout”. When you finalise, Shopify makes a draft order for the invoice, and the customer’s Pay button opens your Shopify checkout. When they pay, the invoice is marked paid by itself (usually within a quarter of an hour) and the order is in Shopify. If they pay by bank transfer instead, record it: the same draft becomes the order, never a second one.
5. Totals match the invoice to the cent: each tax rate on the invoice (such as “SST (8%)”) is its own line in the Shopify order, with the tax as the invoice worked it out, and Shopify adds no tax of its own, so in Shopify’s reports the tax shows as a line rather than under Taxes.
6. If adding the order failed, the invoice page says why in words and offers Create Shopify order to try again.

• Card payment through Stripe is not offered for a Shopify store: Shopify’s rules say a store’s goods are paid in Shopify’s own checkout.
• Voiding an invoice withdraws its Shopify checkout link (the draft order is deleted). It never cancels an order in Shopify: cancel or refund that in Shopify.
• The Shopify checkout is for the whole invoice: once part of it is paid another way, the rest is paid by bank transfer or recorded by hand.

Automations: reminders and thank-yous that send themselves

Above them, Recommended invoice templates offers ready-made starting points picked for your business (owners and admins see it), each with the reason in your own numbers: a deposit invoice when you take bookings, your top package or programme from your menu or store, a product order paid by bank transfer for a Shopify store, a Tax Invoice once your SST, GST or VAT number is set, a copy of your most invoiced customer’s last invoice, and your own saved templates first. Each card shows a small picture of the invoice. Use this template opens Create invoice filled in — lines from your menu, bookable services or Shopify products where it can, empty lines labelled with what goes there where it cannot — and nothing is saved until you press Save draft or Review invoice. The membership template makes a one-off invoice for this month; nothing repeats by itself. The pro forma template keeps the title Invoice and says “Pro forma” in the memo, because the title list has no separate pro forma title. See every template lists them all as a table under Sales → Invoices → Invoice templates, and the Template menu in the editor offers them too. The X hides a card for you. With a business profile, they are ordered for your industry: coaching and fitness put the package and the deposit first, salons the package and a repeat, shops the product order, professional services the deposit, a corporate client and the retainer, events the seats, hotels the deposit. Your own saved templates still come first.

The top of Sales → Invoices recommends automations for your invoices (owners and admins see it), with the reason each one fits: how many invoices are past due, how many emailed invoices have not been opened. Use this automation opens a new automation from it, to read and change before you switch it on; nothing runs until you do. The X hides a suggestion; See every preset lists the invoice presets under Customers → Automations.

• Invoice reminder before the due date: three days before an open invoice is due, one polite email with the amount, the due date, a View and pay button and the PDF.
• Overdue invoice follow-up: the day after the due date, a reminder; a second a week later; a firmer third a week after that; then the tag overdue-invoice on the customer, so you can find them.
• Invoice not opened yet: three days after an invoice is sent, if the customer has not opened it, a short note asking whether it arrived, with the link again.
• Thank you after payment: when an invoice is paid in full, a thank-you with the amount and the paid invoice as a PDF. A bank transfer gets a line saying it has arrived.

Every automation that chases a payment checks, after each wait, whether the invoice was paid or voided in the meantime, and stops if so: nobody is reminded about an invoice they have paid. While an automation that starts from invoice.due_soon or invoice.overdue is on, doTask’s own single overdue reminder is not sent to the customers that automation reaches, so nobody gets both; a customer who unsubscribed from your marketing emails, whom the automation cannot reach, still gets that one reminder, because a payment reminder is part of the invoice, not marketing.

These are the events doTask records as an invoice moves along, once per invoice, and any automation can start from them (trigger: an event, with the event’s name):

• invoice.sent: emailed, or its link copied, or opened in WhatsApp ({{data.via}} says which: email, link or whatsapp). The first of these counts.
• invoice.viewed: the customer opened its page for the first time.
• invoice.due_soon: three days before the due date, for an open invoice with an email address (not for one finalised less than a day ago).
• invoice.overdue: the day after the due date, for an open invoice with an email address.
• invoice.paid: paid in full, however it was paid; {{data.method}} is transfer, cash, card, ewallet, other, card_online (Stripe) or shopify.
• invoice.voided: nothing more will be collected — voided, marked uncollectible, or credited in full with nothing paid ({{data.reason}}: void, uncollectible or credited).

An email in these automations can use {{data.number}}, {{data.title}}, {{data.amount_due}}, {{data.total}}, {{data.amount_paid}}, {{data.currency}}, {{data.due_date}}, {{data.pay_url}} (the invoice’s page), {{data.pdf_url}} and {{data.business}} (the business name the invoice prints). Amounts are as they were when the event happened; the invoice’s page always shows what is owed now.

• An automation needs the customer in your contacts with an email address. An invoice for someone you only typed in still works, but no automation starts for it.
• Automation emails follow the customer’s email preferences: someone who unsubscribed from your emails does not get them, though they still get the invoice itself and doTask’s one overdue reminder.
• The invoice presets start with Send spacing off, so a newsletter the same day does not hold back a reminder.

Invoice settings

Settings → Sales → Invoices (owners and admins) is in five tabs. One Save keeps every tab, so you can change something on one tab and save from another. A tab with something to fix has a red dot, and Save opens it at the field.

• Business: your country, legal business name, company number and tax registration number, address, phone, the logo (your chat widget’s unless you set one), and for Japanese invoices a box for your company seal. Korea and China show here what doTask’s document is and is not.
• Numbering: the number prefix and the next number, the same for credit notes, the days until an invoice is due, and the title and language of new invoices.
• Tax: tax rates such as “SST (8%)” (none until you add one; tax is added on top of each line’s price; in Japan tick Reduced for the 8% rate), tax rounding, and your home currency.
• Payment: whether new invoices offer card payment online (or, for a Shopify store, card payment through your Shopify checkout), and your bank transfer details.
• Wording: the default memo and footer, and templates.

Who sees what

The list of every invoice and its totals are sales figures: owners and admins see them, and anyone else an owner or admin gives Sales figures under Settings → Team. Everyone on the team can still create, send and record payment on an invoice for a customer, and sees that customer’s invoices on their record under the Money tab.

Open Invoices →