Help › Invoicing
Create an invoice
- Go to Invoicing › Invoices.
- Click Create Invoice.
- Pick the client, add line items (or let TALISK_HQ draft them from rough notes), and save. TALISK_HQ applies the client's sales tax automatically. Drafting from notes uses AI, and the Free plan includes three AI-drafted invoices a month; past that, the button says the limit is reached and you can still add the line items by hand or upgrade under Settings › Billing.
From the saved invoice you can email it to the client and later record the payment against it (the mobile send-invoice-for-job flow adds a view-and-pay portal link to its email automatically). Quotes and recurring invoices live under the other Invoicing tabs.
If you bill the same lines over and over, save them once and pick them from + Add from price list under the line items instead of retyping them. And if you are billing a customer for the same work again, open the earlier invoice and click Duplicate rather than starting from scratch.
Putting the customer's PO number on the invoice
Commercial customers issue a purchase order and expect its number back on the invoice; some will not pay one that does not quote it. The invoice form has a PO number box beside the invoice number. Type theirs in and it prints on the invoice, under the date.
It is their reference, not yours: your own invoice number is unaffected. You can correct a PO number after an invoice has been sent, the same as the notes or the payment terms, because it changes no figure in your books.
Finding an invoice by the PO number
When a customer rings up quoting a PO number, search for it. On Invoicing › Invoices there is a Find by PO number box on the filter row. Type the number and the list shows every invoice and quote carrying it.
Two things worth knowing:
- Type the whole number. The search matches a complete PO number, not part of one, so "448" will not find PO 44821. This is because the PO number is encrypted in your books, which is what lets us look it up without ever reading it.
- Capitals, spaces and dashes do not matter. "PO-4482", "po 4482" and "4482" all find the same invoice, so it does not matter how you or the customer wrote it down.
A search shows every match, because one purchase order is often billed in stages across several invoices. Quotes and cancelled invoices show up too, even though the tabs hide them the rest of the time, so a PO you know you recorded never looks missing. The summary figures at the top of the page step aside while you are searching, since they describe your whole book rather than the invoices you are looking at. Clear the box, or click Show all invoices, to put everything back.
Taking money off an invoice
Say you quoted a job at $1,000 and knocked $200 off it on the day. Set that on the invoice itself rather than editing a line's price, so the invoice shows the customer what they were charged and what they were given.
On the invoice form there is a Discount section under the line items. Choose Percentage or Amount, type the number, and the totals update as you type:
- Subtotal stays what the lines add up to, at your normal prices
- Discount shows what came off
- Subtotal after discount is what the tax is then charged on
Sales tax is worked out on the discounted figure, because tax is charged on what the customer actually pays. So 10% off a $1,000 job in BC bills $900 plus $45 GST and $63 PST, not $1,000 worth of tax on a $900 sale.
The discount prints on the invoice as its own line, so a customer who adds up the page gets your total. A percentage says what it was ("Discount (10%)") since that is what you agreed; a flat amount just says "Discount".
A few things worth knowing:
- Quotes take a discount too, and it carries across when the quote becomes an invoice, along with the price the customer accepted.
- Duplicating an invoice copies the discount, which is usually what you want for the next stage of the same job at the same terms. Clear it on the copy if it was a one-off.
- A discount cannot be more than the job. TALISK_HQ refuses one that is, rather than quietly capping it, so you find the typo instead of the invoice.
- Set it before you send. Once an invoice has been sent it is written into your ledger, so its amounts are fixed. To change a discount after the fact, cancel and reissue, or send a credit note.
- A credit note cannot carry a discount. A credit note gives money back; the discount belongs on the invoice it corrects.
- A credit note corrects a sent invoice, never a draft. A draft has booked nothing yet, so change the draft itself; TALISK_HQ refuses a credit note against one.
In your books, a discounted invoice records the discounted income. Your revenue is what you actually billed, so the profit and loss, the sales tax return and the receivable all agree with the invoice the customer is holding.
Exempting a specific tax
Some sales are exempt from one tax but not another. Goods bought for resale are often PST exempt while GST still applies. On the invoice form, under Tax, tick the tax you want to skip (for example Exempt PST). TALISK_HQ still charges the other taxes and recomputes the total, so the books tie out. Only the taxes your province actually charges are offered, so an HST province shows one Exempt HST toggle rather than a separate GST and PST.
If a client is always exempt from a tax (a reseller with an exemption certificate on file), open the client under Invoicing › Clients, edit it, and set Default tax exemptions. The same setting is on the Add Client form, so a new customer can be set up exempt from the start. New invoices for that client start with those taxes exempted, and you can still change it on any single invoice. To exempt a client from all sales tax at once, use Tax Exempt instead.
Recording why a sale is exempt
British Columbia expects the seller to keep the purchaser's exemption particulars, so TALISK_HQ has two fields for them on the customer: Exemption Reason and Status Card Number. They appear as soon as the customer has any exemption set, whether that is Tax Exempt or a single Default tax exemption such as PST. Fill them in when you set the exemption and the evidence sits with the customer rather than in a note somebody has to go looking for.
The invoice form has its own Exemption reason box, which appears under Tax whenever the invoice exempts something. It starts pre-filled from the customer's reason, so the next invoice for that customer does not begin from scratch, and you can word it differently for one sale. The status card stays on the customer, because it belongs to the purchaser rather than to any one invoice; when there is one on file the invoice form says so.
A First Nations customer buying in BC is the common case: they pay GST and are exempt from PST. Set Default tax exemptions to PST on the customer, record the status card number and the reason there, and every invoice you raise for them charges GST, zeroes PST, and shows what the exemption rests on.
Choosing which revenue account the sale lands on
By default every invoice you raise records its income against your book's default revenue account, which on a new set of books is 4000 Service Revenue. That is right for a business that sells its time, and wrong for one that sells things.
If your chart has more than one revenue account, the invoice form shows a Revenue account field beside Tax province. Leave it on Book default and nothing changes. Pick an account and this invoice's income lands there instead: a rack maker codes the sale to 4010 Merchandise Sales, a shop that bills for delivery separately can send a job to 4105 Shipping Income.
The picker offers your own revenue accounts. It leaves out the two that record money going the other way, sales returns and chargebacks, because a sale is not a refund. If you need to give money back, issue a credit note rather than coding an invoice to a refund account.
Set it before you send the invoice. Once an invoice has been sent it has already been written into the general ledger, so the account is fixed. If you find one coded to the wrong account after the fact, cancel it and raise a replacement.
Splitting one invoice across several accounts
Some invoices are not all one thing. A rack order with delivery billed separately is product income and shipping income on the same document, and sending it to one account hides that split from every report you run afterwards.
When your chart has more than one revenue account, each line on the invoice gets its own small Revenue dropdown beside the line total. Leave a line on Book default and it lands wherever the invoice's own Revenue account points. Set it and that line's income goes there instead.
You can code some lines and leave others alone. Whatever you do not code is added up and lands on the invoice's default account, so a five-line invoice with one shipping line coded needs one dropdown touched, not five.
The split is applied to the invoice's subtotal, which is the total before sales tax. Tax is recorded separately, as it always was, and the accountant exports carry the split too, so your books and their file agree without anyone reconciling by hand.
Set it before you send. Like the invoice-level account, the split is fixed once an invoice has been written into the general ledger.
If your whole business sells the same thing, there is a better answer than picking the account on every invoice: change what the default is. Open Ledger › Setup, find the Service revenue posting role, and point it at the account you actually use. Every invoice from then on lands there with no field to remember.
Invoicing in a foreign currency
Invoicing a customer in another currency is temporarily unavailable. For now a new invoice, quote or credit note is always in your book's home currency, and the Currency field on the invoice form shows only that currency. An invoice you raised in another currency before keeps its currency, but it cannot be duplicated, and a quote in another currency cannot be turned into an invoice, until foreign-currency invoicing is back.