Invoices for your business

This guide is for clients whose accountant has given them Standard User access to Prosaic. If you can't see Invoices in the left hand navigation when you log into Prosaic, ask your accountant or bookkeeper to check your access.

• Check what customers owe you
• Create and send an invoice
• Import invoices in bulk
• Manage invoices and match payments
• Current limits and what's coming next

Check what customers owe you

On your client dashboard, Money owed to you shows the total and number of sent invoices that are still unpaid. Drafts and finalised invoices you haven't sent are excluded from this balance.

The ageing bar splits the balance into Not due yet, Up to 30 days late, and Over 30 days late. An invoice without a due date is included in Not due yet.

Who owes you most shows customers with the largest outstanding balances, their invoice counts, and the timing of their oldest unpaid invoice. Select View invoices to open your invoice list.

Use Invoice settings in the dashboard shortcuts to manage the logo and invoice numbering for your business. If you can access more than one entity, Prosaic asks you to choose one first.

A separate strip highlights invoices ready to send. These are finalised invoices you haven't sent or marked as sent. Select the strip to open that filtered list.

Needs your attention can also flag invoices more than a week overdue and invoices ready to send. Its View and Send actions open the relevant invoice lists; selecting Send here doesn't immediately email a customer.

[SCREENSHOT: Client dashboard showing the Invoice settings shortcut in the right-hand rail.]

If the invoice section isn't showing

The full invoice section on the dashboard appears once an invoice exists for a business you can access. Before that, you may see a short introduction to invoicing. If there are no sent invoices outstanding, the section says You're all paid up; you may still have drafts or invoices ready to send.

If your dashboard is showing bank-connection setup instead, follow Getting Started with Prosaic to connect your bank feeds. You can still open Invoices from the navigation without connecting a feed first.

Find the invoices you need

The Invoices page has four summary cards:

• Outstanding balance: sent invoices awaiting payment, including overdue invoices.
• Overdue: unpaid sent invoices past their due date.
• Due in the next 7 days: unpaid sent invoices due soon.
• Ready to send: finalised invoices not yet sent.

Select a card to filter the list. You can also search, filter by entity, status or due date, and use Columns to choose the details shown.

Create and send an invoice

1. Enter the invoice details

1. Open Invoices → Create invoice and select the business or entity issuing it.
2. Check the issue date and add a due date if needed.
3. Leave the invoice number blank to let Prosaic allocate it when you finalise, or enter your own number.
4. Choose the customer in Recipient name, then check their email and address.

If the selected entity does not have a logo, select Add logo in the page actions, upload the image, crop it and save. The logo appears on this invoice and future invoices from the entity. Once a logo is saved, this action becomes Invoice settings so you can manage the logo and numbering for that entity.

The expected automatic number appears before finalising. Saving an automatically numbered draft doesn't use up a number. Use the cog beside the number field to manage that entity's prefix and next number; the sequence can only move forwards. Prosaic warns about duplicate numbers.

Save customer details in Contacts

Start typing a recipient name to choose an existing contact, or create a business or individual from the picker. For a New Zealand business, you can search the NZBN Register to fill in its details. You can also enter a recipient directly without saving a contact.

A saved contact can fill in the customer's address and invoice recipients. For businesses, people marked to receive invoices are used first. If none are marked, Prosaic uses the first person with an email address. Always check the selected recipients before sending.

See Contacts for managing customers, their people, and invoice defaults. Contact invoice notes are copied into a new invoice when its notes are empty. Internal contact notes don't appear on invoices, and later contact changes don't rewrite invoices you've already saved.

2. Add what you're charging for

Add a description, account, quantity, unit price and tax treatment for each line. The account controls how the sale is recorded and supplies the default tax treatment, which you can change where appropriate. Ask your accountant which account to use if you're unsure.

Check whether amounts are Tax exclusive, Tax inclusive or No tax. Prosaic uses No tax for entities that aren't GST registered. Check the subtotal, GST and total before continuing.

Under Bank account & notes, choose the account customers should pay into and add any payment instructions or other notes. The bank account needs an account number to appear on the invoice.

[SCREENSHOT: Create invoice form showing Add logo beside Attach files and Preview in the top-right page actions.]

3. Preview, save or finalise

Select Preview to check the invoice, including unsaved changes. You can also use Cmd + P on Mac or Ctrl + P on Windows.

Save draft lets you return later. Save draft & add another opens a fresh invoice after saving.

When everything is ready, select Finalise. You'll need a recipient name and complete line items, including their accounts. Finalising allocates an automatic number if needed. The PDF is generated when you first download or send it.

Finalise & send opens the email review dialog. If you cancel that dialog, the invoice stays finalised but hasn't been sent. Finalise & add another starts your next invoice.

4. Send it to your customer

1. Select Send Invoice from the invoice's actions, or use Finalise & send.
2. Check the recipients. You can include up to 10 email addresses and use CC yourself for a copy.
3. Review the editable message and choose any supporting files to include alongside the invoice PDF.
4. Select Send email.

The invoice becomes Sent, or Overdue if its due date has passed. If you deliver it outside Prosaic, use Mark as sent from the invoice list's actions menu. A Sent status records sending or marking as sent; it isn't confirmation that the customer read the email.

You can resend an unpaid issued invoice. Paid and voided invoices can't be emailed from Prosaic.

Attach supporting documents

Use Attach files beside Preview to add documents such as receipts or supporting work. Manage them under Supporting files. You choose which to include when emailing; the combined allowance is 2MB, including the invoice PDF.

Removing an attachment from an invoice doesn't delete it from Files. You can manage supporting files on paid invoices even though Standard users can't edit the paid invoice itself. Voided invoices can't be changed.

Import invoices in bulk

If you have a spreadsheet of invoices, go to Invoices → Import. You can use a sales invoice export from Xero or download the template on the import page.

1. Choose the entity and upload an Excel or CSV file.
2. Review the suggested column mapping and correct it where needed.
3. Correct highlighted validation errors, then import.
4. Select Review drafts and check each invoice before finalising or sending.

Each spreadsheet row is one line item. Repeat the same invoice number to group several rows into one invoice. Only the first row in that group needs the dates and recipient details. Each row with a blank invoice number becomes a separate, single-line invoice.

For example, three rows numbered INV-100 create one invoice with three lines. Three rows with blank numbers create three invoices.

Every imported invoice is a draft. Import doesn't send anything, consume automatic numbers, or preserve another system's Sent or Paid status.

Check tax, contacts and accounts

Set Tax Mode to Inclusive, Exclusive or No tax. Blank or unmapped tax mode defaults to Exclusive, so set it explicitly if your source prices include GST.

There is no imported line tax-rate column. Tax treatment comes from the matching account, or the entity's GST setting when no account matches. No tax overrides line tax treatment. Review special-tax lines and compare draft totals with the original invoices.

If a recipient email matches an active contact for the entity, Prosaic links the invoice to that contact's business or individual record. Import doesn't create new contacts.

Account codes must already exist in the entity's chart of accounts. An unmatched code produces a warning and an uncoded line; choose an account before finalising.

File limits and retries

• Up to 1,000 rows and 10MB per file.
• One entity per import. Excel imports read the first sheet only.
• Every invoice needs an issue date. Supported formats include DD/MM/YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD.

Manage invoices and match payments

Understand the status

Draft means still being prepared. Finalised means ready to send. Sent means sent or marked as sent, while Overdue means a sent invoice is unpaid after its due date. Paid means settled or manually marked as paid. Voided means cancelled.

Correct an invoice

Open an editable invoice from the list, select Edit Invoice from its actions menu, or use Edit on its detail page. Standard users can edit draft, finalised, sent and overdue invoices. Select Save changes when correcting an issued invoice.

If a PDF already exists, saving an issued invoice generates an updated version and preserves the previous one in its history. Saving doesn't resend it automatically; send the corrected version to your customer.

Ask your accountant to correct a paid invoice. Standard users can't edit it. An active bank reconciliation also locks its line items and tax mode; the reconciliation must be undone before changing those details, then completed again afterwards.

Duplicate, delete or void

Use Duplicate to start a new draft from an existing invoice. The copy has no invoice number, uses today's issue date, and adjusts the due date to keep the same payment period. Supporting files aren't copied.

You can delete drafts. To cancel a finalised, sent or overdue invoice, use Void. Voiding is permanent; a paid invoice can't be voided.

Generated invoice PDFs appear in Files. Use Go to invoice in a PDF's actions menu to return to its invoice.

Match a customer's payment

If your accountant handles bank reconciliation, they can match payments for you. If you handle it yourself, open Transactions and review the incoming payment.

1. Open the transaction and check its Invoice section. Prosaic can suggest a finalised, unpaid invoice for the same entity with complete account coding and a matching amount.
2. Confirm the customer and invoice number. If needed, search by number or customer name and select Reconcile against this invoice for the correct result.
3. Check the accounts and tax treatments from the invoice, then accept the reconciliation.

Reconciling against the invoice marks it Paid. The invoice supplies the transaction's account and tax coding. Use Clear match if you need to code the transaction without an invoice instead.

Searching can find invoices outside the automatic suggestion date window. Different totals are shown for comparison but can't be selected unless they match within the one-cent rounding tolerance. An invoice already reconciled to another payment isn't available.

Attaching an invoice PDF to a transaction doesn't settle the invoice. Undoing a matched reconciliation returns it to Sent or Overdue, or to Finalised if it had never been sent.

You can also use Mark as paid when full payment has been received outside this matching workflow. This changes the invoice status; it doesn't reconcile a bank transaction. Coordinate with your accountant so the payment is recorded correctly.

Current limits and what's coming next

Our next major step is proper accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP). This will bring unpaid invoices and bills into your financial reports, showing what customers owe you and what you owe suppliers.

Other planned improvements include:

• Flexible payment allocation: track part payments and amounts still owing, and match payments across invoices.
• Refunds and write-offs: record money returned to customers and amounts that won't be collected.

These improvements are planned and aren't available yet.

For help with access, account coding or a paid invoice, contact your accountant or bookkeeper. You can also use the Help button in Prosaic to contact our team.