Invoices

Prosaic helps you create, finalise, send, and track PDF invoices, then connect the payment back to bank reconciliation. It is designed for straightforward invoicing rather than full accounts receivable management.

Go to Invoices in the main navigation to see invoices for the clients in your current view.

• Receivables overview
• Creating an invoice
• Working with line items
• Saving, finalising, and sending
• Invoice statuses
• Matching payments in bank reconciliation
• Managing invoices
• Invoice PDFs in Files

Receivables overview

The top of the Invoices page shows four indicators to help you decide what needs attention:

• Outstanding balance — sent invoices that are still awaiting payment, including overdue invoices
• Overdue — sent, unpaid invoices that are past their due date
• Due in the next 7 days — sent, unpaid invoices due today or within the following seven days
• Ready to send — finalised invoices that have not yet been sent

The cards respond to the search and filters currently applied to the invoice list. Select the link on a card to filter the list to those invoices while keeping any search or entity filter you already applied.

You can also search the list, filter by entity, status, or due date, and choose which columns are visible. Your column choices are remembered for the workspace.

Creating an invoice

Select Create invoice in the top right of the Invoices page.

Invoice details

Select the entity issuing the invoice. Leave the Invoice number field empty to use automatic numbering. Prosaic shows the number currently expected to be assigned in the empty field and beside the invoice actions, but this remains a preview until you finalise. Enter a manual number if you need to use a different one. You can also change the issue date and optional due date.

Recipient

Enter the recipient’s name, email address, and postal address. Only the name is required, and only when you finalise — a draft can be saved without one.

Recipient details are entered on each invoice for now — to reuse them, duplicate an earlier invoice to the same customer. Saved contacts are on the way.

Tax treatment

Choose whether amounts are Tax inclusive, Tax exclusive, or No tax. Each line uses one of the tax treatments configured for the selected entity. When you select an income account, Prosaic applies that account’s default tax treatment; you can choose a different configured treatment on the line. Prosaic selects No tax automatically when you create an invoice for an entity that is not GST registered.

Bank account and notes

Expand Bank account & notes to add optional payment details:

• Bank account — adds bank-transfer instructions to the invoice and helps Prosaic match the payment to a bank transaction
• Notes — adds payment terms or other information to the invoice

Only bank accounts linked to the selected entity and carrying an account number are available.

Previewing the invoice

Select Preview at the top of the page to check the invoice as it will appear to the recipient. You can also use Cmd + P on Mac or Ctrl + P on Windows.

Working with line items

Add one or more lines with a description, account, quantity, unit price, and tax treatment. Prosaic calculates each line amount, subtotal, GST, and total as you work.

The Account records how the income should be coded when the invoice payment is reconciled. Selecting an account applies its default tax treatment, which you can change on the line. Every line needs a description, account, and tax treatment before you can finalise the invoice.

You can drag lines into a different order, delete lines you no longer need, or select Add another line.

Saving, finalising, and sending

Saving a draft

A draft can be incomplete and edited later — only the entity is required to save it. Select Save draft, or open the adjacent menu and choose Save draft & add another when entering several invoices.

When you leave the invoice number blank, saving a draft does not take a number from the entity’s sequence. The Invoice # column shows Draft until you finalise, when Prosaic assigns the next automatic number. If you enter a manual number, the draft keeps it. The draft stays in Invoices and does not create a PDF or appear in Files. The preview always uses the latest saved invoice details. Drafts are not receivables yet, and they never show as overdue.

Finalising

Finalising turns the draft into a real receivable and locks it: the number, figures, and coding can no longer be edited. Finalising does not create a PDF. Prosaic creates and stores the PDF only when you download the invoice or send it by email, using the same invoice details shown in the final preview. Before Prosaic can finalise an invoice, it needs a recipient name and at least one complete line with a description, account, and tax treatment.

For an automatically numbered invoice, review the expected invoice number shown above the invoice actions. Select Finalise, or open the adjacent menu to choose Finalise & send or Finalise & add another. The form remembers whether you last used Finalise or Finalise & send as the main action.

Sending

To send a finalised invoice, open its actions menu and select Send Invoice. In the send dialog you can:

• send to up to 10 email addresses — the recipient’s email is filled in if the invoice has one, and you can add, change, or remove addresses here
• edit the suggested message, which is drafted for you from the invoice details
• select Add recipient email to restore the email saved on the invoice if you removed it, or CC yourself to include your email address as a CC

When you send an invoice by email, Prosaic creates the PDF if it does not exist yet, stores it in Files, and attaches it to the email. The attachment name is shown before you send. Sending marks the invoice as Sent; sending it again refreshes the sent date and reuses the stored PDF.

If you send the invoice outside Prosaic, for example by post or from your own email, open the Actions menu on it's row in the invoices list and select Mark as sent. This records the invoice as sent without sending an email from Prosaic. The option is available while the invoice is finalised and has not yet been marked as sent.

Invoice statuses

Invoices move through a simple lifecycle:

Matching payments in bank reconciliation

When an incoming bank transaction looks like it pays a finalised, unpaid invoice, Prosaic suggests that invoice during reconciliation. Matching uses the invoice details, so the suggestion can appear before its PDF has been generated. To be suggested, the invoice must belong to the same entity, have every line coded to an account, and its total must match the payment exactly. The payment also has to land in a sensible window — from a few days before the issue date through to a couple of weeks past the due date. A matching customer name, or a payment made into the bank account the invoice nominated, raises Prosaic’s confidence in the match.

Selecting the invoice brings its line descriptions, accounts, and configured tax treatments into the reconciliation. Review the coding, then reconcile the transaction as usual.

If the payment covers the full combined total of the invoice or invoices attached to the transaction, Prosaic marks them as Paid. Short payments do not change the status, because partial payments are not currently tracked. If you undo the reconciliation or detach the paid invoice, the invoice goes back to Sent — or to Finalised, if it had never been sent.

Managing invoices

Select an invoice row to open it. Drafts open in the editable invoice form. Finalised, sent, overdue, paid, and voided invoices open in a read-only Invoice details view.

Use the actions menu on an invoice row to:

• edit or delete a draft
• duplicate any invoice
• finalise a draft, with or without sending it
• send a finalised invoice
• mark a finalised invoice as sent when you deliver it outside Prosaic
• mark a finalised, sent, or overdue invoice as paid
• void a finalised, sent, or overdue invoice when it needs to be cancelled

Duplicating copies the entity, recipient, line items, coding, tax treatment, bank account, and notes. The duplicate starts as an unnumbered draft, changes the issue date to today, and keeps the same number of days between issue and due dates. Prosaic assigns the next automatic number when you finalise it.

Deleting a draft removes the invoice. Drafts do not have stored PDFs. Finalised, sent, overdue, paid, and voided invoices cannot be edited or deleted. Duplicate the invoice and adjust the copy instead.

Invoice PDFs in Files

Finalising an invoice does not add a PDF to Files. Prosaic creates and stores the PDF the first time you download the invoice or send it by email. It then appears in the workspace’s Files repository, tagged with an Invoice badge and its current status. Drafts stay in Invoices and do not appear in Files. From Files you can preview or download a stored invoice PDF and filter files by invoice status.

To open the invoice from its PDF, select ⋯ → Go to invoice. The invoice opens in read-only Invoice details, where you can review it before returning to Invoices for its actions.

Coming next

Invoicing is being built out in stages. This is what we’re working on next:

• Contacts — save the people and businesses your clients invoice, then choose a customer instead of retyping their details. For registered businesses, NZBN lookup will help bring in verified names and addresses.
• Flexible payment allocation — track part payments and the amount still owing, allocate one payment across several invoices, and apply several payments to one invoice. If a customer pays too much, the remainder will stay visible as a customer credit rather than making the invoice balance negative.
• Recurring invoices — set a schedule for repeat invoices and have Prosaic create ordinary drafts for review before they are finalised and sent.
• Reminders and automation — add payment reminders and chasing rules, followed by optional automatic finalisation and sending for recurring invoices.

If something here would make a real difference to how you invoice, let us know — it helps us decide what to build next.

Need help? Please contact your accountant or bookkeeper, or use the 💬 in-app help button to reach the Prosaic team.