Bill a customer from a work order

List the labour, parts and fees on a work order's Billing tab once, then turn them into a quote or an invoice, ask for a deposit, and collect payment without leaving the work order.

In the sidebar, open Operations, then Work Orders, open the work order, and press the Billing tab. The page address is /work-orders/ followed by the work order and /billing.

The idea: you list what was done and supplied on the work order once, as invoice source lines. Quotes and invoices are then built from those lines, so nothing is typed twice.

Before you start

• Adding lines needs permission to update work orders. Creating a quote or invoice from them needs permission to generate billing documents. Deposits and payments need their own billing permissions.
• Your organization's currency must be set up; if not, a red notice at the top of the tab says what is missing.

Steps

1. Under Invoice source lines, choose the Line type: Base service, Labor, Product, Inventory, Misc material, Fee, Discount or Adjustment.
2. Type the Description, the Quantity and the Unit price. Optionally put lines under a Group heading, or link an Offering or inventory item. Leave Taxable and Billable ticked unless the line is free or tax-exempt.
3. Press Add invoice source line. Nova says Line item added. Repeat for each line. Edit and Remove change a line later.
4. Press Create quote to send the customer a price first, or Create invoice to bill now. In the window that opens, keep the suggested number or type your own, then confirm. Nova builds a draft and lists it under Quotes or Invoices on this tab; View quote or View invoice opens it in full (Create a quote, Create an invoice).
5. Each document's card offers the next step. On a draft, Send quote or Send invoice opens the review-and-send screen. Mark as sent records that you handed the document over, printed it or mailed it yourself: no email goes out, and the document is no longer a draft. An invoice marked as sent gets no payment reminders, which only go to invoices sent from Nova. An invoice card also offers Collect payment, and a payment takes a draft out of draft by itself.
6. To ask for money up front, under Deposits and credits fill in Add deposit requirement: pick when it is Due (Before scheduling or Before work starts), the Amount and Notes. Under Hold these actions until paid or waived, tick what must wait, such as Scheduling or The final invoice being sent or paid. Tick Allow partial payments if a part payment is fine, then press Add deposit requirement.
7. To collect a payment, press Collect payment. The Collect work-order payment panel lets you record a payment, charge a card, charge a saved card or share the invoice's payment link (Record a payment).

What you see

• The summary at the top: Source subtotal, Balance due, Payments applied, deposits required, funded and available, Discounts, and the invoice, payment, deposit and credit state.
• Quotes and Invoices list the documents made from this work order. An accepted quote offers Convert to invoice; each card has View quote or View invoice.
• Payments applied lists payments against this work order's invoices and deposits.
• Open quotes, Open invoices, Open payments and Open refunds open those lists filtered to this work order. Supplier POs lists purchase orders for its parts (Create a supplier purchase order).

If something looks different

• Create quote and Create invoice are greyed out: a short note under Unified drafts says why, for example that there are no billable lines yet. The buttons are hidden when your role cannot create billing documents.
• A window explains that the quote or invoice cannot be created yet: something else must happen first, such as a required deposit. Follow what it says.
• Billing is missing: your role cannot see quotes, invoices or billing, or an admin hid the tab.
• Invoice ID already in use or Quote ID already in use: that number is taken. Take the suggested one or type another.