Invoices

An invoice bills a project's client for part or all of the job. It is a numbered document — INV-0001, or SP-0001 (a "solicitud de pago") for an organization in Mexico — frozen the moment you issue it, with a PDF and a private link the client can read and download. Issuing records what the client owes; it never records money received. Payments arrive the way they always did, and the invoice shows how much of it they covered.

Start from the project. Lines come from four places: type them, pull in every line of the accepted estimate at its agreed price and with its agreed tax and discount, collect the project's open charges (approved billable expenses and manual charges, each in full and untouched by the document's discount or tax), or add a draw — a percentage of the contract or a fixed amount, for a deposit or a progress payment.

Each line either bills against the contract or on top of it. Lines against the contract can never exceed what is left of the project's adjusted contract once earlier invoices are counted: a deposit followed by "invoice the whole estimate" bills the remainder, not the whole again: the lines keep their agreed prices and the document shows what was billed before as a deduction. Additional lines — extras, reimbursed charges — sit on top.

Issuing gives the document its number and dates (today, and the client's payment terms after it, unless you choose otherwise), freezes it, and creates the charges the client now owes. The PDF is ready a moment later; send it by email or copy a private link, exactly as with an estimate. The client's page shows the document and the download, nothing to answer.

When money comes in, record the payment from the invoice — one income transaction on the project, settling every open charge — or link a payment already in the ledger from Billables, in part or in full. The invoice reads paid when its charges are covered, and overdue when its due date has passed with money still owed. The invoices list groups what is outstanding by how long past due it is.

An issued document is never edited or deleted. To give part of it back, issue a credit note: choose how much of each line to credit, and Obra numbers it (CN-0001), freezes it, and reduces what the client owes on those charges. Money already collected against a credited line is recorded as owed back to the client, on the credit note, for you to refund or apply to a future invoice; the invoice shows what is still owed back. A negative amount on a later credit note reverses an earlier credit on that line. An invoice credited in full reads as void.

While a charge is on an issued invoice it is protected: its amount can't be edited, it can't be written off by hand, and the expense behind it can't be voided or deleted. Credit the invoice first.

Invoices bill the client and create charges, so only organization owners and admins can open them. Everything is included when you export your organization's data. Obra does not stamp CFDI or collect payments online.