How to send your first Invoice using Highlevel?

Invoicing is a critical part of any business, helping you track revenue and ensuring you are paid promptly for your work. You can easily create and manage invoices directly within the HighLevel system.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Overview

• Setting up for creating an invoice
• How to Create your invoice 
• How to add a discount to your invoice
• How to add taxes to your invoice
• How to add Payment Schedule
• How to add Additional options
• How to Send Invoice
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Overview

You can now send invoices to your customers/clients using the Products you have created in your sub-account or by simply typing things within the invoice. There are two types of invoices available 

1. Invoices &
2. Recurring invoices (How to Edit Recurring Invoices)

In this article we are going to see how to create an invoice.

If you are using invoicing without Stripe Connect, please see this guide : Using invoices for recording manual payments without Stripe Connect. The limitation is that you will need to manually record the payments.

Setting up for creating an invoice

• Before creating an Invoice it is important to setup Global invoices Defaults (Optional, but Recommended) which enables all the features that we would like to use in the invoice.
  
• Go to the Payments tab and select the Invoices & Estimates tab and select All Invoices from the dropdown.

• Click on the "Settings" button (within the Invoices tab) to customize the following defaults:

Business Information: 

• Add your Business Logo, Name, Phone No., Address, and Website. 

• You can also add custom information using the "+ Add custom value" option and select the required value from the dropdown and click on "Save"

Email Configurations: 

• Specify the Email ID and Name from which the invoice should be sent to the customer and click on "Save".

Title, Terms and Layout: 

• We can edit the Invoice & Estimate's Title, Terms, 

• And also customize the invoice layout and labels by clicking on "Customize Layout" and click on save.

Note: Customizing Invoice Layouts - how to customize invoices through changing button colors and text, renaming sections, and editting line-item labels. Use these tools to create professional, on-brand invoices your clients trust.

Payment Settings: 

Under Payment settings you can edit and enable the below 

• Set Invoice due after days
• Set Invoice Prefix
• Manage Default stripe Payment Methods for invoice - Click on Manage

• Here you can restrict if you want to allow customers to pay via All valid payment methods or Bank transfer only by enabling and disabling the toggles and click on save.

• Enable Partial payments and set minimum percentage amount to be paid in each payment How to Use Partial Payment for Invoices
• Enable option to charge late fees 

• Click on Manage you will get a Pop-up window to Manage Late fees where you can select the types between the below for the remaining amount.

1. Flat fees &
2. Percentage

• You can mention the percentage/Amount, set intervals, grace period and maximum amount which can be collected as late fees and click on save.

• Enable Tip payments and set the Tip percentage values. and click on Save

Product Settings:

• We have options to enable importing Product description and make them optional

Reminder Settings: 

Invoice reminders are applied to all one-time and recurring invoices where Automatic Payment is disabled and a payment schedule doesn't exist.

By default you will have one reminder for which we can modify the 

• Email & SMS Template which you can modify and preview
• Edit the Subject line for the Reminder Email
• Set Reminder Frequencies
• Set Business Hours
• and which timezone we need to send the reminder

You can also send multiple reminder. To add Reminders click on "Add another Reminder" and click on "Save".

Billing Custom Fields:

• We can add custom fields by selecting "+Add Custom Field".

• Select the required custom field from the dropdown and click on save. You can see the preview on the right side.

Notifications:

When you click on the Notification dropdown there are 2 types of notifications available

• Customer Notification 

Under Customer Notification you will be able to enable and Manage the Email template, subject line and SMS template for the below

1. Invoice received

2. Estimate Received

3. Invoice payment successful

4. Invoice payment failed

5. Auto payment information

6. Auto payment amount changed

7. Auto payment failed 

• Team Notification

Under Team Notification you will be able to enable and Manage the Email template and the subject line for the below

1. Invoice payment successful

2. Invoice payment failed

3. Auto payment failed

4. Auto payment skipped

5. The invoice could not be sent

6. Estimate accepted successfully

7. Estimate declined successfully

How to Create your invoice

•  Go to the Payments tab and click on the Invoices & Estimates dropdown and select All Invoices.

• Click on "+ New" and select New invoice from the dropdown.

1. Client & Schedule: You can add the client and edit the Invoice number, Issue date, and Due dates.

And Edit the Business information by clicking on edit and then save.

This information will be appearing in the invoice.

2. Add Products: Click "Add an item" to add the products you have created in your Products tab.

Once a product is added, you can edit the price and quantity directly on the invoice line item.

How to add a discount to your invoice

You can add a discount to an invoice by clicking the "Add discount" icon located below the subtotal. 

• Choose between flat dollar amount or a percentage discount.
• Mention the value and click on Save

How to add taxes to your invoice

Taxes needs to be managed in 2 steps, globally & on the invoice.

Global Tax Setup

1. Go to Settings (on the Left Pane) and select Taxes.

2. Select whether you want to include the taxes in the purchase price or add them separately.

3. To add taxes manually, click "Add tax" or "Create Tax" and define the rate.

4. For automatic tax collection, enable Automatic Tax, select the Tax category, and add the eligible locations.

Applying Tax to the Invoice

• Click on "Add Tax" below the discount area and select to add tax manually or automatically.

• You can also use the "Enable tax automatically" toggle located above the products list.

How to add Payment Schedule

• Click on Add Payment Schedule you will get a pop-up box.

• There are 2 types of Payment Schedules available 

1. Percentage &
2. Fixed Amount

• Enter the Percentage/Amount and due date for the payments and click on save.

By Default 2 Payments will be added, to add additional Payments click on Add Payment.

How to add Additional options

Use the "Additional Options" section on the invoice to enable specific terms or fees:

• Terms & Conditions: Add your full terms of service for the client to review.

• Charge Late Fees: The late fee can be charged as a percentage or a flat fee. Mention the percentage/Amount, set intervals, grace period and maximum amount which can be collected as late fees

• Charge Processing Fee & Include Tipping: Mention the percentage of handling fee and the percentage range of the Tipping need to be collected.

• Add Attachment: This file will be added to the invoice email sent to the customer.
  

Note: To allow Partial payments, collect late charge fees, and allow Tip payments, the corresponding options must be enabled in the Payment settings under the main "Settings" button in the Invoices & Estimates tab.

How to Send Invoice

• Before sending the invoice you can save the invoice by clicking on the save button

• And when you click on the 3dots next to the Save option you can Preview the invoice , Manage Payment methods and edit global invoice settings.

• When you click on the small downward arrow in send you get an option to copy the invoice and mark as sent.

Clicking this button moves the invoice from Draft to Sent status and immediately copies the live, dynamic payment link to the clipboard, ready to be pasted into any email template.

• When you click on send you get options to edit Invoice name, Send as Email or text or both, and you can edit the Email elements by clicking on the mail preview, below Email Template.

• Once you edit the elements you can see a preview and save the Template.

• Under Additional options you can set it to Test or Live mode, and click on Save

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Q: Why is my logo missing on older invoices, but shows up on new ones?

Your logo is missing because the original image file was deleted from your Media Library.

Invoices pull the logo from its original file location. If you delete that file, the link breaks for all existing invoices.

How to Fix It:

• For New Invoices: The system is fine; it's using the current logo from your settings.

• For Unpaid Invoices: Upload a new logo to your Media Library and make sure your Business Details are updated with this new image. The logo will reappear on these.

• For Paid Invoices: The logo cannot be fixed because paid records cannot be edited. You would have to manually add the logo to the PDF if you need to resend a receipt.

Reference: Business Profile Settings - General Information

Q: I'm unable to enter text for my Terms & Conditions or notes in the invoice editor; only the formatting toolbar (Bold, Italic, etc.) is displayed. How do I fix it?

This issue is a local browser error that happens when the text editor fails to load correctly, usually due to a conflict with old data (cache and cookies) stored in your web browser.

To fix the missing text box:

1. Fully clear the cache and cookies in your web browser.

2. Close all tabs, then log back into your HighLevel account.

3. The text editor should now load correctly, allowing you to input your terms and conditions.

Q: Where to find the latest invoice linked to my account?

All invoices can be located under Payments in the Billing Dashboard from the agency view.

Q: My invoice says "Sent," but the client or agent never got it. What's wrong and how do I fix it? 

Issues with email sending often stem from browser-related problems rather than system malfunctions. Specifically, outdated cached data and cookies in your web browser can create errors, leading to a false indication that an email has been sent.

To resolve this:

1. Instruct the team member to clear their browser's cache and cookies.

2. Have them log out and then log back into their account.

3. Attempt to resend the estimate.

If the problem persists, please contact support, as it may indicate a more significant issue with your email sending domain.

Q: I sent an invoice, but my client says the link is broken or they can't click it to pay. What happened and how do I fix it? 

The payment link is disabled because the invoice is past its scheduled due date. The system automatically deactivates the payment option when the payment date has already passed.

To fix it:  

1. you must send a new invoice with a corrected schedule:

2. Duplicate (Clone) the original invoice.

3. Adjust the Payment Schedule dates to a current or future date.

4. Resend the new invoice to your client. The link will then be active.

How we can improve invoices:  Feedback Form