Creating and Sending Invoices

Invoices in GoodBooks handle the money people owe you — member dues, sponsorships, facility rentals, program fees. You build the invoice, send it (with a PDF attached and an online payment button included), and GoodBooks tracks it from sent to paid, posting the accounting for you along the way.

Availability: Foundation plan and up. Left menu: Invoices. Some plans have a monthly invoice allowance — a badge on the Invoices page shows your usage.

Creating an invoice

Click New Invoice:

The invoice number is assigned automatically (e.g. INV-260001, restarting each year). Click Save Draft — drafts are visible only to you and fully editable.

Sending

Open the invoice and choose one of two buttons:

• Send Invoice — finalizes the invoice and emails it to the customer. The email has the PDF attached, a summary (number, dates, amount due), your custom message if you've set one, and — when Stripe is connected — a "Pay this invoice online" button (see Letting Customers Pay Invoices Online).
• Finalize (no email) — finalizes without emailing, for customers you bill on paper. Use the PDF button to print or download it.

Either way the invoice is now locked — finalized invoices can't be edited, only paid or voided. Resend Invoice re-emails it any time.

What happens in your books

• Accrual-basis organizations: sending posts the receivable immediately — Accounts Receivable goes up, revenue is recognized on the funds/accounts from the lines.
• Cash-basis organizations: nothing posts until money actually arrives.

You don't have to think about this — it follows the accounting basis in your settings.

Getting paid

When a check arrives, open the invoice and click Record Payment: amount (pre-filled with the balance — lower it for a partial payment), the bank account it's deposited to, date, method, check #. The invoice advances to PARTIAL or PAID and the deposit posts to your register.

A stack of payments — like a month of member dues checks — is faster through Batch Payments, which posts them all as one deposit. Online card payments record themselves.

Recorded a payment wrong? Void it from the invoice's Payments table — a clearly-labeled reversing entry posts and the invoice reopens.

Showing a customer their whole account

One invoice is one bill. When a customer has several — or asks "what do I owe you?" — click Customer Statement on any of their invoices for a summary of everything invoiced, paid, and still due, which you can print or email with payment links. The Statements button on the Invoices page does the same for every customer with a balance at once. See Sending a Customer Statement.

Statuses at a glance

DRAFT → editable, invisible to the customer. SENT → finalized and awaiting payment (an Overdue badge appears past the due date). PARTIAL → some money in. PAID → done. VOIDED → cancelled; for accrual books the receivable is reversed automatically. An invoice with payments on it can't be voided until the payments are voided first.

Making invoices yours

Settings → Customization has an Invoices tab: accent color for the PDF, Remittance Instructions (printed below the total — "make checks payable to…"), and a footer/thank-you message. The Email Templates tab holds the message inserted into every invoice email, and your logo (from the Organization tab) appears on the PDF and email.

Good to know

• You can also start an invoice from a contact: the Invoices tab on the contact record has a New Invoice button that picks the customer and fills in Bill To for you.
• Invoices you bill on a schedule — dues, rent, quarterly sponsorships — can generate themselves: see Recurring Invoices.
• Membership renewals can create and email dues invoices automatically — see Automatically Invoicing Membership Renewals.
• Deleting doesn't exist for finalized invoices — void keeps the audit trail intact and frees the balance.