Invoicing
Everything you send to get paid lives here. Invoices are the core; quotes, payment requests, and credit notes are variations on the same document, and recurring schedules and templates save you from starting from scratch each time.
Create an invoice
An invoice needs almost nothing to go out: a client and one line item. Everything else is there when you want it.
From the sidebar, go to Revenue → Invoices and click New invoice. Enter the client (their email is all that’s required; if they’re already a contact, the rest fills in). Add line items, each with a description, quantity, unit price, and a billing type of either fixed (a flat amount) or hourly (quantity is hours, unit price is your rate).
Tax and discounts apply to the whole invoice, not to individual lines: pick a tax type that fits where you operate (VAT, GST, HST, a sales tax, or none), and set any discount or surcharge as a percentage or flat amount. Pick the currency, optionally a due date, and click Send. Your client gets a branded email with a link to view and pay.
You can bill each invoice in its own currency, which helps when clients pay in different ones. Wrenbase records each invoice in the currency you sent it in and doesn’t roll multiple currencies up into one at an exchange rate.
Following an invoice
After you send, you can follow an invoice from draft, to sent, to paid, right on the invoices list. Wrenbase also shows where your client is on their side, so you can tell an opened invoice from one that’s been scheduled for payment without emailing to ask.
One distinction worth knowing: paid means the payment has been reported, and settled means you’ve confirmed the money is actually in your account. For anything paid outside Wrenbase, marking it settled is your confirmation the funds really landed.
Quotes
A quote is what you send before the work is agreed: here’s the price and scope, do you want to go ahead? It looks like an invoice, but your client accepts or declines it instead of paying.
Create one under Revenue → Quotes, the same way you build an invoice. Once a client accepts, you convert it to an invoice in one step. The conversion carries everything over, line items, currency, tax, PO number, and notes, so you don’t retype anything, and the invoice stays linked back to the quote it came from.
If a client might push back on price or scope, lead with a quote. You get their explicit acceptance on record before any work starts, and the invoice is one click away when they say yes.
Payment requests
Sometimes you need someone to pay you but a full invoice is more than the moment calls for: a deposit, a retainer, a one-off charge. A payment request is the lighter document for that, with the same result, a link where the other side pays.
Use an invoice when there’s a “bill for delivered work” mental model, and a payment request when there isn’t, like a booking fee or a deposit to hold a date. Create one under Revenue → Payment Requests: set the amount and what it’s for, then send.
Recurring invoices
If you bill a client the same amount on a regular cadence, a retainer or a subscription, set up a recurring schedule under Revenue → Recurring. You define the invoice once and choose how often it repeats: weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, with a start date and an optional end.
Each schedule can send on its own or wait for you to review each one first. You can pause a schedule and resume it later, which keeps the setup intact when a client goes on hold.
There isn’t a way to skip a single upcoming occurrence and keep the rest on their dates. If you need to miss one, pause the schedule and resume it after that date passes.
Credit notes
When you’ve already sent an invoice and something needs to come off it, an overcharge, a return, a goodwill credit, a credit note is the record. It’s the clean way to reduce what a client owes without editing or deleting the original invoice.
Create a credit note from the invoice it corrects, give the reason, and set the lines you’re crediting. Wrenbase numbers each one and won’t let the total credited exceed the original invoice.
A credit note documents that a credit is owed or applied. If money actually needs to go back, that happens through your payment flow; the credit note keeps the books straight.
Templates
If you send the same kind of invoice over and over, save it as a template under Revenue → Templates so new invoices start pre-filled. A template holds the parts that stay the same, line items, currency, tax, your hourly rate, and notes, but not the client, so you pick who it goes to each time.
A template is for work you bill repeatedly but on no fixed schedule. If it’s the same client on a set cadence, a recurring schedule is the better fit, since it handles the timing too.
Related
- Payments: how clients pay and how the money reaches you
- Branding: make your invoices look like yours
- Contacts: the clients your invoices go to
Frequently asked questions
- How do I create and send an invoice in Wrenbase?
- Go to Revenue then Invoices and click New invoice. Enter the client (their email is all that's required), add line items with a description, quantity, unit price, and a fixed or hourly billing type, pick the currency and an optional due date, then click Send. Your client gets a branded email with a link to view and pay.
- What's the difference between paid and settled on an invoice?
- Paid means the payment has been reported, and settled means you've confirmed the money is actually in your account. For anything paid outside Wrenbase, marking it settled is your confirmation the funds really landed.
- Can I skip a single occurrence of a recurring invoice?
- There isn't a way to skip one upcoming occurrence and keep the rest on their dates. If you need to miss one, pause the schedule and resume it after that date passes.