Draft Invoices

When you're using the draft invoices feature, you'll notice some changes to these pages.

The Invoices Tab/Table

• Draft invoices appear in the Invoices table with a -DRAFT suffix on the invoice number (for example, #3786-DRAFT). 
• A DRAFT INVOICES button above the table shows the current count of draft invoices and filters the table to drafts only when clicked.
• The bulk actions menu includes a Publish Drafts action. 
• Bulk actions that apply only to published invoices, such as Email Published Invoices and Quick Pay Published Invoices, are labeled to reflect that restriction and are unavailable when draft invoices are selected. Print becomes Print all when a mixed selection is present.
• In the Quick View modal, the Take Payment and Quick Payment buttons are displayed but disabled on draft invoices.

See also: About the Invoices Tab/Page.

The Invoice Details Page

• A Draft or Published status chip appears adjacent to the invoice title and updates immediately when the invoice state changes.
• The Invoice Date field is renamed to Published Date. On a published invoice it shows the date the invoice was published. On a draft invoice it shows "Not published." If an invoice was published, converted to draft, and re-published, it shows the most recent publish date.
• On a draft invoice, the Take Payment button is replaced by a Publish button. If Quick Payments are enabled, the Quick Payment option appears in the Actions menu but is disabled.
• On a published invoice, the Actions menu includes Convert to Draft. This action is disabled if the invoice has been partially or fully paid or has synced to an accounting integration.

See also: About the Invoice Details Page.

Draft invoices facilitate:

• A billing admin can hold recurring invoices in draft until she has reviewed the full batch, catching quantity errors and billing exceptions before any client sees them.
• A business owner can require all technician-created invoices to queue as drafts, reviewing and releasing them on a set schedule rather than reacting to client complaints after the fact.
• A developer can build a custom approval workflow using the Invoices API, routing drafts through an internal review tool before publishing programmatically.

• Work through your draft queue on a regular billing cadence. Leaving drafts unpublished indefinitely delays due dates and keeps revenue out of accounting.
• If your team reviews all invoices before sending:
  • Uncheck the "Publish manually created invoices automatically" box in your Invoice Settings.
  • Uncheck the "Publish automatically" box in the Recurring Invoice template.

• If an invoice has been partially or fully paid, or has been synced to an accounting integration, the Convert to Draft option is not available.
• If "Publish manually created invoices automatically" is unchecked in your Invoice Settings, all new invoices that you manually create appear as drafts. Existing invoices and existing Recurring Invoices are NOT affected.
• If a Recurring Invoice has its "Publish automatically" box unchecked, invoices generated from that template are created as drafts.
• If an invoice is cloned, the new invoice honors the settings of the original invoice.
• Draft invoices are not eligible for Overdue status. Overdue applies only to published invoices with past-due active due dates.

• Existing accounts have "Publish manually created invoices automatically" checked on feature release, preserving current behavior. New accounts have it unchecked, so invoices are created as drafts by default.
• Payment terms are viewable and configurable on draft invoices but do not drive due date calculation until the invoice is published.
• When a published invoice is converted to draft, its active due date is cleared. Upon re-publishing, the due date is recalculated from the new publish timestamp.
• Draft invoices appear in the Line Item Discounts Report and Daily Invoices Report with the -DRAFT suffix, and are counted in the Sales Overview invoices created count. They are excluded from Invoice Aging reports and payment-related reports such as Payments By Day and Sales Detail. 
• Draft invoice balances are excluded from the Organization balance in the Customer Overview, but prepay hours reserved by draft invoices are reflected in the Prepay Hours balance.
• Syncro can send a notification when a draft invoice is published. Use the "Invoice-A draft invoice was published" event in the Notification Center.
• To configure the global default, see Invoice Settings.
• To configure the per-template setting, see Work with Recurring Invoices.