Raising an invoice from approved measures

Tick the approved work, check the draft, issue it — and every line traces back to a measure on a job.

An invoice in Maliru is built from approved measures. You do not type lines into an empty form: you choose the work that was measured and approved, and Maliru prices it at the rates and uplifts it was recorded at. That is what makes the invoice defensible — each line leads back to a measure, a job and its evidence.

The same flow raises an Application for payment or a Pro-forma invoice. Quotes and credit notes have their own articles.

Invoices live under Commercial › Invoices and need Manage commercial.

Before your first invoice

Two things have to be in place, and the Invoices tab says so until they are:

Document settings — at least your business address and bank details. See Document settings.
The client's billing details — under Clients, open the client and expand Billing: Bill-to name, Billing address, Accounts contact, Accounts email, Their PO / order reference, Your supplier number with them, and any overrides for Document type, Tax treatment, Tax rate %, Payment terms (days) and a Deduction they withhold. Blank fields fall back to the workspace settings.

Choosing the work

On Commercial › Measures, choose Select and tick the measures to bill. The bar at the foot shows how many and their total. Choose Create invoice.

Select mode on the Measures board: approved, unbilled measures ticked, their total, and Create invoice

If the ticked measures cannot become one invoice, the button is greyed out and says why when you point at it:

"An invoice is built from approved measures that have not been billed yet."
"An invoice covers one client. These are for several."
"An invoice is in one currency. These are in several."

Maliru also refuses a selection that spans two client orders, naming both: your client's accounts payable matches one invoice to one order. Measures with no order at all mix in freely.

The Create document dialog

A strip at the top says what you are billing: how many measures and jobs, the client, the days measured and the amount.

Create document: an invoice for the ticked measures, the client's PO taken from the job, standard-rate tax and the totals

Document type — Invoice, Application for payment or Pro-forma invoice, by the titles your Document settings print. It starts on the client's own type when their billing sets one — the field then says "From the client's billing." — and otherwise on the type chosen under Document settings › Numbering. You can change it for this one document either way.
Client reference / PO (optional) — filled in from the job when it has one: "From the job. Prints as "Your ref"; clear it to send none."
Layout — Grouped by job, Single list, Summary and schedule or Grouped with evidence.
Tax treatment — Client or workspace setting (the default), or Standard rate, Reverse charge, Zero-rated, Exempt or No tax for this document only. With standard rate, Tax rate (%) shows the rate that will be charged.
Notes (optional) — printed on the document.

The totals underneath are an estimate: "A contract's retention and the client's own tax rule are applied when the draft is created." Choose Create draft.

The issue date is today and the due date follows the payment terms — the client's, then the contract's, then the workspace's. Both can be changed on the draft.

Checking the draft

The draft opens straight away. "Draft. The number is assigned when you issue it; the blocks below show what will print."

A draft invoice: the facts strip, lines grouped by job, the From, Bill to and Payment instructions blocks, and totals with retention withheld

The facts — Client, Project / Contract, Period (the first day any of its measures started to the last day any finished), Issued date, Due date and PO number.
Line items — job, description (with the item code and uplift name), quantity, unit, rate and amount, plus any facts ticked under Shown to the client on the measures.
The blocks — From, Bill to and Payment instructions, exactly as they will print.
The totals — Subtotal; Retention withheld and Net when the measures are all on one contract that holds retention; the tax line; Total; Less a deduction the client withholds, if any; and Amount payable, the figure the client acts on.

The tools beside the title: Preview shows the PDF in the app, PDF downloads it, and Sheet gives an Excel (.xlsx) or CSV copy. Under ⋮ More actions:

Edit draft — change the Document type, Issue date, Due date, Client reference / PO, Layout, Tax treatment, Tax rate (%) and Notes, and the measures it bills: take one off, Add measures for the same client and currency, or Refresh from measures to read each measure's lines and prices again.
Discard draft — "Its measures become available again. No issued number is removed."

Issuing it

Choose Issue. Maliru asks first:

The next number is assigned and the details on it are frozen. Check your business and bank details in Document settings first.

On a plan that limits invoices, the question on the web adds how many you have used, such as Your plan includes 5 invoices a month; 2 used so far.

Choose Issue again to confirm, or Not yet. The document takes the next number in its sequence — INV-, APP- or PRO- unless you changed the prefixes — and your business, bank and billing details are frozen onto it. The measures now show the invoice number in the Billing column and cannot be billed again.

To email it, see Emailing a document and chasing overdue invoices.

Correcting an issued document

Spotted a mistake after issuing? Correct it in place: open the document and choose ⋮ More actions › Edit. It keeps its number, so your client never has two numbers for the same work. You can correct an issued, part-paid or paid invoice, application or pro-forma, and an issued quote.

At any time: the Issue date, Due date, Client reference / PO, Layout and Notes. Tick Refresh company, client and payment details to print today's Document settings and the client's billing details instead of the ones frozen when it was issued.
While nothing is paid and no credit note stands against it: the tax, and the measures it bills. Take it off beside a measure sends it back to the approved measures, ready to bill again. Add measures offers approved measures for the same client, in the same currency. Refresh from measures reads each measure's current lines and prices again when you save. If a payment or a credit note is in the way, the editor says which one.
A wrong quantity is fixed on the measure, not the invoice: open the measure in Measures, choose Edit and save, and the invoice follows, keeping its number. See A measure that has been invoiced in Contracts and measuring work. In the editor a measure is one row, such as 1 measure · 5 lines; click it to see each line and its job.

Say why in What changed? (optional), for example The PO number was wrong, and choose Save correction. The Activity records Corrected by … with your note, and the version you replaced is kept on record. To read the versions you replaced, choose ⋮ More actions › Earlier versions: each one shows when it applied, who replaced it and why, what changed and its total, and Sent to client marks the ones your client was emailed. View or PDF shows exactly what that version printed.

If the document had already been emailed, it now says Changed since it was sent on … and Send becomes Send corrected copy. See Emailing a document and chasing overdue invoices.

A void document has to be reopened before it can be corrected. One settled by a credit note can't change until the credit note is voided, and an accepted quote is corrected on the invoice it became. A credit note's own amounts follow the document it credits, and an application raised from a valuation keeps the valuation's lines.

Statuses

Draft — not issued, no number yet.
Issued — owed.
Part paid — something has been paid, not all of it.
Paid — settled.
Void — cancelled, keeping its number.
Credited — settled by a credit note.

An issued or part-paid invoice or application past its due date shows Overdue instead. A credit note never does: it settles the document it credits, so nothing is owed on it.

The Invoices register

Commercial › Invoices lists every document — invoices, applications, pro-formas, quotes and credit notes — with Document, Client, Issued, Due, Amount and Status. Search by number, client or reference. Spaces and punctuation don't matter, so INV3099 or 3099 finds INV-3099. An invoice that came from a quote says From QUO-… under its number, and the quote says Became INV-….

The Invoices register with draft, issued, overdue and paid documents

The toolbar has View: for saved views, Select (for acting on many at once), Refresh, Client statement and Export for accounting. A view keeps the search, filters and sort, just for you or for the office — see Saved views.

What Maliru does not do

It does not take payments. It prints how to pay you and records that you were paid.
It is not your ledger. Export issued documents to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage — see Client statements and exports for accounting.
It does not bill work nobody approved. Only approved, unbilled measures can go on an invoice.

Next: Marking paid, voiding, reopening and crediting an invoice.