Customize the look and feel of your PDF invoices

We have a pretty neat surprise for those taking care of the invoicing within Accelo: The next time you create an invoice for a project, ticket or retainer, you'll notice the Save Invoice options have been tidied up - and most importantly - there's a new Preview/Send PDF feature.

This will save your invoice and take you directly to a preview screen based on your new PDF invoice template. Just select your level of activity detail, update the filename as desired, and then Create PDF & Send to your billing contact (or just Create PDF if you're not ready to email it).

If you're thinking this feature looks familiar, you'd be right: We taken the existing Invoice Activity Report and rebuilt it to be much more customizable and integrated with the invoicing process. We understand that not everyone will want to include the specific work activities with each invoice, so there's now a simple ON/OFF toggle to control these. Please note that activity details will only be available if there were activities associated with the invoice. E.g. when creating a project invoice, the "Time & Materials" option must be selected.

Invoice Template Configuration

To make the transition to using PDF invoices as easy as possible, we've set-up your new invoice template with a default layout. Of course, as an admin user, you can chop and change it to your heart's content! Just navigate to Admin > Accounts & Rates > PDF Invoice Template (used to be called "Invoice Report Settings")

Previously, you could only customize the Footer section, and the available merge fields were fairly limited. Now, you have:

• A fully customizable header area. You choose where the logo goes, where the summary details (like Invoice #, amount owing, due date) are placed, and you can select the font size and style.
• A customizable body/introduction area - so you can lay out the billing contact details (such as their postal address), invoice subject, invoice notes.
• Much tidier line-item table, with a customizable totals section. This let's you configure the sub-total and tax details you care about, in the order you prefer.
• Footer section - as it was previously, though we have greatly expanded the merge fields available. They're listed on the left-hand side and of course can be used in any rich text area.

FAQ

1. The PDF preview isn't showing the updated invoice number/ID from Xero/QuickBooks/Saasu?
   
   If you have just created the invoice, it can take up to 1 minute for the invoice to sync back from your accounting system. In this event please navigate back to the invoice, wait a few moments and then select to "Create PDF Invoice"
   
   
2. What about the plain old HTML invoice emails?
   
   They're still available - just choose the "Save Invoice > Email" option when creating an invoice, or find the "Send" button when viewing an invoice. 
3. Do all invoicing screens and methods support this PDF invoicing?
   
   Invoicing Tickets/Issues in bulk does not yet support the inline PDF preview & creation process. However, you can always view the invoice after creating and then convert it to PDF.
   
   Also, Retainer/Contract invoices are not yet able to include activity detail. We are working on it though!

4. Where are the PDFs saved?
   
   Once you're happy with the PDF preview, you have 2 options

• • Create the PDF, which saves it in an Invoices folder under the related work object (e.g. Project).
  • Create PDF and Send, which opens the Create Activity window with the PDF attached. The billing contact will be included in the To field by default - but you can easily include other contacts on the email!