Manage Project Billing, Invoices, and Payments

Project billing stages plan when accepted value becomes invoice-ready. The canonical Invoice, Credit Note and Payment records remain the financial source of truth.

Permission required

Manage Project billing controls stages and linked Invoices. Creating or issuing the Invoice and recording collection also require the normal sales and payment permissions. Financial visibility is withheld when the viewer lacks billing access.

Build an exact billing plan

For a billable Draft, open setup or Financials → Billing & Invoices and add stages. A stage can represent an advance, milestone, progress, final or other agreed billing point. Use a percentage, fixed amount or one remaining-balance calculation.

The total planned amount must reconcile exactly to the accepted Project value before setup can finish. Accepted Change Orders adjust the current contract and can add or revise future stages through their controlled application.

Important information

The Estimate or direct accepted baseline owns the original contract value. Billing stages schedule invoicing; they do not rewrite the commercial source.

Configure readiness

A stage can become ready manually or through a saved trigger such as setup completion, milestone completion or due date. Its operational state is Planned, Ready or Waived.

Ready means “review and prepare the Invoice.” It never issues one automatically. A waiver needs valid authority and remains visible in Project history.

Create the authoritative Invoice

Invoice a ready billing stage

1. Open Financials → Billing & Invoices and confirm the stage is Ready.
2. Review the customer, location, amount, items, HSN/SAC, GST and due terms.
3. Create the Invoice draft from the stage.
4. Review and issue it through the normal Invoice workflow.
5. Return to the Project to see linked Invoice status, collection and remaining value.

Each stage can link to one Invoice. Repeating the action does not create a second stage Invoice. The Project reads gross invoiced, Credits, collected amount and outstanding balance from canonical records.

Warning

Do not create a separate unlinked Invoice for the same stage. If one already exists, use the supported link or correction flow so Project billing and financial reporting do not diverge.

Record payment

Open the linked Invoice and use the normal payment workflow. A Project never marks itself paid. Payment status changes only from authoritative recorded Payments and their later corrections or reversals.

If an Invoice is partly paid, the Project shows partial collection. Credit Notes reduce net invoiced value but are not Payments.

Understand the two payment gates

Start gate

An activation billing stage can block an Awaiting Start Project until it is fully paid or validly waived. When the Project’s saved mode allows automatic activation, the Payment event rechecks every other start gate before starting.

Release gate

A deliverable can require a linked paid stage before final release. Manual and automatic release policies are described in the deliverables guide. A payment reversal after release keeps the historical release and raises attention; it does not remove what was already delivered.

Invoice approved time and expenses

When time or expense billing is enabled, Financials → Unbilled Work shows eligible approved entries. Select the intended records, build a draft Invoice and review its GST treatment. Yepsta prevents selected work from being invoiced twice.

Tip

Use the Approved / Ready but Unbilled report to find billing stages that are operationally ready but still lack an Invoice.

Related guides

• Track time, expenses, budgets and profitability
• Release final deliverables
• Understand setup and payment gates
• Manage Invoices

Last reviewed: 1 September 2026