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The Invoices page (Commerce > Invoices) is the operational heart of Commerce. From here you draft invoices, send them with payment links, track status from sent through paid, charge saved cards, and record payments that arrive outside Hiveku.
Setting up invoicing for the first time? Follow Set Up Invoicing: Your Name, Colors, Tax and Numbers, a step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots.
Writing and sending an invoice? Follow Create and Send an Invoice, a step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots.
Taking a deposit and billing the rest later? Follow Take a Deposit Now and Bill the Rest Later. To bill hours and usage, see Bill for Your Hours and Usage.

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The invoice lifecycle

1

Draft

A new invoice starts as a draft — visible only to your team, no email sent, no due date enforced. Iterate until it’s right.
2

Sent

Click Send and the client receives an email with a link to view and pay the invoice online. The status flips to sent and the due-date clock starts ticking.
3

Paid

A card payment from the invoice’s pay page or the client portal marks the invoice paid straight away. If the client paid by check or wire, record it with Collect payment → Record a payment and add the reference for the audit trail.
4

Overdue

An invoice past its due date with a balance owing. Hiveku emails the client payment reminders while the invoice’s Send automatic payment reminders setting is on (it is by default).
5

Void

Voiding cancels the invoice without deleting it. Used for billing errors or canceled work — historical record stays, but the balance no longer counts toward AR.

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Creating an invoice

Click New Invoice, pick a client (CRM contact or company), and start adding line items. The most common path.

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Line items

Each line item has:
  • Product reference (optional) — pulls name, description, price, and tax flag from your Products catalog
  • Description — overridable per line; what the client sees
  • Quantity — defaults to 1
  • Unit price — override the catalog price for this client
  • Discount — percentage or fixed amount, per line
  • Tax — applied if the line is taxable and the client isn’t tax-exempt
You can also add ad-hoc lines with no product reference — handy for one-off charges that don’t belong in the catalog. If you find yourself adding the same ad-hoc line repeatedly, that’s a signal to add it to Products.

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Tax handling

Tax rates come from your account settings (per-jurisdiction) and apply to taxable line items at send time.
  • Tax-exempt clients — Set the flag on the contact or company. Their invoices skip tax automatically and surface the exemption in the PDF.
  • Per-jurisdiction rates — Configure separate rates for the regions you sell in. The invoice picks the right rate based on the client’s billing address.
  • Multi-rate invoices — A single invoice can mix tax rates if line items are flagged differently (rare, but supported).
Tax is set under Commerce → Settings → Defaults: a Default tax rate (%) and Tax label, plus per-state rates under Tax by state. A client marked tax exempt on their CRM record is never charged tax.

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Discounts

The Discount field under Subtotal takes a fixed amount off the whole invoice, before tax. There’s no per-line or percentage discount; to discount one item, lower its price on the line.

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Payment terms

Pick from Due upon receipt, Net 7, Net 15, Net 30, Net 45 or Net 60. Net terms make the invoice due that many days after its invoice date; Due upon receipt makes it due the day the client gets it. Overdue reminders count from the due date: see Find and Chase Overdue Invoices.
New invoices start from your account’s Default payment terms, which is Due upon receipt until you change it. If you usually give Net 30, set it once in Commerce, Settings so every new invoice starts there.

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Sending the invoice

When you click Send, three things happen:
  1. The invoice transitions from draft to sent.
  2. An email goes to the client with a View and pay online button that opens the invoice’s pay page.
  3. A PDF is generated and attached to the email by default (and stored against the invoice for download later).
The pay page needs no sign-in or account. Its link works for 60 days, and resending the invoice sends a fresh one. Clients can also open the invoice in the client portal and pay it there. Clients pay by entering a card. With Authorize.Net they can choose to save it as they pay, and with any processor they can save cards in the portal (see Saved payment methods). They can’t pay with a card saved earlier, or by ACH, Apple Pay, or Google Pay; to charge a card they’ve already saved, use Charge card on file. If the invoice has Allow client to make partial payments for this invoice turned on, they can pay part of the balance. If no payment processor is connected, the pay page shows the invoice but asks the client to contact you to arrange payment — see Payments.

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Marking paid

A card payment from the pay page or the client portal records the payment on the invoice and marks it paid the moment it goes through. No manual step needed. If the invoice sends receipts (the default), the client is emailed one.

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Reconciliation

Online payments are recorded against the invoice when the client pays, so there’s nothing to match by hand. Your processor’s webhooks also bring in refunds or voids made in the processor’s own dashboard. For money that arrives outside Hiveku, use Record a payment.
If an invoice shows On hold for review, an earlier card charge on it may have gone through. Check the charge in your payment processor before you record a payment or charge a card, so the client isn’t charged twice. Hiveku won’t record a payment larger than the balance due.

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Charging a saved card

When a client has a card on file, open the invoice and choose Collect payment → Charge card on file, pick the card, and click Charge. It charges the full balance due. Clients save cards in the client portal; if they haven’t, send them a card-update link (Send card update link on their contact record).

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Automatic charges

Some invoices charge a saved card by themselves: subscription renewals, and invoices from a recurring schedule or installment plan that is set to charge a card. When the charge is set for the due date, the invoice page shows which card will be charged and when, and the invoice email tells the client too (its button then reads View invoice). To stop it, click Don’t charge automatically on the invoice. If an automatic charge is declined, the invoice stays open and Hiveku tries the card again 3 days later, then 7 days after that. If the card still fails, the invoice is marked Uncollectible 14 days after the last try. Meanwhile, the invoice page shows the decline, and you can collect sooner with Charge card on file or Send card update link; if a retry is still to come when the client saves a new card, the retry uses it. For renewals, see Subscriptions.

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PDFs and customization

Every invoice has a downloadable PDF that uses your account’s invoice template — logo, colors, footer text, payment instructions. To customize:
  • Logo and colors: Set in account settings; applies to all invoices and the client portal.
  • Footer / payment instructions: Free-text block on each invoice or default for the account.
  • Invoice templates: Under Invoices, Templates, save invoices you send often (their lines and payment terms), set one as the default, and click Customize design to change its layout.

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Recurring invoices

Two ways to bill on a recurring cadence:
  • Subscriptions — Best for ongoing retainers and SaaS plans. Handles plan changes and MRR roll-up.
  • Schedules (Commerce → Schedules) — Best for milestone billing or fixed-date charges that aren’t a true subscription (e.g., quarterly check-in fees).
You can also start either one from an invoice you’ve already made. Open the invoice’s More actions menu (the … button) and choose:
  • Turn into subscription — Puts the client on a plan, with this invoice as the first period, so billing starts at the first renewal.
  • Make recurring — Repeats this invoice’s own lines, discount, and tax on a schedule, optionally charging a saved card. The invoice counts as the first run. These repeating invoices are listed under Recurring invoices in the Commerce menu.

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Bulk operations

From the invoice list:
  • Bulk void — Tick several invoices and void them together with Void selected. Invoices that already have a payment are skipped.
  • Export CSV — Download the invoices in your current view, with its filters, as a CSV for your accountant.
Invoices are sent one at a time. Overdue reminders don’t need a bulk action: Hiveku sends them by itself while each invoice’s reminders are on.

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API patterns

Common API operations against /api/crm/invoices:
  • POST /api/crm/invoices — create a draft
  • POST /api/crm/invoices/:id/send — transition to sent and email the client
  • POST /api/crm/invoices/:id/record-payment — record a manual payment
  • POST /api/crm/invoices/:id/void — void an invoice
  • GET /api/crm/invoices?aging=1-30 — list open invoices 1–30 days past due (also 31-60, 61-90, 90%2B for more than 90 days, or current for ones not yet due)
See Find and Chase Overdue Invoices for working with overdue invoices.

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Troubleshooting

Check the invoice’s activity log — you’ll see whether the email was sent and whether it bounced. Common causes: the client’s billing-contact email is wrong, the email landed in spam (have them search for your domain), or your sending domain isn’t verified — see Email Domains.
Online payments mark the invoice paid as soon as they go through. When one doesn’t, the processor’s answer usually never arrived, so Hiveku can’t tell whether the card was charged. The client is told the payment is being confirmed and not to pay again, and shortly after, the invoice shows On hold for review; nobody can pay it online until you act. Check the charge in your processor: if it went through, record it with Record a payment and put the transaction ID in the reference (this also lifts the hold); if it didn’t, click Release hold. For automatic charges, Commerce → Settings → Defaults → Unconfirmed charges decides whether Hiveku first re-sends the same charge (your processor refuses a true duplicate) or holds the invoice straight away. If the client paid in your processor’s own dashboard instead of through Hiveku, record that payment the same way.
Three things to check: the line items’ taxable flag, the client’s tax-exempt flag, and the configured tax rate for the client’s billing jurisdiction. Edit the draft, fix whichever is off, and re-send.
Voided invoices keep their number, so you’ll see gaps in the sequence — that’s expected and audit-friendly. Don’t try to renumber; auditors prefer to see the void.
Check that the invoice’s due date has passed, it still has a balance, and Send automatic payment reminders is on for the invoice. Reminders also wait while a card charge on the invoice is scheduled, being confirmed, or on hold. Workflows can’t start from an invoice being sent, viewed or overdue; an invoice trigger fires only when a client pays it online (the pay link or the portal) or that payment fails. See Workflows for the trigger model.

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What’s next?

Create and Send an Invoice

Build an invoice from your products, save or send it, and download the PDF.

Find and Chase Overdue Invoices

See who owes you, open each overdue invoice, and record the payment.

Estimates

Pre-sales quotes that convert to invoices.

Subscriptions

Recurring billing for retainers and plans.