Invoicing

Build polished invoices, deliver them to customers, and monitor payment status -- built for professional accountants managing multiple clients.

Creating an Invoice

Kantivo stores every invoice securely in your database for easy retrieval and reporting. Here is how to generate a new invoice:

1. Open the Invoice Center from the sidebar navigation
2. Press Create Invoice to open a blank invoice form
3. Choose the Customer who should receive the bill
4. Define the Invoice Date and the Due Date for payment
5. Populate the invoice with one or more line items (details below)
6. Verify the calculated totals at the bottom of the form
7. Press Save to store it as a draft, or Save & Send to deliver it immediately

Line Items

Each row on an invoice represents a distinct product or service being charged. The available fields are:

• Description: A concise explanation of what the charge covers
• Quantity: How many units are being billed
• Rate: The cost charged per individual unit
• Amount: Computed automatically by multiplying Quantity by Rate
• Income Account: The general ledger account where Kantivo records the earned revenue

Entering lines quickly

The line grid works like a spreadsheet, and follows the Grid appearance settings you chose for your registers.

• Type to find a product or account. Click the product cell and type any part of the name -- audit finds Website Audit; the Account cell works the same way, by name or number. Arrow keys and Enter choose.
• A new line is always waiting. As soon as you type in the last line, a blank one appears beneath it, so a long invoice never needs + Add Line. The blank line is ignored when you save.
• Tab moves through the fields only -- product, description, account, quantity, price -- skipping the remove button.

Estimates, purchase orders, bills and Write Check use the same grid, and the Customer / Vendor pickers at the top of each form search as you type too. On a check with several expense lines, Tab out of the last memo adds a line, and an empty line suggests the amount still left to allocate against the check total.

Sending Invoices

Deliver invoices electronically to your customers without leaving Kantivo:

1. Navigate to the invoice you want to send
2. Press the Send Invoice button
3. Examine the email preview to confirm the content
4. Press Send to dispatch it

The recipient gets a professionally formatted PDF attached to the email.

When Stripe card payments are set up, the message includes a Pay button tied to the balance owed right now. Suppose a client settles part of an invoice: the next email you send requests only the remainder, and the button in any earlier email is retired so the original amount can no longer be charged. A fully settled invoice goes out without a button, and foreign-currency invoices are charged in their own currency.

Recording Payments

Once a customer makes a payment, record it in Kantivo to keep your accounts receivable accurate:

1. From the Dashboard, select Receive Payment
2. Pick the customer who is paying
3. Specify the payment amount and the method used (check, cash, card, etc.)
4. Indicate which outstanding invoice or invoices the payment should be applied against
5. Press Save Payment to finalize the entry

Payment Schedule (Draws / Milestones)

For projects billed in stages, Kantivo lets you break an invoice into structured payment milestones. This is particularly useful for contractors, consultants, and any phased engagement.

Creating a Payment Schedule

From the invoice detail view, select + Add Payment Schedule to define your draws:

• Description: Label each draw clearly (e.g., "Deposit," "Framing Complete," "Final Payment")
• Amount: The payment expected for this milestone
• Due Date: When the draw payment is expected
• Condition: An alternative milestone trigger if a fixed date does not apply

Tracking Draws

Each draw displays its current status -- Pending, Paid, or Overdue. When you record an incoming payment, Kantivo automatically suggests the next unpaid draw so you can apply funds in sequence without manual searching.

Automated Payment Reminders

Let Kantivo do the chasing. Each morning at 8:00 AM (your PC's local time) it emails polite reminders for invoices that are coming due or overdue. They go out from your business's own email setup, the same route your invoices take, so clients see a familiar sender and can simply hit reply.

Prerequisite: an email setup that can send on its own

Automatic reminders stay locked until Kantivo can send mail unattended. Review Company Settings → Company Preferences → Email Settings for Invoices:

• Custom SMTP: connect your own mailbox (Google Workspace, Outlook / Microsoft 365, or any SMTP host), then press ✉️ Send a test email. A successful test unlocks reminders; editing the server details afterwards pauses them until you test again.
• Relay: Kantivo delivers on your behalf ("Your Company via Kantivo") with replies routed to your Reply-To address, so make sure one is filled in.
• Manual (email program): every message opens in your own mail client for you to send, which means automatic reminders can't run. One-off reminders by hand still work.

Switching reminders on

1. Open Company Settings → Company Preferences → Payment Reminders.
2. Enable Enable Automatic Payment Reminders. A greyed-out switch comes with a short explanation of what your email settings are missing.
3. Set the timing to match your collections policy.

Timing options

• Pre-due notice: a courtesy email a chosen number of days ahead of the deadline (default 3).
• Overdue follow-ups: 7, 14 and/or 30 days after the due date.

One-off reminders

On any open invoice, choose Send Reminder to send one immediately. Using the Manual method? Your mail client opens with the message pre-filled.

Inside the reminder

• Your business name, brand colour and contact information
• Invoice number, issue date and due date
• Days remaining until the deadline, or days past it
• The outstanding balance, plus a Pay button for exactly that amount when card payments are enabled

Coming from an older release? If reminders were already enabled, Kantivo checks with you once before emailing any clients. Pick Turn on to start or Not now to keep them off.

Invoice Status

Editing & Deleting Invoices

• Draft invoices: Fully editable and may be removed at any point
• Sent invoices: Still editable; the customer receives an update notification when changes are saved
• Paid invoices: Cannot be removed from the system -- use the void function instead to reverse the transaction

Invoice Deposits

For large projects or high-value orders, you can require a deposit or downpayment before work begins. Kantivo tracks the deposit amount separately from the remaining balance so both you and your customer have clear visibility into what has been paid and what is still owed.

Requiring a Deposit

1. When creating or editing an invoice, locate the Deposit Required section
2. Toggle the deposit option to On
3. Choose the deposit type:
   • Fixed Amount: A specific dollar amount (e.g., $500 deposit on a $2,000 invoice)
   • Percentage: A percentage of the invoice total (e.g., 25% deposit, which automatically calculates to $500 on a $2,000 invoice)
4. Enter the amount or percentage value
5. Save the invoice

How Deposits Appear on the Invoice

When a deposit is configured, the invoice displays three figures clearly:

• Invoice Total: The full amount for all line items
• Deposit Required: The upfront amount the customer must pay first
• Balance Due After Deposit: The remaining amount owed after the deposit is received

Tracking Deposit Payments

When the customer pays the deposit, record it as a partial payment against the invoice. Kantivo automatically recognizes it as a deposit payment and updates the invoice status to Partial. The remaining balance reflects the amount still outstanding after the deposit.

Multi-Currency Invoices

Kantivo supports issuing invoices in currencies other than your home currency, which is valuable when working with international clients:

1. When building a new invoice, pick the desired currency from the dropdown selector
2. The current exchange rate is fetched and displayed automatically
3. Every line item and total on the invoice appears in the chosen foreign currency
4. Kantivo simultaneously calculates the equivalent in your base currency so your general ledger stays accurate

Sales Receipts

A sales receipt records a sale that has already been paid for. Use one whenever the money arrives at the same moment as the goods or the service — over the counter, at a market, on a card reader. Use an invoice instead when the customer will settle up later.

The distinction matters in the ledger, not just on paper. An invoice creates a balance in accounts receivable and shows up in that customer's aging until it is paid. A sales receipt never touches receivables at all, so a cash sale can never masquerade as an unpaid debt.

Recording one

1. Open Sales Receipts from the sidebar navigation
2. Press + New sales receipt
3. Set the date, and optionally attach a customer — a walk-in needs no customer record at all, so you can simply type a name or leave it blank
4. Choose how it was paid: Cash, Debit, Credit Card, Cheque, E-Transfer, or Other
5. Answer Where did the money go? — the bank, cash drawer, or undeposited funds account that actually received it. This is the only required field beyond the lines themselves
6. Add the lines: pick a catalog item to fill the description, price, and income account in for you, or type a one-off line by hand
7. Check the running total, then press Save receipt

Tax on part of a receipt

Choose a tax code once at the top of the lines, then use the Tax tick on each line to say which items it applies to. A receipt can carry a taxable item and a zero-rated one side by side — the common case in provinces where some goods attract GST and others do not.

The calculated tax appears in an editable box, not as a fixed figure. If the printed slip in your hand says something a cent or two different, type that in and the receipt is saved with your number rather than ours. A small calculated … · reset note appears beneath so you can always see what the arithmetic produced and go back to it.

Stock, and what happens on delete

Selling a tracked inventory item on a receipt draws that stock down and posts the cost of goods sold at the same time, exactly as an invoice does. Deleting a receipt reverses all of it: the journal entry is removed, the ledger balances are restored, and the stock goes back on the shelf.