Invoicing, from the price you type to the email your client opens

Why show the client's email while you write the invoice?

Because an invoice cannot be taken back. It goes out once, it is read by somebody's accounting desk, and a mistake in it costs a phone call, a correction and often a late payment.

The screen is split. The form on the left, and on the right not a floating document but the message as it will land in the client's inbox, with sender, recipient, subject and attachment. That is the window you will recognise, because it is the one your client opens.

A second tab shows the attachment itself, the invoice as a real PDF rather than a picture of one. Both matter: the message decides whether it gets opened, the PDF is what the client keeps and hands to their accountant.

The same code on both sides

The PDF you check before sending is drawn by the code that produces the one in the email. It is not an approximation, it is the same file.

The email does not repeat the invoice

It says hello, states what is being charged, shows the amount and the due date, points at the attachment and gives the ways to pay. A client reads that in ten seconds.

A missing recipient shows up first

If the invoice has no client email, the «To» line says so in red, before you send rather than after.

How are taxes calculated?

From what you set once, never from a rate hard-coded in the software. You pick where you invoice, Atlas suggests the taxes collected there, you check them and add your registration numbers.

Your account country sorts things first. A Canadian account opens on the provinces, with federal GST and provincial tax kept apart where they are, and HST where they are merged. A US account opens on the states, a French account on VAT. The province and the state are chosen, not guessed: suggesting Quebec to an Ontario company would charge 14.975% instead of 13, and nobody rereads a field that is already filled in.

Two lines, not one

Quebec collects GST and QST, each with its own registration number, and both must appear separately. Ontario has only one. A business below the registration threshold shows none.

QST is not charged on GST

It applies to the pre-tax subtotal. The opposite was true before 2013, and many templates still carry the old rule, which makes a total twenty-five cents too high on a $500 invoice.

Registration numbers print under the total

That is what lets a business client claim its input tax credits. Without them, they call you.

Rates are copied onto the invoice

A rate that changes next year does not rewrite this year's invoices. Reading last year's invoice shows last year's taxes.

What stops an invoice from being changed afterwards?

The database, not the screen. A screen is worked around with two tabs; the rule that protects an accounting record belongs where nobody can step past it.

While it is a draft, everything can be fixed, and a draft has no number yet. It gets one the moment you issue it. That is what stops an abandoned draft from taking a number with it and leaving a permanent gap in the sequence, which is exactly what an audit looks for.

If the amount was wrong, you cancel it and write another one. That is what an accountant expects, and it is what holds up if somebody disputes the charge six months later.

How does the client know how to pay you?

You write it once in the settings, and it prints on every invoice, in the PDF and in the email alike.

1. The name for the chequeOften the full legal name, which is not the trading name on your logo. A cheque made out to the wrong name comes back by post two weeks later.
2. Where to mail itThe address of the day it was issued, frozen on the invoice. Moving in June does not send March's cheques to the new address.
3. Where to transferIn Canada, the Interac transfer email. Elsewhere, your bank details.
4. The number to referenceAdded on its own under the payment methods. Without a reference, a $574.88 transfer arrives from a name that is not always the client's, and you have to call to find out what it settles.

The block disappears on its own once the invoice is marked paid. Leaving it there would read as a second request, and that is the kind of misunderstanding that costs a refund.

How do you know what is still owed?

The list shows every invoice with its state, and an issued invoice past its due date turns overdue on its own.

Draft

No number yet, nothing has gone out, everything can be fixed or deleted.

Issued

The number is taken, the content is frozen. The terms you allow set the due date.

Overdue

Issued, unpaid, past due. The due date itself does not count, the client has until the evening.

Paid

With the date and how it came in, transfer, cheque, cash or card.

Cancelled

Struck through, still visible, number kept.

Each row's menu only offers what makes sense at that moment. You do not chase a draft, you do not delete an issued invoice, and «mark as paid» disappears once it is.

Frequently asked questions

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