Invoicing and Financial Documents: A Complete Guide to Billing in ZenWorkflow

Getting paid accurately and on time is critical for any professional services firm. ZenWorkflow's invoicing module provides a complete billing workflow from estimates through to receipts, with powerful features like multi-currency support, workflow-based billing, and automated balance tracking.

The Billing Lifecycle

ZenWorkflow supports the full billing lifecycle:

1. Estimate: Quote your services to the client
2. Invoice: Bill the client for work performed
3. Receipt: Record payments received
4. Credit Note: Issue credits or adjustments against invoices

Each document type has its own configurable prefix and auto-incrementing number for professional, consistent numbering.

Estimates

Estimates let you quote services before work begins:

• Add line items with service, description, quantity, rate, and tax rate
• Amounts, taxes, and totals are computed automatically
• Track estimate status: Pending, Won, or Declined
• Convert a won estimate to an invoice with one click, copying all details
• Duplicate estimates for similar quotes
• Email estimates to clients or share via magic links
• Export to PDF for formal presentation

Invoices

Invoices are the core of your billing:

• Create invoices with client, date, due date, currency, and exchange rate
• Add multiple service lines with description, quantity, rate, and tax rate
• Link invoice lines to specific workflows and pull unbilled timesheet entries automatically
• Invoices start as Draft and must be explicitly approved before being sent
• Payment status tracking: Unpaid, Partially Paid, Paid, or Overpaid
• Per-line item balance tracking for precise receipt and credit allocation
• Void invoices for audit trail (voided invoices are excluded from financial aggregations but remain visible)
• Automatic overdue reminders for unpaid invoices
• Invoice statistics dashboard showing outstanding amounts, paid totals, and draft counts

Receipts

Record payments with full flexibility:

• Create receipts against specific invoices with Cash, Bank Transfer, or Cheque payment methods
• Allocate receipt amounts to specific invoice service lines for precise tracking
• Invoice balances update automatically when receipts are created or deleted
• When a receipt total exceeds the allocation, the remaining amount becomes a credit balance for future use
• Create standalone receipts independent of a specific invoice
• Client-based filtering: select the client, then currency, then available invoices

Credit Notes

Issue credits and adjustments:

• Create credit notes against specific invoices
• Allocate credit amounts to individual invoice service lines
• Invoice balances reverse automatically
• Apply existing receipt credits to unpaid invoice lines through a multi-step allocation flow

Multi-Currency Support

For firms working internationally, ZenWorkflow handles multi-currency billing:

• Each document can have its own currency independent of the organisation default
• Exchange rates are looked up automatically based on currency and date
• All amounts are converted to the organisation currency for consistent reporting
• Currency is locked per document to maintain financial accuracy

Workflow Integration

The deep integration between workflows and invoicing sets ZenWorkflow apart:

• Link invoice service lines directly to workflows
• Pull unbilled timesheet entries from a workflow into an invoice automatically
• Track billing status from the workflow detail page
• Lock and unlock timesheets for billing control
• Toggle final billing status on workflows
• View revenue charts showing billing data by workflow

Tax Rates

Manage tax rates across your organisation:

• Create, edit, and delete tax rates as needed
• Set one default tax rate for the organisation
• The 0% tax rate is protected and cannot be deleted (required for non-taxable items and expenses)

Bulk Operations

Save time with bulk operations:

• Delete multiple invoices, estimates, receipts, or credit notes at once
• Balance adjustments are automatically reversed during bulk deletions
• Export any document type to CSV or XLSX for external reporting
• Import invoicing data from Excel templates for migration