Bill your tracked time and delivered work. Unbilled shows the work you can still bill and is where you generate invoices; Drafts holds what you have made but not sent; Unpaid shows what your clients still owe you; Paid holds everything finished; and All is the history of every invoice. Each invoice shows its next step as the main button.
Open the Unbilled tab. It lists every client with completed time or delivered items that have not been invoiced yet - the hours, how many items, the date it goes back to, and the amount - biggest first. The tab shows a count of how many clients are waiting to be billed.
Click Generate Draft on a client's row and choose how much to bill. The list opens with the client's billing periods - each month, week, or semi-monthly half that still has unbilled time, newest first, with its own total - so billing one period at a time is a single tap. All unbilled and a Custom range are there too, and Pick entries lets you untick individual entries so the draft bills exactly the work you checked. Confirm the preview (hours, amount, and how many entries) and a draft invoice is created.
Delivered items - pages, fixed fees, milestones, a retainer's periods and its overage - come with the time: the panel lists them in an Items box above the time, each ticked, and the draft bills exactly the ones you leave ticked. A billing period holds the items delivered in it.
Some time should not be invoiced at all - you already billed it outside Cesium, or it is non-billable. In that same panel, Settle Without Invoicing clears the selected time and items from Unbilled without creating an invoice. Entry lists group by your client's billing period - tick a whole period at once or expand it for the day rows. Settled time still counts as worked hours in Reports and Capacity, and settling is reversible: the Settled Work list under Unbilled returns it with Unsettle Selected.
A project marked Not billed with Show on invoices at $0 on puts its hours on the client's draft as Not charged lines: their time shows, the amount reads Not charged and cannot be edited, and they add nothing to the total. An invoice of only Not charged lines takes no fee or tax and is marked paid when it is sent.
The draft opens as a printable invoice - a clean preview of exactly what your client will receive - under a card that says where it stands and its next step, Send To Client. Edit exists only while it is a draft: one panel holds the due date and the line items (rename a line, adjust an amount, add or remove lines). The rare steps sit under More, each with a line saying what it does: Mark As Sent (you sent it another way - it locks without emailing), Record Payment (they paid before you sent it) and Delete Draft (its time and items go back to Unbilled). Only drafts can be deleted, and a number you have sent is never used again. Tax and fees come from your invoice Configuration (the gear icon on the invoices list; per-client overrides optional).
An item prints as its own row with its quantity, unit and unit price - 4.5 "page" at $480.00 - and once a draft holds an item the columns read Qty and Unit price instead of Hours and Rate. Items come first, then the time; the hours total counts time only, so a draft of items alone has none. A retainer's overage line reads in hours and minutes ("1:30 hours"). Changing an item line's amount in Edit makes it a manual amount, as for time, and its unit price prints as "-". The PDF prints the same rows.
Download the PDF or send it directly using your configured Email Templates. The PDF is the clean invoice only - no buttons or navigation. Once it is sent, the next step is Record Payment, and the card shows the amount due and when it is due - in amber once it is overdue. Revert To Draft under More brings Edit back (it asks first, since your client may already have it) while nothing has been paid. Paid invoices carry a green PAID watermark, on screen and on the PDF alike, and their next step is Send Receipt. An overdue or partly paid invoice carries Send Reminder beside Record Payment: it opens the send panel with your Balance Reminder template and the amount still due, and sending it never changes the invoice's status.
Record Payment opens with the balance and today's date filled in. Say how they paid if you like: a bank transfer asks for the reference and any bank fee, a card for the card fee and reference (a fee is logged as a Bank fees expense), cash for nothing more. A date before the invoice date is fine - a deposit, say - and the panel notes it under the date. If they paid less, it asks what happens to the rest: they will pay it later (the invoice becomes Partially Paid), forgive it (pick why), or add it to their next invoice. If they paid more, it asks what the extra is: credit for their next invoice (it comes off that client's next generated draft as a Credit applied line), or yours to keep - a tip, rounding, a late fee or interest - which the receipt and PDF show as, say, "includes a $50.00 tip". When the client has an email, a switch sends a receipt for this payment in the same step - for a part payment too, saying what arrived and what is still due. A partly paid invoice keeps Send Receipt under More for their latest payment. Every payment and write-off is listed on the card with an Undo; a payment whose fee expense you later deleted in Expenses says Fee expense removed on its row. Cesium only records payments you received elsewhere - it never takes money from your clients.
When no more money is coming, Settle Without Payment under More asks one question. Forgive it writes off part or all of it - goodwill, bad debt, a bank fee, rounding or other: part leaves the rest owed, all of it closes the invoice. Add it to their next invoice moves it onto one of the client's drafts, or a new one, as a balance line that is never taxed again, and closes this invoice; a new draft asks whether to charge your invoice fee - off by default, since the fee was on the invoice the balance came from. The button says exactly what will happen ("Forgive $400.00", "Move To A New Draft"). A moved invoice's next step is Open Draft (Open Invoice with its number once that draft is sent); remove the carried balance from that draft, or delete the draft, to reopen it. Once money has moved, the invoice and its PDF show a Payments block - each payment and write-off, and any balance carried forward, then the amount still due.
If a client contests an invoice, choose Client Disputes This under More and write what is contested. It wears a red Disputed pill, Add Note keeps a dated history, and its next step is Resolve Dispute, which asks how it ended: they will pay it as invoiced, they paid (Record Payment opens next), you forgive some or all of it, or you fix the invoice (it goes back to draft - only while nothing has been paid). The notes are yours alone: never on the PDF or in an email.
Credit a client holds comes off their next draft by itself. To decide otherwise, Keep It (it becomes your income today) or Mark Refunded (you sent it back: say when and how) - from the client's credit row on Unpaid or the Credit section of the client's page. Each one is listed there with an Undo.
Every email to your client comes from [email protected]. On a reminder, and on any email once a payment or write-off has left part of the invoice owed, the figures follow your message - the invoice total, what they have paid, anything written off and what is still due - so a template never has to state the balance and can never state a wrong one. With Replies go to on (the Email Template section of the Invoices gear), your client can press Reply to reach you, and a line under the figures names your address. It needs a verified email; turn it off to keep your address out of your clients' emails.
A Statement lists every invoice, payment, write-off and credit for one client in a period, with the running balance, as a PDF to send them. Open a client on Unpaid and click Download Statement for this year (and any older unpaid invoice), or pick the dates in the Statement section of the client's page. It ends at what they owe you, or at the credit they hold.
Work you have not billed yet, and where every invoice starts.
What you have made but not sent, everything finished, and the whole history.
What each client still owes you, so you know whom to chase.
{clientName} and {invoiceNumber}; the receipt adds {amountReceived} and {paymentDate}, and the reminder {balanceDue} and {daysOverdue}. The money figures under your message are added for you, so a template does not need them. Open the editor from the Email Template section of the Invoices gear.