Invoices

Guides for creating, managing, and sending invoices — including generating invoices from tracked time entries, adding line items, applying taxes and discounts, and tracking payment status.

Creating Invoices from Time Entries

Invup can automatically generate invoice line items from your team's tracked time entries. Instead of manually typing line items, you select a client, narrow down which time entries to include, choose how to group them, and Invup builds the invoice for you — with amounts calculated from each entry's resolved hourly rate.

This guide walks through the invoice creation wizard step by step.

Admin - Create Invoice.png

Who Can Use This Feature

The "From Time Entries" option is available to Owners and Admins. Team members with the Member role can still create invoices from scratch, but they will not see the time entries wizard. Contributors do not have access to invoice creation.

Opening the Wizard

  1. Navigate to the Invoices page from the sidebar.
  2. Click the + button to create a new invoice.
  3. A dialog appears asking "How would you like to create this invoice?" with two options:
    • From Scratch — create an invoice with custom line items that you type in manually.
    • From Time Entries — generate line items from tracked time entries.
  4. Select From Time Entries to start the wizard.

Step 1: Select a Client

The first step asks you to choose which client to invoice. The list only shows clients that have projects with recorded time entries — clients with no tracked time will not appear.

Admin - Create Invoice Select Client.png

Use the search field at the top to filter by client name. Click a client to select them (the selected client is highlighted), then click Next to continue.

If you don't see a client you expect, confirm that at least one of their projects has time entries logged against it.

Step 2: Configure Filters

After selecting a client, you'll see the Filter Time Entries step. This is where you narrow down exactly which time entries should be included in the invoice.

Admin - Create Invoice Filter Time Entries.png

Available Filters

Filter Description Default
From / To Date range for the time entries to include. First and last day of the previous month
Projects Limit to specific projects. Leave empty to include all of the client's projects. All projects
Services Limit to specific services. Leave empty to include all services. All services
Members Limit to specific team members. Leave empty to include entries from all team members. All team members
Billable entries only When enabled, excludes time entries logged against non-billable services. Enabled
Exclude already invoiced entries When enabled, excludes time entries that are already attached to another invoice. Enabled

The date range defaults to the previous month based on your organization's timezone. For example, if today is April 4 and your organization is set to Eastern Time, the default range would be March 1 to March 31.

Both toggle filters — Billable entries only and Exclude already invoiced entries — are enabled by default to prevent accidentally invoicing non-billable work or double-invoicing entries.

Stats Preview Panel

As you adjust filters, the preview panel on the right updates automatically to show:

The estimated total is calculated using each time entry's current rate. If an entry already has a locked rate, that locked rate is used. Otherwise, Invup resolves the rate dynamically from the rate hierarchy.

If no entries match your filters, the panel displays "No time entries match the current filters" and you won't be able to proceed.

Preview in Time Entries Table

Below the stats panel, there is a Preview in Time Entries Table link (with an external-link icon). Clicking it opens the Time Entries page in a new tab with your current filters pre-applied, so you can review the individual entries before generating the invoice. This is useful for spot-checking entries or verifying that the right work is included.

Once you're satisfied with the selected entries, click Next.

Step 3: Choose a Grouping Strategy

The final step before creating the invoice is choosing how the selected time entries should be grouped into invoice line items.

Admin - Create Invoice Grouping .png

Grouping Option What It Does Example
Single Line Item All entries are combined into one line item. 1 line item for all work
By Project One line item is created for each project. 3 projects = 3 line items
By Service One line item is created for each service. "Design" and "Development" = 2 line items
By Member One line item is created for each team member. 4 team members = 4 line items

Each option shows the expected number of line items it will produce (when available), so you can see the result before committing.

How Line Item Amounts Are Calculated

For each group of entries, Invup checks whether all entries in that group share the same hourly rate:

Line Item Names

Each line item is named based on the grouping strategy:

Creating the Invoice

After selecting your grouping strategy, click Create Invoice. Invup will:

  1. Create a new draft invoice for the selected client.
  2. Generate line items based on your chosen grouping.
  3. Link each time entry to its corresponding line item so the connection is tracked.
  4. If your organization's rate lock policy is set to At Invoice, the rates on all included time entries will be locked at this point.

Once the invoice is created, you are taken directly to the invoice detail page where you can:

The time entries included in the invoice are now linked to it. If Exclude already invoiced entries was enabled (the default), these entries will not appear in future invoice wizards — preventing double-invoicing.

Tips and Best Practices

Understanding Invoice Line Item Grouping

When you create an invoice from time entries, the final step asks how the entries should be grouped into line items. The grouping strategy you choose determines how many line items appear on the invoice, what each line item is called, and how the amounts are displayed.

This article explains each grouping strategy in detail, how rates are resolved for each entry, and how Invup prevents the same time entry from being invoiced twice.

The Four Grouping Strategies

Strategy Line Items Created Best For
Single Line Item 1 Clients who want a simple, single-total invoice
By Project 1 per project Clients with multiple projects who need to see costs separated by engagement
By Service 1 per service Firms that bill by activity type (e.g., research, consulting, design)
By Member 1 per team member Teams where clients want to see individual contributions

Single Line Item

All selected time entries are combined into a single line item. This produces the simplest invoice — one line with the total hours and amount.

Example line item name: Website Redesign, Brand Strategy (Mar 1 – Mar 31, 2026)

The name is built from a comma-separated list of the project names involved, followed by the date range of the entries in parentheses. If only one date is covered, just that date is shown (e.g., Website Redesign (Mar 15, 2026)).

By Project

One line item is created for each project that has time entries in the selection. If you selected entries across three projects, you get three line items.

Example line item names:

By Service

One line item is created for each service attached to the selected time entries. Entries that have no service assigned are grouped together under "No Service".

Example line item names:

By Member

One line item is created for each team member who logged the selected time entries.

Example line item names:

All line item names are automatically truncated to 100 characters. If a name exceeds this limit (most likely with the Single strategy when many projects are involved), it is trimmed and ends with "…".

How Line Item Amounts Are Calculated

For each group of entries, Invup checks whether every entry in that group has the same hourly rate. The result determines how the line item's quantity and unit price are displayed.

Same-Rate Groups

When all entries in a group share the same rate, the line item is displayed in a hours x rate format:

Example: A group of entries totaling 12.5 hours, all at $150/hr:

Line Item Qty Unit Price Amount
Website Redesign 12.5 $150.00 $1,875.00

This format gives your client a clear picture of how many hours were worked and at what rate.

Mixed-Rate Groups

When entries in a group have different hourly rates — for example, because different team members have different rates, or because rates changed during the billing period — the line item is displayed as a flat amount:

Example: A group with 8 hours at $150/hr and 4 hours at $200/hr:

Line Item Qty Unit Price Amount
Website Redesign 1 $2,000.00 $2,000.00

Invup uses this format because displaying a single rate would be misleading when the group contains entries at different rates. The total is calculated precisely for each entry and summed, so the amount is always accurate.

You can always edit a line item's name, quantity, or unit price on the invoice detail page after the invoice is created.

How Rates Are Resolved

When building line items, Invup determines the hourly rate for each time entry using this order:

  1. Locked rate — If the entry already has a locked rate (from a previous rate lock event), that rate is used as-is.
  2. Rate hierarchy — If no locked rate exists, Invup resolves the rate dynamically by walking the rate hierarchy. This checks multiple levels — from the most specific (e.g., a project-service-member rate) to the most general (e.g., the team member's base rate) — and uses the first rate it finds.
  3. $0.00 fallback — If no rate is configured at any level in the hierarchy, the entry is valued at $0.00. This can happen if a team member has no rate set anywhere.

This means the amounts on your invoice reflect the most accurate rate available at the time of invoice creation. If you've set up your rate hierarchy correctly, every entry will have a meaningful rate.

Entries logged against a non-billable service always resolve to $0.00 regardless of other rate settings. If you have Billable entries only enabled in the wizard filters (the default), these entries are excluded entirely.

At-Invoice Rate Locking

If your organization's rate lock policy is set to At Invoice, creating an invoice from time entries triggers rate locking on all included entries that don't already have a locked rate.

Here's what happens:

  1. Invup resolves the current rate for each entry using the rate hierarchy.
  2. That rate is frozen on the entry as its locked rate, along with a record of which level of the hierarchy provided it (the locked rate source).
  3. From this point forward, the entry's rate is fixed — even if you later change rates on the project, service, or team member.

Entries that already had a locked rate (e.g., from the "At Creation" policy or a previous invoice) are left unchanged.

This ensures the amount on your invoice matches the rate that was in effect when you generated it. Without rate locking, a rate change after invoicing could cause a mismatch between what was billed and what the time entry shows in reports.

For a full explanation of rate lock policies, see Rate Locking.

How Double-Billing Is Prevented

When you create an invoice from time entries, each time entry is linked to the invoice line item it belongs to. This link is permanent and serves two purposes:

  1. Traceability — You can always see which time entries make up a given invoice line item and, conversely, which invoice a time entry was billed on.
  2. Double-billing prevention — The invoice creation wizard has an Exclude already invoiced entries filter, which is enabled by default. When active, any time entry that is already linked to an invoice line item is automatically excluded from the wizard results.

This means that under normal use, a time entry can only appear on one invoice. You don't need to manually track which entries have been billed — Invup handles it automatically.

If you do need to include previously invoiced entries (for example, to re-invoice work after voiding an earlier invoice), you can disable the Exclude already invoiced entries toggle in the filter step. Use this with care, as it can result in the same work appearing on multiple invoices.