Send invoices and record payments from your phone

On your phone, the center Do button opens a hub where you can type or speak a command:

• "send invoice for job Fernhill bathroom": rolls up that job's unbilled work into a draft invoice to review and send.
• "Invoice Mike Henderson, swapped the tank, 3 hours, tank was 1,150" or "Quote the Patels for a new water heater": a phrase that describes the work opens Describe the job with your words in it and drafts them, ready to check and save. A question ("did I invoice Mike for the deck?") never starts a draft.
• "record payment on invoice INV-007": opens a sheet to record a payment against that invoice.
• "mark invoice INV-007 paid": marks the invoice's full balance paid. While the customer is holding part of it back (a holdback), the hub says so instead: release the holdback first, or use the record payment command with the amount.
• "log 2 hours", "scan a receipt", "new quote": jump straight into those flows.

The tiles under the card

Below the command bar is a grid of nine tiles, three rows of three. Which nine follows the bottom bar: when it shows Store you get the store tiles, otherwise the work tiles. What the bar shows comes from How do you get paid? in More: tick Online store without Invoices for jobs, or tick both and choose Store under Fourth tab, for the store tiles.

• Work tiles: New email, Scan receipt, Log hours, New job, New quote, New invoice, Record payment, Job photo / note and Mileage.
• Store tiles: New email, Scan receipt, New invoice, Email a customer, Find an order, Record payment, New quote, Log hours and Mileage.

If you take payments at a till or counter in HQ, Close the day comes first, before the others. It opens the day's close for your till, and HQ never picks the day for you. In the command bar, "close the day", "close the till" and "close up" do the same, and "close till Pop-up" or "close the Pop-up till" opens that till's close: see Close a day at your till.

Every tile does something. Bills waiting for review and charges that need a category are on the Money tab, with how many are waiting, and your store's payouts are on the Store tab.

To change what Money and Store show, tap the sliders button beside the greeting on Money (or beside Today on Store). Hide a card with its switch, reorder by holding its handle and dragging or with the arrows, and on a business with a Store tab use Move to Store or Move to Money: a card is on one screen only. The same sheet sets Money's big number to Sales this month or Received this month, and Reset to suggested goes back to the layout for your kind of business. Tap Save; it is kept for this business on every phone, and it cannot be saved while you are offline.

Most tiles open that screen or form. Record payment starts the command for you, as described below. Job photo / note asks which of your active jobs, then Photo or Note, and opens that job with the form already up, so there is nothing to hunt for. There is no tile for a new client: the New job form adds the client as you go, and Work, then Clients, then New client is still there for one on its own.

Name the record the way the screen names it

An invoice goes by the number printed on it, INV-007. A short "invoice 7" works too: it means the same document, because the hub fills in your book's own invoice prefix and padding. Capital letters and missing zeroes are forgiven, but a partial number is not, so type the whole thing.

A job goes by its title or its job number ("job J-012"), which is what the Work tab shows you. You never need the internal id of anything.

If more than one record matches, the hub lists them with the client and the amount and asks which one you meant. If nothing matches, it tells you so and does nothing. A quote or a credit note can carry the same number as an invoice; the hub says which it found and will not record a payment against one.

Nothing is written until you tap

Every money command shows you a preview first and only acts when you tap Create invoice, Send to client, Record payment, or Mark paid. Tap Cancel and nothing is written. Tapping Create invoice on a job creates a draft invoice and marks that work billed; nothing goes to the client and nothing is recorded in your books yet. That step says so and offers a link to the invoice. From there, Send to client emails the PDF and a pay link and records the invoice as owed, and Keep unsent leaves it as a draft to send later.

Record payment and Mark paid both ask for the Date received, which starts at today. Change it to the day the money actually arrived, so a cheque from last week lands in last week. A date in the future is refused. For a payment taken in cash, by cheque or any way other than a card processor, pick Cash, cheque or other as the method.

The Record payment tile in the hub starts that command for you and leaves you to type the number. Anything the hub cannot recognise is handed to Ask rather than guessed at, so it never takes the wrong action.

The assistant card at the top

The hub opens on an assistant card. Its top line, Searching, names the mailbox the assistant will look through, by email address. With more than one mailbox connected, tap that line to pick another; tapping the one already chosen just closes the list. A reconnect or moved mailbox sends you to Mailboxes instead. Type in the box (it grows to a few lines; Return starts a new line) or tap the amber microphone to dictate. Once there is text in the box, an × beside it clears it in one tap, typed or dictated. The Ask button beside the card sends what you typed, or opens the full Ask screen when the box is empty.