Getting paid starts with sending an invoice, and Eano gives you a few ways to create one depending on how you bill. Whether you’re sending a one-off bill for weekly progress, passing tracked costs through to a client, or collecting on a payment milestone, the invoice ends up in the same place — connected to your project’s finances, ready to send by email, text, or the client portal.
This article walks through the three ways to create an invoice and when each one makes sense.
Three Ways to Create an Invoice
A manual invoice — you build it from scratch, line by line. Best for custom or progress billing that isn’t tied to anything preset.
From income and expense items — you pull existing financial items you’ve already tracked into an invoice, instead of retyping them. Best for cost-plus work and passing costs through.
From a payment milestone — Eano generates the invoice for you when a milestone comes due. Best for fixed-price jobs billed on a schedule.
All three live in the project’s Finance tab, and all three produce the same kind of professional invoice — with a preview, PDF, custom message, attachments, and optional credit card fee pass-through.
Building a Manual Invoice
A manual invoice is the most flexible option — perfect for projects that don’t run on milestones, like billing for weekly progress or a custom service.
Open the Finance tab and click + New Invoice. Fill in the line items, descriptions, amounts, due date, and any notes or attachments you want the client to see. When it looks right, send it — or save it as a draft to finish later.
If you’d like the client to cover the card processing fee, toggle on the credit card fee pass-through while you’re building the invoice. Below the total, you’ll see a note showing exactly what the client will pay in fees, so there are no surprises. (For the full picture on how that works, see Credit Card Fees and Refunds.)
Creating an Invoice from Income and Expense Items
If you’ve already been tracking income and expenses on a project, you don’t have to retype any of it. You can build an invoice straight from those existing items — which keeps your billing tied directly to your project finances.
In the Finance tab, under Income or Expenses, click + New Invoice to open a new draft. In the invoice builder, open the item selector and choose from what you’ve already tracked — scope-related income items and tracked expense items both show up, so you can pull in one or several at once. Each becomes a line item with its description and amount already filled in and linked back to the original record.
Review the pulled-in lines, confirm pricing and the due date, add your markup or any extra lines, and send. Because each line stays connected to the underlying financial item, your reporting stays accurate. This is the backbone of cost-plus billing — there’s a dedicated walkthrough in Billing on a Cost-Plus Basis.
Generating an Invoice from a Payment Milestone
On fixed-price jobs billed against a schedule, Eano does the work for you. Whenever you create or update a payment milestone with an amount, it generates a linked invoice automatically — a full, professional one, not just a number.
Open your project’s Milestones tab, click a milestone, and select Preview Invoice. From the preview you can see the full layout, confirm the amount, check taxes or fees, and download the PDF.
Before sending, you can customize the message to the client, add notes or instructions, attach photos or documents, and turn on credit card fee pass-through — the same options you get on any other invoice.
For setting up the schedule itself, see Setting Up Your Payment Schedule.
After You Create an Invoice
However you create it, an invoice moves through three states:
Draft — a work in progress. Editable, deletable, and invisible to your client until you finalize it. Saving a draft doesn’t notify anyone or touch your books.
Finalized — locked in, visible to your client, and counted in your financials. You can send it by email and text, or share the portal link yourself.
Voided — officially cancelled. Still visible to the client (clearly marked voided) but removed from your totals and no longer payable. Finalized invoices can’t be deleted — voiding is how you cancel one, which keeps your records intact.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Every invoice stays connected to your project finances. Whichever path you use, the invoice is linked to the project’s income, expenses, or milestone behind it — so your reporting and payment tracking stay accurate.
Drafts are safe to park. Save a draft anytime without notifying the client or affecting your books, and come back to finish it later.
Credit card fee pass-through is available on all three. Toggle it on while building the invoice and the client sees exactly what they’ll pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which way should I use? Use a manual invoice for custom or progress billing, build from income and expense items when you’ve tracked costs you want to bill (cost-plus), and let a payment milestone generate the invoice on a fixed-price schedule. They all produce the same kind of invoice.
Can I pass the credit card fee to my client? Yes, on any invoice. Toggle on the credit card fee pass-through while building it, and a note below the total shows what the client will pay. See Credit Card Fees and Refunds for details.
Do I have to retype expenses to bill for them? No. Create the invoice from your Income and Expenses and pull the tracked items straight in — description and amount come with them, linked back to the original record.
Can I save an invoice and finish it later? Yes. Save it as a draft. Drafts stay editable, don’t notify the client, and don’t count in your financials until you finalize them.
How do I cancel an invoice I already sent? Void it. Finalized invoices can’t be deleted, but voiding cancels the invoice, removes it from your totals, and leaves a clear record for your books.