How Billow works
The pieces Billow is built from, and how work moves from first contact to paid.
Billow is built around the project. A project is one piece of work for one account, and everything hangs off it: the invoices you bill, and the offer you send if you send one.
Most work follows the same path:
Lead → Project → Offer → Client accepts → Invoices → Paid
You don’t have to use all of it. Plenty of projects skip the lead, the offer, or both.
The pieces
Piece | What it is |
|---|---|
Account | A company you work for |
Contact | A person at that account |
Lead | An opportunity you’re still chasing |
Project | One piece of work for one account |
Offer | The proposal you send for a project |
Invoice | A bill, usually against a project |
Your workspace sits behind all of it and holds the settings new documents inherit: currency, tax rate, default deposit, bank details, contract terms. Fill those in once. See Setting up your workspace.
Two ways to run a project
When you create a project, Billow asks which kind you want.
Project with offer is the full path. You build an offer with deliverables and prices, send it, and your client accepts or declines it on a link. Accepting makes the project Active and drafts your invoices.
Simple project skips all of that. It’s somewhere to keep invoices for work that doesn’t need an offer: a retainer, an hourly month, a job you agreed on a call. Nothing is sent to your client. See Simple projects.
Starting simple doesn’t shut the door on the full path. You can add an offer later, though you can’t take one off once it’s attached.
Leads, if you want them
A lead is an opportunity you haven’t committed to yet. Track it on the pipeline board, and when the deal turns real, hit Start Project. The account and the contact come with it, and the lead leaves the board. See Turning a lead into a project.
You can skip leads entirely and create projects directly. The pipeline is on the Grow and Scale plans.
Accepting an offer drafts your invoices
When your client accepts, Billow creates the invoices for the whole engagement as drafts. The deposit percentage on the offer decides how many and for how much: 50% gives you a deposit and a final, 0% gives you a single invoice for the full amount.
Nothing is sent. They wait in your invoice list until you pick a payment method and send each one yourself.
Set the deposit before you send the offer, because it decides the whole billing schedule. Deposits and automatic invoices covers every combination.
Where to start
Set up your workspace, so your documents have something to inherit
Create your first project
Invoice it, or build an offer and send it
