Invoices and their statuses

Sent invoices are frozen

Once you send an invoice you cannot edit it, and you cannot put it back to draft, since invoices are financial records.

So check the numbers while it’s still a draft. If something’s wrong on a sent invoice, delete it (while it’s unpaid) and send a correct one.

The only moves from Pending are Paid, and from Paid, Refunded.

Copying the public link counts as sending. Generating a share link does everything emailing does: assigns the number, freezes the invoice, ends your ability to edit it. Billow warns you before it happens.

Need something close to an invoice you already sent? Duplicate it. You get a fresh draft titled “(copy)” with the same line items, ready to change. Deposit invoices can’t be duplicated.

Due dates

New invoices offer three options: Immediately, 15 days, or 30 days from the invoice date. 30 is the default, and it’s what auto-drafted invoices get.

Numbering

Sent invoices get INV-YYYY-NNNN (e.g. INV-2026-0001), counting up within each year and starting fresh in January.

Numbers are assigned on send, not on create, so drafts don’t consume one. Deleting a sent invoice doesn’t release its number either.

Two kinds of invoice

Regular invoices have line items you write.

Deposit invoices are tied to an accepted offer and bill a percentage of it. One per project. See Deposits and automatic invoices.

Project invoices vs standalone

Attached to a project with an offer, an invoice takes the project’s currency and locks it, so one engagement never mixes currencies halfway through.

The tax rate is locked the same way when a project has an offer. On a simple project there’s no offer to take tax from, so each invoice starts from your workspace defaults and stays editable.

Standalone invoices, not tied to a project, let you set currency and tax freely. Good for one-offs.

Switching the account on an invoice clears the project and contact, since they belonged to the old one.

Deleting

Admin only. A deleted invoice goes to a trash page you can restore from.

Two things block it:

• Paid through Stripe. “Cannot delete an invoice paid through Stripe.” There’s a real payment on record, so the invoice stays.

• A deposit invoice with regular invoices still around. “Cannot delete deposit invoice while regular invoices exist for this project.” Delete those first.

Manually-paid invoices can be deleted by an admin. Paid or not, the number is never reused.

Find deleted invoices on the deleted invoices page, where each row has a Restore button.

Restoring

An invoice comes back with its original number, status and paid date. Billow confirms first, and says so when the project it belonged to has been deleted since:

The project this invoice belonged to was deleted. The invoice will be restored without a project.

It returns as a standalone invoice, and its figures are untouched.

Three things stop a restore. The button is disabled with the reason on it:

• Its number is now on another invoice. “Cannot restore: invoice number INV-2026-0001 is now used by another invoice.”

• Its account was deleted. “Cannot restore: the client has been deleted.”

• It’s a deposit invoice whose project was deleted. “Cannot restore: the project has been deleted.” A deposit invoice has to belong to a project, so unlike a regular one it can’t come back on its own.