Send an Invoice

Review a draft, send it to the customer, and charge a saved card when autopay is on.

Updated October 2, 2026

Invoice statuses: Draft, Sent, Paid, Past due, Void, Rejected. The invoices list hides Void unless Status includes it — those rows are audit records, not the day-to-day queue. Customers see non-draft invoices in the portal and can pay online. Recurring plans often draft themselves on the billing day; you still send unless an automation does it.

Open the draft
Go to Sales and BillingInvoices. A monthly plan invoice is created on the contract's billing day. You can also click New Invoice and choose From a Contract, From a Job, or From a Customer.
Review the lines
Confirm the customer, sites, amounts, and tax. On a monthly plan, the plan fee is first; chemical usage appends below it when chemical billing is on. The Qty column shows the logged amount and, on itemized chemical lines, the inventory unit (for example 2 gal or 8 fl oz) next to the number. Summary-style chemical billing stays a single line at quantity 1.
Send
Click Send To Customer. If the customer has autopay and a card on file, the button reads Send & Auto-Charge instead — sending charges that card. Confirm the dialog Send Invoice To Customer?

What the Customer Receives

Send	The customer's email, text and portal notification
No autopay	The invoice with Pay This Invoice, using your invoice email wording from Customer Notifications.
Autopay, card charged	Your invoice was paid automatically: the invoice number, the total charged, the card fee when one applies ("That is $500.00 for the invoice plus a card processing fee of $15.23."), and the card ("Visa ending in 4242"), with View Invoice. There is no pay button.
Autopay, charge did not go through	The invoice with Pay This Invoice, the same as a customer without autopay. The office gets the failed-payment alert as before.
Mark as Paid with Send invoice copy to customer, paid in full	Your invoice is paid, with View Invoice and no pay button. A part payment sends the invoice for what is left.

The message is chosen after the charge or the recorded payment, so a customer never gets a bill and a receipt for the same send. The paid messages use fixed wording; your own invoice subject and intro are written for a bill and are not used on them.

Close a Prepaid Draft Without Emailing

A draft whose remaining balance is already covered by a recorded payment or contract credit stays Draft until someone finishes it. Automatically Send Draft Invoices, a contract's own scheduled sends, and a Send Draft Invoices campaign all skip these on purpose so a customer who prepaid months ago is not emailed a bill.

When a contract that sends its scheduled invoices automatically drafts one that contract credit already covers in full, the office gets a notification titled Scheduled invoice covered by credit: "INV-… is fully covered by credit — open it and choose Close as Paid. It was not sent to the customer." It is sent once for that invoice, to office users only.

Open the settled draft
On Sales and BillingInvoices, open the draft. A green banner reads Prepaid in full — nothing is owed on this draft. Close as Paid finishes it without emailing the customer.
Close as Paid
Click Close as Paid (no email). The hover text is Finalize this prepaid draft as paid. The customer is not emailed. Status becomes Paid. There is no email, SMS, portal push, or autopay attempt. The paid date is taken from the payment or credit that covered it, not from today.

Send To Customer stays on the page as the secondary button if you do want them to receive a copy. Mark as Paid is hidden on these drafts — there is nothing left to record.

If the draft still owes something, the close path refuses with This draft still has a balance. Record the payment first, or send it to the customer.

When a Payment Is More Than the Invoice

What happens to the extra depends on whether the invoice belongs to a contract, because only a contract has a credit ledger to hold it.

Invoice	What Record Payment does with the extra
Sent, on a contract	The invoice keeps what it was owed and the page confirms $70.00 moved to contract credit. The credit funds the next invoice from that contract.
Draft, on a contract	The whole check stays on the draft; the form says On a draft invoice, the full $250.00 is recorded here. When the invoice is sent or closed, the extra $70.00 is saved as contract credit. Sending it, Mark as Paid, or Close as Paid (no email) then moves the extra to the contract, once.
No contract (draft or sent)	Refused: This payment is $70.00 more than the invoice balance. Record $180.00, or add the extra work to the invoice first.

The check itself is always kept at its full amount in the payment history, so it matches the customer's bank statement.

If you lower the lines on a draft below the contract credit already applied to it, the difference goes back to the contract in the same save and the page confirms it, for example $400.00 of credit went back to the contract. Raising the lines never pulls more credit; use the Apply $… credit button for that.

A draft with no contract that already holds more in payments than its total (the lines were lowered after the payment) cannot be sent or closed until you remove or correct the payment, or add the extra work back.

Removing a payment

Remove next to a recorded payment is hidden only while part of that payment really is on the contract as overpayment credit (removing it then would count the money twice). Otherwise Remove takes the payment off and the invoice goes back to its unpaid balance, including on an older invoice that was left showing more paid than its total.

Skip the review click

SettingsAutomations → Automatically Send Draft Invoices emails (and optionally texts) drafts after they sit for the hours you choose. Manual send still goes out immediately.

Verify it worked

The invoice status is Sent (or Paid if autopay succeeded — the customer then gets the paid-automatically message, not a bill — or Paid after Close as Paid (no email) with no customer email). The customer can see non-draft invoices in the portal. If they rejected it, status is Rejected — online pay and mark-paid stay blocked until the office voids or otherwise resolves billing.

What to do next

Invite the customer to pay and manage cards in the portal, or turn on automatic send.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the button say Send & Auto-Charge?

That customer has autopay on and a card on file. Sending the invoice also charges that card. The office can see brand and last four on the customer page. The customer turns autopay on in the portal under Billing, or through a setup link.

What does an autopay customer receive when I send their invoice?

One message, decided after the charge. When the card is charged they get "Your invoice was paid automatically" with the amount charged, the card fee if there is one, and the card's brand and last four, with a View Invoice button and no pay button. When the charge does not go through they get the ordinary invoice email with Pay This Invoice. They never get both.

Can I invoice without a job?

Yes. New Invoice → From a Customer is a free-form invoice. From a Contract uses a plan slot. From a Job bills a completed visit.

I voided an invoice and it disappeared from the list.

Status starts with Void unchecked. Check Void on the Status filter (Office mobile — tap Void). Header Search and the invoice URL still open it. List search still respects Status, so searching the invoice number while Void is off will miss the row.

The draft already shows $0 due. Why would Send To Customer email them?

Recording a payment or applying contract credit on a draft never changes its status, and Automatically Send Draft Invoices skips these (already settled) so it does not bill someone who prepaid. Open the invoice. The green banner reads Prepaid in full — nothing is owed on this draft. Close as Paid finishes it without emailing the customer. Click Close as Paid (no email). Send To Customer is still there as the secondary button if you do want them to receive a copy.

A draft says "This draft replaced INV-… when its visit was completed". What do I do?

Compare it with the draft it replaced, then click Send To Customer. When a visit is completed and its billing cycle already has a draft that no longer matches what the visit bills (you edited the draft's lines or discount, or the visit now has other add-ons or chemicals), OpsVara voids that draft and builds this one in its place. The notice shows both totals and links to the voided draft; anything you had typed on it is not carried over. Because the two can differ, OpsVara never sends the new draft automatically and a Send Draft Invoices campaign leaves it out; sending it yourself ends that. A draft that still matches the visit is not replaced at all.

A draft says "This invoice includes work from the previous term — review it, then send it yourself." What do I do?

Read it, then click Send To Customer. It is a renewed plan's invoice that also bills add-ons or chemicals from the previous term (each such line shows the month it was done), or a final invoice made with Create Final Invoice on an ended contract. Because the work is from a term that is over, OpsVara never sends it automatically and a Send Draft Invoices campaign leaves it out; sending it yourself ends that.

The invoice says Bank payment processing. Why can't I void it or revert it to draft?

The customer started a bank (ACH) payment, which takes 1–5 business days to clear or fail. Until then Void and Revert To Draft answer A bank payment is processing on this invoice. Wait until it clears or fails before voiding it (or before reverting it to draft). The invoice marks itself paid when the funds clear. The customer also cannot pay it a second time meanwhile, because the portal and the pay link hide the pay buttons and show Bank payment processing. If it is still processing after more than five business days, the notice offers Bank Payment Did Not Arrive — Allow Payments Again, which clears it.

A customer's check is for more than the invoice. What happens to the extra?

On an invoice that belongs to a contract, the extra becomes contract credit and funds the next invoice from that contract. On a sent invoice that happens when you record the payment. On a draft the whole check stays on the draft, and the extra moves to the contract when you send it, mark it paid or close it. An invoice with no contract has nowhere to keep the extra, so Record Payment refuses it and tells you the amount to record instead.

Why is there no Remove link on a recorded payment?

Part of that payment is sitting on the contract as overpayment credit, so removing it from the invoice would count the money twice. Remove the overpayment credit on the contract first, then the Remove link comes back. When no such credit exists, Remove is offered and takes the payment off the invoice.