invoice template customization

**

---
title: "Invoice Template Customization"
category: "Invoicing"
description: "Customize your invoice and estimate PDF styling with fonts, colors, and layouts"
---

## Overview

Customize how your invoices and estimates look when sent to customers or downloaded as PDFs. Choose fonts, colors, and layout options to match your brand. You can even upload a reference invoice and let AI analyze it to match your existing style automatically.

## Accessing Template Settings

1. **Go to Settings** in your contractor dashboard
2. **Click "Invoice Style"** in the sidebar
3. **See live preview** of your current template on the right

## Customization Options

### Fonts

Choose from professional font combinations:
- **Modern Sans** - Clean, contemporary (Inter)
- **Classic Serif** - Traditional, elegant (Merriweather)
- **Professional** - Balanced readability (Roboto)

### Colors

Customize your brand colors:
- **Primary Color** - Main brand color for headers and accents
- **Secondary Color** - Supporting color for totals and highlights
- **Text Color** - Body text color (typically dark gray or black)

### Layout Options

- **Logo Position** - Left, center, or right alignment
- **Header Style** - Minimal, standard, or bold
- **Line Item Display** - Compact or spacious

## AI-Powered Style Matching

Upload an existing invoice PDF and let AI analyze it to match your styling automatically:

1. **Click "Upload Reference Invoice"** in the style settings
2. **Select a PDF** of an invoice you've sent before
3. **AI analyzes** fonts, colors, spacing, and layout
4. **Review the suggestions** in the preview
5. **Click "Apply"** to use the detected styles
6. **Fine-tune** any settings manually if needed

### What AI Detects

- Font families used in headers and body text
- Primary and secondary brand colors
- Logo positioning
- Header and footer styles
- Line item spacing and formatting

## Applying Your Template

Your customized template applies automatically to:
- **All new invoices** created after saving
- **All new estimates** created after saving
- **Downloaded PDFs** for existing invoices/estimates
- **Emailed invoices** sent to customers

### Per-Document Overrides

While your template sets the default, you can override styling for individual documents when needed (coming soon).

## Previewing Changes

The live preview on the right shows your template in real-time as you make changes:
- **Sample invoice data** demonstrates how it will look
- **All elements visible** - header, line items, totals, footer
- **Updates instantly** as you adjust settings

## Saving Your Template

1. **Make your changes** using the style controls
2. **Review in the preview**
3. **Click "Save Template"**
4. **Confirmation appears** when saved successfully

Your template is now applied to all future invoices and estimates.

## Tips

- **Match your branding** - Use the same colors as your website and logo
- **Keep it readable** - Avoid low-contrast color combinations
- **Test with customers** - Send yourself a test invoice to see how it looks
- **Use AI first** - Upload a reference invoice to get 90% of the way there instantly

## Questions

**Q: Do changes apply to old invoices?**
A: Your template affects newly created documents and PDFs generated after the change. Existing PDFs already sent remain unchanged.

**Q: Can I have different templates for invoices vs estimates?**
A: Currently, one template applies to both. Per-document-type templates are coming soon.

**Q: What if AI doesn't detect my colors correctly?**
A: You can manually adjust any setting after AI analysis. The AI provides a starting point, not a final result.

**Q: Can I reset to default styling?**
A: Yes, click "Reset to Default" in the style settings to return to BlueClerk's standard template.

2. UPDATE - Creating an Invoice

ACTION: UPDATE FILENAME: invoicing/creating-invoice.md

CONTENT:

---
title: "Creating an Invoice"
category: "Invoicing"
description: "Create professional invoices for your completed work"
---

## Overview

Invoices are how you get paid. When work is complete, you create an invoice that documents what was done and how much is owed. BlueClerk invoices are professional, can accept online payments, integrate with accounting software, and can include photos from your completed work.

## Creating an Invoice

### From a Completed Job

The most common way:

1. **Complete a job** with a job report
2. **Click "Create Invoice"** from the job
3. **Confirm creation** when prompted
4. Customer, property, and work details pre-fill

### From Scratch

1. **Go to Invoices** in the navigation
2. **Click "New Invoice"** or "Create Invoice"
3. **Fill in the invoice form** with all required details

## Invoice Form Layout

The invoice creation page uses a spacious, QuickBooks-inspired layout with clear sections:

### Customer Section

- **Select or search customer** - Type to find existing customers
- **Customer details display** - Name, email, phone, and address shown
- **Property link** (if applicable) - Address of work location

### Invoice Details

- **Invoice number** - Auto-generated on save, or enter manually
- **Invoice date** - Defaults to today
- **Due date** - Defaults to 30 days out

### Line Items

- **Add line items** for each service or product
- **Item name** - What was provided
- **Description** - Optional details
- **Quantity** and **Unit Price**
- **Tax toggle** - Apply tax per line item
- **Remove items** with the trash icon
- **Add more items** with the + button

### Totals Section

Automatically calculated:
- **Subtotal** - Sum of all line items
- **Tax** - Applied based on your default tax rate and taxable items
- **Total** - Amount due from customer

### Notes

Add internal notes or customer-facing notes to provide context or instructions.

### Actions

- **Save as Draft** - Save progress without sending
- **Save and Send** - Save and email to customer immediately
- **Preview PDF** - See how the invoice will look

## Unsaved Changes Protection

If you try to leave the page with unsaved changes:
- **Warning dialog appears** asking if you want to leave
- **Discard changes** - Leave without saving
- **Stay on page** - Continue editing
- **Save and leave** - Save then navigate away

This prevents accidental data loss when you've spent time building an invoice.

## Pre-filling from Jobs

When you create an invoice from a completed job:

### Automatically Populated

- **Customer** - From the job
- **Property** - From the job location
- **Line items** - From materials and labor recorded in the job report
- **Notes** - Any job notes included
- **Photos** - Job report photos can be attached

### What You Still Need

- **Review line item prices** - Job reports may not include pricing
- **Adjust quantities** - Verify all amounts are correct
- **Add any missing items** - Not everything may have been in the job report
- **Set due date** - Choose payment terms

## Invoice Customization

Your invoices use your saved invoice template for styling:
- **Company logo** and colors
- **Font choices** for headers and body text
- **Layout preferences** for professional appearance

To customize your template, see [Invoice Template Customization](/help/invoicing/invoice-template-customization).

## After Creating an Invoice

Once saved:
- **Status is Draft** until sent
- **Invoice number is assigned** (if auto-generated)
- **You can edit** any details before sending
- **Customer cannot see it** until you send it

Next steps:
- [Send the invoice](/help/invo