OFFICE: Invoice Templates
What are Invoice Templates?
An Invoice Template is a ready-made design for the Invoice document itself. There are twenty of them, plus a No Template option that keeps the plain layout you already have. Picking a design changes only how the document looks: the Invoice's figures are untouched, and the Add and Edit Invoice form stays exactly as it is.
An Invoice is often the document your Clients forward the furthest, on to their own accountant and into their own filing, so it is the place a document that looks like your business matters most.
Where do I choose a Template?
On the Add Invoice or Edit Invoice screen, in the card titled TEMPLATE. The card names the design the Invoice uses and, underneath, says Using your current invoice, Preview & Change or Your Default · Preview & Change. Click the card to open the chooser, or click the eye icon to open the whole Invoice in its design in a new tab.
How do I pick a design?
- Click the TEMPLATE card to open Choose a Template.
- Browse or search. Every design is listed down the left with a one-line description, and the Search Templates box narrows the list.
- Click a design to see it. The preview on the right redraws using this Invoice's own data: your logo, your Client, your line items, taxes, discounts and totals. Where the Invoice is missing something a design shows off, the preview fills it with sample content and says so; that sample content never appears on your Client's Invoice. Preview Full Invoice opens the whole document at full size.
- Adjust your logo if you like, with the Custom Logo Size slider at the top of the list (200 to 400 pixels wide). It applies to every design.
- Click Use This Template, then save the Invoice as you normally would. Use No Template goes back to the plain layout.
TIP: The panel at the bottom of the list sets your default for new Invoices. Switch on Make [design] the Default and every Invoice you create from then on starts on that design. With the switch on, the button reads Use & Set as Default. Invoices you have already made keep the design saved on them.
How do I set the default for new Invoices?
Besides the switch in the chooser, you can set it in Office > Settings > Invoices. In the Logo & Basic Info section, choose a design under Template for New Invoices. Until you choose one, new Invoices use No Template.
In the same section you can upload the logo the designs use. An SVG file, or an image at least 800 pixels wide, keeps it sharp. Changing the default or the logo size needs access to Office Settings.
Do Invoice Generators use Templates?
Yes. Recurring, Accumulating and On-Demand Invoice Generators have the same TEMPLATE card. Choose a design there and every Invoice the Generator creates uses it. A Generator with no design of its own reads Follows Your Default · Preview & Change, so its Invoices take whatever your default is when each one is created.
A duplicated Invoice keeps its original's design, and an Invoice created from an approved Estimate keeps the Estimate's design.
Where does the chosen design show?
Everywhere the Invoice document is drawn: the Invoice page you open, the Invoice in your Client's portal, the page your Client opens from a payment link, the printed copy, the downloaded PDF and the PDF attached to the Invoice email. The whole document is styled to match, including the item table, the one-time and subscription totals, late-fee styling, payment plans, the payment-progress timeline and the Scan to pay code (on every design except Whitespace, Grid and Gazette, whenever the Invoice can be paid online). When your Client goes on to pay, the payment page's header follows the same design.
What colours do the designs use?
Your own. Every design takes the colours set in Platform Branding: your Primary Color runs through the bands, rules and figures, and your Highlight Color fills the Pay buttons and the Print and PDF actions. There is no separate colour to choose for Invoices. If a colour is too pale to read against white, the Invoice deepens it just enough to stay legible.
What designs can I choose from?
Twenty designs: Meridian, Horizon, Whitespace, Ledger, Dossier, Statement, Charter, Atelier, Studio, Eclipse, Console, Cardstock, Spine, Crest, Tape, Tabulate, Grid, Marquee, Maison and Gazette. Each one has a short description in the chooser, and the quickest way to judge one is to click it and look at the preview of your own Invoice.
No Template sits at the top of the list as an equal choice. It keeps the plain Invoice layout, and it is what every account starts on, so nothing changes until somebody chooses otherwise.
Can I change the design after sending?
Yes, while the Invoice can still be edited. Every screen then shows the new design, but a PDF already emailed to your Client keeps the design it was sent in. Once an Invoice is fully paid it can no longer be edited, so its design is fixed. If you have no logo yet, the preview and your own Invoice screen show a No Logo mark where it would go; your Client never sees it.
IMPORTANT: There is no design editor. You choose from the designs provided rather than building your own, so choosing one is the whole interaction. Estimates have their own Template choice, set separately from your Invoices. Every Invoice keeps the design saved on it until you change it.
CLICK HERE to learn more about Invoices.
CLICK HERE to learn more about Platform Branding.