Powerful Features Under the Hood

Invoice Ninja’s Recurring Invoice feature automatically creates invoices and sends to the client on a regular, pre-defined basis. For each recurring job, you only need to set up the procedure once. Here’s how it works:   To create a recurring invoice, go to the Invoices tab and select New Recurring Invoice. This will open a Recurring Invoices / Create page. Enter the Client name. Then, to select the frequency of the invoice, click on the arrow on the right hand side of the How Often field. This will open a drop-down menu with a range of options – from Weekly to Annually. Select the right frequency option for this job.   If the job is ongoing indefinitely, select the Start Date and leave the End Date blank. If the job has a set time frame, select the relevant start and end dates. Complete the invoice as usual, and the invoice will be automatically sent to the client according to your chosen frequency.   To edit the invoice frequency, simply click on Invoices, select the relevant invoice from the list, and click Edit Invoice on the Select tab of the Action column.   So, next time you feel a recurring invoice headache coming on, remember that Invoice Ninja’s Recurring Payment & Auto-Billing feature is the automatic, one-time-set-up answer that you’re looking for.

With the Invoice Ninja client-side portal, you can give customers access to all the invoicing information they need to feel secure, confident and happy – without actually doing anything at all.   The client side portal displays for the customer their invoicing activity with you, in the user-friendly Invoice Ninja interface. Customers can view or download all past and current invoices, past payments and due payments, active and approved quotes, as well as their own dashboard (optional), which provides the bigger picture of all their past payments and amounts owing to you.   To view a client portal, click on the View as recipient link, at the top left of any invoice. The invoice will open in the client portal, so you can see exactly how it looks to the customer. Click on tabs on the taskbar to explore the portal for the particular client.

The Invoice Ninja partial payment feature provides a simple way for you to invoice for advance deposits. After a deposit has been paid, the invoice is automatically updated to reflect the partial payment. So when you resend the invoice after the job is done, the customer is charged only for the outstanding amount. All of this is completed without any extra effort from you.   First, create a new invoice. Then, enter the amount required as a deposit in the Partial field, located beneath the Due Date field. Save the invoice, and email it to the customer. When the job is complete, send the same invoice. The Paid to Date figure shows the partial payment amount that has already been paid, and the Balance Due reflects only the outstanding balance.   With the automatic deposit payment feature, it has never been easier to offer the payment flexibility that your customers appreciate.

With so many incoming requests and outgoing invoices, multiple clients, and concurrent jobs, there must be an easier way to stay on top of your payments. All this stress is handled smoothly and painlessly by the Invoice Ninja auto-reminder system.   When you create an invoice, remember to enter the due date. Then, by referencing the due date, Invoice Ninja can track where a payment is up to – and you can find out right away with a two-second glance at your Dashboard.   To enter the due date in an invoice, go to the Invoice / Create page. Select the right date from the calendar in the Due Date field, and you’re done. Really.   You can even send automatic reminder emails for overdue payments. Choose the dates and the message, and Invoice Ninja automatically sends the reminders for you.   It’s no secret that there are some aspects of invoicing that are just plain annoying. Collecting payments is one of them. But with the Invoice Ninja auto-reminder system, it doesn’t have to be!

Keeping track of invoices is much more than just sending emails and hoping for the best. The Invoice Ninja alerts system is designed to notify you by email when an invoice has been sent, viewed, or payed, and when a quote has been approved. You can choose which notifications you want to receive, and set up an alert system that gives you the information you need without unnecessarily clogging up your inbox.   To set up the alert system that’s right for you, go to Basic Settings > Email Notifications. You have up to 4 options for alerts: when an invoice is sent, when an invoice is viewed, when an invoice is payed, and when a quote is approved (only for Pro Plan users). Check the box for each alert you wish to receive. You can choose just one, or all of them, or any combination. It’s totally up to you.  After you click Save, your alerts system is set, and you will now receive email notifications to the address assigned to your Invoice Ninja account.   Once you’ve got used to receiving alerts, you’ll see just how helpful they are in your invoicing flow.

When you enter a client’s street address to the Client Details page, a Google map showing their location will automatically display on their Client page.   If you never entered the client’s address manually, don’t worry. When the client pays you via the Invoice Ninja system, they are required to enter their address. When they do, their Client page will automatically update with the Google map showing their location.   If you do want to enter the client’s address, and have the Google map ready in an instant, click on the Clients tab of the main taskbar. Find the relevant client in the list and click to open their Client page. Then click the gray Edit Client button in the top right corner of the page. On the Clients > Edit page, scroll to the Address box, at the bottom left. Enter the client’s address details, and click the green Save button. You’ll be automatically redirected to the View Client page, and the Google map will be waiting for you.

WePay is one of the world’s most popular, reliable and trusted online payment providers. And now, WePay is native inside Invoice Ninja, providing 100% seamless, integrated payments processing via credit card or bank transfer – directly from your Invoice Ninja account.   To start getting paid now, all you need to do is enable WePay to accept credit cards and/or bank transfers on your behalf. And you can do that without even leaving the Invoice Ninja site. How? It’s as simple as checking a few boxes in your Invoice Ninja account.   Go to Basic Settings > Online Payments, and you’ll see the Accept credit cards option, with 5 major credit cards listed. Check the credit cards you want to accept, and then you’ll be prompted to complete your WePay account set up – in the familiar, friendly Invoice Ninja environment you’ve come to know and love. There’s no annoying redirects, no waiting for approval, and no need to re-verify your personal and financial details.   If you want to accept bank transfers, check the ACH box. Without leaving your Invoice Ninja account, and without having to log in or sign up anywhere else, you can now complete all the details of your bank account to enable bank transfer payments from your customers.   Simplified, streamlined, smooth. That’s what the Wepay + Invoice Ninja alliance is all about.

With Invoice Ninja, you can make your invoicing software look and act exactly the way you want. You can create an invoicing home that gives you what you need, and removes all the parts that don’t interest you. And in the true Invoice Ninja tradition, making the invoicing system truly your own is just a matter of a few simple steps.   It all comes down to our Enable/Disable Modules feature. This feature gives you the option to remove any parts of the Invoice Ninja system that you are not using or that are not relevant to your business at this moment.   It’s never been easier to customize the invoicing experience than with Invoice Ninja’s new approach that supports enabling/disabling of modules. It’s all about providing you with the support you need to make Invoice Ninja your true invoicing home.

Keeping control of your invoicing and payments is all about setting limits. So, this means you’ve got your own rules about when your payments are due, how to handle overdue payments, and the payment methods you’re willing to accept.   But now, you can get even more specific with your payments by using the Invoice Ninja feature that supports setting gateway limits. The Setting Gateway Limits feature gives you the power to control exactly how much your customer can pay with a certain payment gateway.   To set Gateway Limits, go to Advanced Settings > Online Payments. Choose the payment gateway from the list, and click on the Action button. On the drop down menu, click the Set Limits button.   Use the scroll bar in the Set Limits pop up box to define your minimum and maximum limits for the payment gateway.   By setting payment gateway limits, you can better manage your payment gateway fees, and you can enjoy extra freedom to direct your hard-earned cash to the precise bank or credit account that you want.

There’s a million and one options for the payment terms that you and your client can agree on. But what’s the one thing we can all agree on? It’s best to make sure your client accepts the payment terms before you’ve made the commitment, and it’s even better to make it official by getting the client to sign upfront.   The optional Accept Terms feature created by Invoice Ninja offers the ideal solution. Invoice Ninja users can choose to create a setting that requires the client to officially accept your payment terms when they receive the invoice. And in keeping with Invoice Ninja’s intuitive, user-friendly approach, your client can take the action in one of two user-friendly ways.   They can either accept the terms with a one-click check of the “Accept payment terms” box – or, if they are using a touch screen device, they can even sign the terms agreement using their finger or stylus. With a quick virtual scribble of their signature, your clients can accept the payments terms with one touch, and you can seal the deal faster, smoother, and with no unexpected surprises in store. It’s all about making your relationships with clients better.

How much have I earned this year? How much have I spent on the business this year? These are the kinds of questions that you’ll need the answers to, not just for your own interest, but also for your annual accounting and tax calculations.   So here’s what we’ve done. We’ve programmed Invoice Ninja to support setting the start of the fiscal year. So, the updates to the values that you see on the Dashboard show the totals for the current year only. All the other fantastic features of the Dashboard remain the same – including the ability to jump between the various currencies to see how your business is faring across all the currencies you accept.   To set the fiscal year for your account, go to Basic Settings > Localization. Scroll down to the First Month of the Year field, and select the beginning of the fiscal year. You’re all set!

Entering expenses one by one can be time consuming and energy draining, so we’ve created a feature that lets you import your expenses data directly to your Invoice Ninja account by logging in to your bank or credit card account, or importing a .CSV file of your expenses data.   So instead of fiddling around with messy manual entry of your expenses, you can quickly and automatically import them to Invoice Ninja – without all the fuss.   Want to cut down on the fuss even more? No problem. You can also create new vendor entries while you are importing the expenses data. So if there is a new vendor involved, the Invoice Ninja system enables you to import the details of the new vendor, and create a new vendor entry, all while during the import process.   To import expenses data, go to Basic Settings > Import / Export. Click the Expense File button to browse your computer and select the relevant file. Be sure to select the type of source file from the drop down menu located just above.

Cloning invoices is a great feature that saves tons of time and effort. Instead of re-entering all the invoice information for a similar job, you can just clone an existing invoice, and edit any details that need changing. And now, you can even enable the recurring setting when cloning a regular invoice – or alternatively, when you clone a recurring invoice, you can disable recurring and change it to a one-time invoice. It’s all a matter of increasing the flexibility purpose built into the Invoice Ninja system that takes into account the million-and-one possible permutations of your invoicing needs.   To clone a recurring invoice, go to the Recurring Invoices list and choose the relevant invoice. Then, click on the Select button in the far right hand column of the invoice entry, and select Clone Invoice. The invoice will be duplicated in a new page.   To change the invoice from recurring to a single invoice, click the gray Disable Recurring button on the invoice.

There’s one thing better than choosing how your list pages look. It’s saving your preferences, so each page will be displayed exactly how you want, every time you open it. Invoice Ninja introduces a new Save function for your list display and sort field. Decide on your list display, set your preferences, and create perfect looking lists, just the way you like them.   And, you can set your preferences according to each list page. So, if you want to list your invoices by date, go ahead! But you want to view your clients in alphabetical order. No problem. And you prefer to have your payments listed 100 per page, so you can get a good account history in one glance. Your call! Make the choice, and save it. It’s just another feature that makes Invoice Ninja your truly customizable, user-friendly invoicing system.

Invoice Ninja already offers you 50+ payment gateways to choose from, attractive customizable invoices and instant online payment options. Now we’ve added another feature to help create an even smoother, easier payment process for your customers. It’s the Custom payment feature, and it gives you the option to add your own label and text to the ‘Pay Now’ button dropdown that appears on the online invoice.   When your customer clicks the Pay Now button, you can opt to include different labels or text to the drop down menu, giving the customer more information to help them make the payment right away. For example, you can share your bank account details with the customer via this feature, so they can immediately make a bank transfer from their account to yours. Or if you want to be paid via check, you could include details about how the customer should write out a check to your business.   There are so many different ways you can help customers fulfil their payment to you – luckily, with the new Custom payment option, you can help them by providing the exact information they need, when they click the ‘Pay Now’ button.

For those among us with HTML knowledge, you can now use raw HTML as the content for your email templates. Every email sent on your behalf by the Invoice Ninja system, whether an invoice, quote or payment email, can now be completely customized by you, in raw HTML, giving you greater flexibility to create the result you want.   To use raw HTML, go to Advanced Settings > Email Templates & Reminders, and click on the gray Raw button. Then you can insert HTML to your heart’s content.

Your time is precious. Time is money. When you’re running your own business from day to day, who doesn’t love a shortcut?   That’s why we’ve created a new feature to cut your invoicing time and make it go just that little bit faster. It’s the Keyboard Shortcuts feature. Now, when you’re working on your accounts in Invoice Ninja, you can use our easy keyboard shortcuts to navigate the site as quickly as possible. Instead of clicking on the tab with your mouse, or scrolling through menus, you can jump to any list page, ‘Create’ page, your Dashboard, the Help page or any other page in your Invoice Ninja account simply by pressing the letter key code for the page you want.   First, make sure your cursor is not active in a field onscreen. Then, type the letter, symbol or combination of letters (one after the other) to reach the desired page. You don’t even have to hold down the Ctrl button.  Just enter the letters and voila! The page you selected will open instantly and automatically.

Invoice Ninja presents a solution to the issue of cash flow, with the help of BlueVine, the leading online invoice factoring service.   With BlueVine, you can receive fast, online financing against your accounts receivable, for amounts between $5000 and $2,000,000. Opening an account is free, and takes just minutes. Then, you can apply for advance funding with one or more of your outstanding invoices. And when your invoices are paid by the client, BlueVine is reimbursed from your account.   With favorable rates, absolutely no maintenance fees, no prepayment penalties and no unused credit fees, it really pays to work with BlueVine to receive automatic financing for your unpaid invoices. And, BlueVine works in sync with Invoice Ninja software to manage your advance payments and reimbursements to BlueVine in one simple click.   When you log in to your Invoice Ninja account, you’ll receive a message to your Dashboard giving you the option to sign up to BlueVine. Click on the sign up link in the message, and complete the few simple steps to get started on your BlueVine account.

With the Status filter, you can now filter your invoices list according to any status, including Draft, Sent, Viewed, Partial, Paid and Overdue. How? Go to your Invoices list page, and click on the filter field located next to the Archive button at the top left of the page. Then, select your filter from the drop down menu. You can even filter according to multiple statuses. Just open the filter menu again and select more filters according to your needs.   You can filter your clients list in much the same way, making it fast and simple to view your client data in the exact way you want. On the Clients list page, open the filter menu by clicking on the filter field located next to the Archive button at the top left of the page. You can choose one or more of the three filters: Active, Archived and Deleted.   It’s never been easier to curate and control your client and invoice data than with the Invoice Ninja status filter feature.

We’ve expanded and updated the Reports feature with two new reporting functions: Aging Accounts and Client Statement.   Aging Accounts is the ideal way for business owners to get an overview of overdue invoices. All invoices that are past due are filtered into the Aging Accounts report, so you can keep track of which clients have unpaid invoices, the outstanding amounts, and the due dates. It’s the easiest way to understand your overdue payments, so you can take control of your cash flow.   Client Statement gives a fast, simple overview of the detailed account balance for each individual customer. To view a client statement, go to the Client’s overview page, and click the View Statement button at the top right of the page. A downloadable PDF file will automatically generate, providing you with a complete summary of the client’s accounts – including current and outstanding invoices, due dates, totals for each invoice, and total balance.   The Reports function is a vital part of Invoice Ninja, giving you the tools you need to understand the bigger financial picture. Explore your business even more deeply, with these two new, advanced reports.    

The Bulk Emailing feature provides the capability to send invoices or quotes in bulk, without having to navigate to each individual invoice or quote page. So if you have a number of clients to bill, whether it be 2 or 200, why not send the invoices in bulk emails, by simply selecting the relevant invoices from the Invoices list?   To use the Bulk Emailing feature, go to the Invoices list page. Select the invoices you want to send by checking the box in the left hand column, next to the invoice number. You can choose as many invoices as you like. Then, click on the arrow on the Archive button to open the drop down menu and select “Email Invoice”. All the invoices you selected will be automatically sent to the recipients. So, instead of opening each invoice page, and clicking “Send” for every invoice, now you can send all your due invoices in one click with the convenient Bulk Emailing feature. Try it today.

When you opt to enable the BCC email address setting, Invoice Ninja will automatically send a copy of all invoices, quotes, receipts and reminders that are sent to your clients, instantly and directly to the email address that you provide. So every time your clients receive an email from your Invoice Ninja account, you’ll receive it too. And, since it’s BCC, your email address is completely hidden, so the client won’t know that you’ve also received the email.   To enable the BCC email option, go to Advanced Settings > Email Settings. Then, enter the email address of your choice in the BCC Email field. It doesn’t have to be the email address already linked to your Invoice Ninja account – select any email address you want.