Quick Start
The following steps are the minimum you need to get started using Quip Invoices:
- Setup your company name and email address from the settings page.
- If you want to accept credit cards, fill in your Stripe API details (Stripe is available in Pro version).
- Also on the payment settings page, select the currency you wish to use.
- Check the email default settings to make sure you're happy with them.
- Now you can create your first invoice from the create invoice page!
- Happy Invoicing! Remember, you can always ask us for help if you need it.
Invoices & Quotes
Invoices and Quotes are central to Quip Invoices and allow you to quickly and easily create and send detailed invoices and quotes to your customers.
Invoices
Invoices in Quip Invoices consist of the following data:
- Invoice Number: A unique identifier for your invoice, can be any combination of text, symbols and numbers and should not be the same as another invoice or quote.
- Invoice Date: The date the invoice was created.
- Due Date: The deadline for payment of this invoice. After this date the invoice will be marked as PAST DUE.
- Notes: You can add notes to the invoice for your customer. These can be about anything you like and are added to the bottom of the invoice.
- Client: This is the client/customer the invoice is for. All invoices must be for a specific client and you can quickly create new clients when creating your invoices.
- Your Details: These are your company/personal details added to the invoice to show who is issuing the invoice. They default to your company settings but you can customize per invoice too.
- Partial Payments: You can choose to allow or disallow partial payment of invoices. If allowed, when viewing the invoice your customer is able to select a custom payment amount when paying by credit card.
- Payment Types: Choose which payment types you accept. These will be shown on the invoice the customer sees.
- Payment Instructions: If you choose mail or phone payments you can give extra instructions on how to make payment, such as bank details or times to call.
- Line Items: These are the products or services you are invoicing your customer for. Line items have the following data:
- Item:This is the name of the product or service you are billing for
- Rate:The base rate you charge for this product or service
- Quantity:The quantity of the product or service
- Adjustment:A percentage adjustment of the line item amount. For example a discount or per-item tax.
- Tax Rate: You can set the tax rate (as a percentage) for the invoice which is calculated automatically.
Invoice Actions
Once created, you can easily view the invoice from the Invoice page where it will be displayed in a sortable table. From this table you may perform the following actions :
- Edit: Edit the invoice by clicking the invoice number.
- View: View the invoice as the customer will see it.
- Details: View details about the invoice including emails sent and payments received.
- Send: Send the invoice via email.
- Copy: Make an exact copy of this invoice. Useful for quickly creating new invoices.
- Delete: This will delete the invoice and all line items.
Sending Invoices
Once created, you can send invoices via email by clicking the Send link for the invoice from the Invoices page. This will take you to a page where you can decide on the email content as well as choose to send to multiple email addresses. The client data is pre-filled for your convenience, as are the email defaults taken from your settings.
Once sent, the invoice status will be updated to Sent and Quip Invoices will track when the client views the invoice.
Quotes
Quotes are very similar to invoices (internally they are treated almost the same) except they are only used to give prices to clients, not accept payments. This means that all the data and actions you can do with Invoices you can do with Quotes except choosing payment options. Also, Quotes will not be able to accept payments from customers, simply showing the grand total amount for the line items on the quote.
Quote Actions
Quotes have the same actions as Invoices, plus:
- Convert to Invoice: This will convert a Quote to an Invoice, adding the ability to accept payment.
Clients
Quip Invoices lets you store client details to make it easier to create invoices and track what is owed. Creating a new client is straightforward, simply click the Create New Client tab from the Clients page and fill out information such as name, email and address. You can also create new clients during creation of an invoice by clicking the 'Add New' link and adding the client name and email.
Client Details
Clients have a details page, accessed from the Clients list action 'Details', which shows all the client invoices and any outstanding balances.
Payments
The payments page keeps track of all received payments. When a client pays an invoice via credit card directly, the payment data is stored and available from the Payments page. Manually added payments are also stored here and you can easily view and sort payments as well as view the related invoice details.
Manual Payments
For invoice payments you receive via mail, phone or in person you can add a manual payment by clicking the 'Add Payment' tab. Simply fill out the payment amount (in cents), the date and the type of payment as well as selecting the invoice to apply the payment too. The invoice will be updated to show the payment received.
Settings
Setting up Quip Invoices is easy!
Basic Settings
Basic settings include adding values for your company name, email, phone and address which will be included on your invoices by default. Only the company name and email are required however. You can also set an image for company logo here, uploaded from your WordPress Media Library. Recommended size around 200px wide by 50px height. Leaving the logo image blank will use your company name on invoices instead.
Email Settings
The email settings allow you to set defaults for the subject line and message content of your invoice related emails. You can use basic HTML in your email messages (use the Text tab on the editor) and there are also several dynamic tags:
- %%INVOICE_AMOUNT%% - The invoice total amount value
- %%INVOICE_DUE_DATE%% - The invoice due date
- %%INVOICE_LINK%% - A link to view the invoice online
- %%COMPANY_DETAILS%% - Your company details for this invoice (Name, Address, Phone, Email)
Wherever in the email message you place one of the dynamic tags, Quip Invoices will automatically substitute the correct invoice/quote information before sending the email.
Payment Settings
If you'd like to accept credit cards, you first need a free account from Stripe. Get a free Stripe account here. Once you have an account, fill out the API key fields on the payment settings page and Quip Invoices will take care of the rest. Here you can also set the currency your account is using, which also determines the currency shown throughout the plugin and on invoices and quotes. Finally, you can choose to put the plugin in Test mode which will only run test credit card payments. Once you are ready to accept real payments please switch this to Live mode.
Export
Use the buttons on the Export page to download CSV files containing all of your invoices, payments and clients.