BldrTeam calls it a bill. You almost certainly call it your invoice. They are the same document. The word is the builder's, because on their side it is a bill they have to pay.
Every bill starts from a purchase order
There is no button on the Bills list to raise one, and that is deliberate. A bill is always made from a purchase order, which is what ties what you are charging to what was ordered and stops the two drifting apart.
Open the purchase order and use Create Bill. If that button is not there it is usually one of three things: the purchase order has not been accepted yet, it has already been billed in full, or the builder is part way through amending it. The status panel tells you which state it is in.
Filling it in
Bill Number is for your own invoice number. Put it in, because BldrTeam also stamps its own internal number on the bill, and on screen the internal number is the heading while your number sits underneath it as Bill #. When you are matching a payment back to your own books, the one under the heading is yours.
Bill Date and Due Date are both required. The due date is worked out from the payment terms on the purchase order, so it usually needs no thought. Tax Rate (%) is prefilled from the project.
Billing in stages
The lines come from the purchase order, already filled in with what is still unbilled on each. A line billed out in full is simply not offered again.
You can change the Amount on any line, toggle Taxable, and Remove a line you are not charging for this time. You cannot add lines or change the description or cost code. Those belong to the purchase order, and a bill that could invent its own lines would not be a bill against that order.
So a monthly draw is the ordinary case rather than a workaround: bill part of a line now, come back next month, and the form offers you what is left.
Creating and submitting are separate steps
Create Bill saves a draft. A draft has gone nowhere; the builder has not seen it and nothing is waiting on them.
Sending it is a second, separate action: open the bill and use Submit. Only then does it go for approval.
One thing that surprises people: those buttons only appear for the person who created the bill. If a colleague raised it, you can read it but the actions are not yours.
What happens after you submit
The status on the bill is the whole story:
- Submitted or In Review: with the builder. In Review means their approval workflow has it, which may mean more than one person has to sign off.
- Approved: agreed. Payment follows on its terms.
- Partially Paid and Paid: money has moved. Amount Due on the bill is the live figure, with Paid to date beside it.
- Returned: sent back to you. This is the one that needs you.
A returned bill carries the reason the builder gave, along with who returned it and when. Correct it and use Resubmit. A return is not a rejection; it is a normal step in getting paid.
The rest of the bill
Attachments takes your own paperwork: a signed ticket, a delivery note, a photograph of the work. Attaching evidence to the bill rather than emailing it separately is the single most reliable way to shorten an approval.
Download PDF gives you a copy of the bill as the builder sees it.
Payments lists what has been received against it, so you can see part payments as they land rather than reconciling at the end of the month.
Finding a bill later
The Bills list covers every project you work on for this builder, and filters by status, by project, and by a search across bill numbers and amounts. An overdue due date is shown in red. Where you have filtered to one project and a bill spans several, the amount column shows that project's share and the full total beside it, so the number you are reading is the one you asked for.
See responding to a bid request for the other half of the relationship, and the vendor portal for the wider picture.