What you can put on an invoice depends on how the job is being billed, so that is the first thing to be clear about.
The billing method decides the shape
A project is billed one of three ways, and each produces a different kind of invoice:
Fixed price, by milestone. The contract total is agreed up front and split into milestones. You invoice a milestone when it is reached, and the amount is the amount you agreed, not a recalculation of what the work cost you.
Cost plus. You invoice the costs actually incurred, plus your fee. The fee can be expressed as a markup on the costs or as a margin of the total; they are different sums, and the job carries one or the other deliberately.
Time and materials. Labor and materials as they are spent.
Changing the billing method mid-job changes what an invoice means, so set it when the job is created.
The stages an invoice goes through
An invoice starts as a draft, which is yours alone. Nothing is visible to the client and nothing counts as billed.
From there it may go through review and approval, if your company routes invoices that way, before being sent.
Once it is sent, BldrTeam records when the client actually opens it. That matters more than it sounds: "we sent it three weeks ago" and "they have not opened it" are different conversations, and knowing which one you are in changes how you chase.
Then paid, in full or in part. Partial payments are tracked against the invoice rather than requiring a new one.
An invoice that should never have been raised is voided rather than deleted, so the numbering stays intact and the trail explains itself.
Getting paid through the portal
If you have accepted payments set up, the invoice the client opens carries a way to pay it there and then. Most of the delay in getting paid is friction rather than reluctance, and removing a trip to the bank removes most of the friction.
Change orders and invoicing
Approved change orders change what is billable. On a fixed price job, an approved change order adds to the contract total, and the addition becomes available to invoice; you do not raise a separate one-off invoice outside the contract. That is why approving them promptly matters there: unapproved scope is work you have done and cannot bill.
On a cost plus job the rules are different. You cannot invoice a change order there at all; the portal turns you away and tells you the costs will be included in the next cost plus invoice. They will be, as you approve the bills behind them, whether or not a change order covers the scope. A change order on a cost plus job keeps the client's expectations and the estimate aligned, but it is not what releases the money.
A practical sequence
- Confirm the job's billing method is right before the first invoice.
- Raise the invoice as a draft and check it against the milestone, costs or hours it is meant to cover.
- Send it, and watch whether it is opened.
- Record payments as they arrive, in part or in full.
See financials for the reporting this feeds, and what your clients can see for the homeowner's side of it.