Tutorial · 04
From a pile of captured hours, miles, and receipts to a branded invoice in your client's inbox — and a polite nudge if they sit on it. Eight scenes, about a minute and a half.
~2-minute walkthrough · 8 scenes
Step-by-step
An invoice is the moment everything you've captured — every hour, every mile, every receipt — turns into a number your client can pay. Nothing gets re-typed. Nothing gets copied off a crumpled receipt. The lines build themselves from what you already did in the field.
An invoice in Handle It! always moves through three screens: Handle the Bill (pick what to charge for) → Invoice Preview (brand it, send it) → Billed! (locked and tracked). The header at the top always tells you which phase you're on. The back button is smart — from Preview it returns to your selections; from Billed! it returns to wherever you came from (usually the project).
The first screen splits everything into two groups: TIME & MILEAGE on top, EXPENSES below. Anything already billed on a previous invoice sits underneath a "locked" divider — visible but un-tickable, with a padlock icon. Tap items individually, or use the single "Select All / Clear" toggle at the top to grab (or release) everything billable in one move. A live tray at the bottom shows your selected count and dollar total. Hit "Handle the Bill" to roll to the preview.
On hourly projects, the bill adds hours × your rate + mileage + receipts. On flat-fee projects, the project itself carries a FLAT badge: the flat number covers all labor and mileage, while supplies and receipts still get added as line items on top. You set up the project once. The invoice picks the right formula every time.
The preview is what your client sees. Your logo top-right. Invoice number and date. FROM block with your business name, email, phone, address. TO block with the client's name and project. Itemized lines with descriptions and amounts. A total at the bottom. Need to discount? Tap a chip — Senior, Referral, or Custom — and the amount comes off the total in red. The PDF export button lives in the top-right of this screen.
The "Email" button opens your phone's mail app with a pre-filled subject ("Invoice from Bay Marina — Marina upkeep") and a message body you can edit. Pick a tone template — first send, follow-up, or final — and the wording adjusts. Above the invoice, a "SEND PAYMENT VIA" chip picker shows the payment methods you've set up in Settings — Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, PayPal, and Square — and lets you toggle which ones appear on this particular invoice.
When the money lands, hit "Mark Paid" and pick the method — cash, check, Venmo/Zelle, or other. The header flips to "Billed!" The line items lock with a padlock icon and a green "Billed" badge. The project activity feed keeps that payment history in place — proof it was billed and protected from double-charging.
The Outstanding Invoices screen lists every unpaid bill, sorted oldest-first. Each row is color-coded by age: purple for fresh, gold in the second week, red at 30+ days overdue. Tap "Nudge" on any row to open the nudge modal: pick a tone (first reminder, follow-up, final notice), see a live preview of the message, and send. The app stamps a "nudged Nd ago" badge on the row so you know how long it's been since the last reminder — and so you don't accidentally send the same template twice in a row.