Invoicing

If you are looking for documentation regarding configuration of invoice related settings, visit Invoicing Setup.

Searching Invoices

There are a number of ways to search for and locate invoices.

You can search by Invoice Number using the Intelligent Search from any page of the admin area.
For more advanced search options, including searching by line item descriptions, you must use the Invoices List.
- There is the global Invoices List that lists invoices for all clients. You can access this by navigating to Billing > Invoices (selecting a status is optional).
- There is the clients' Invoices List, which the system restricts to just a single clients invoices. You can access this via the Invoices tab from the Clients Summary page.

Creating Custom Invoices

WHMCS automatically generates invoices for recurring products and services.

To create a one-off custom invoice, follow the steps below:

Navigate to the client you wish to generate an invoice for.
Click the Create Invoice link in the Invoices/Billing panel on the Client Summary page. A new invoice will be created in Draft status.
The due date for manually-created invoices defaults to the same number of days in the future as you allow for automatic invoice generation. You can customize the due date via the Options tab when managing an invoice.
You can immediately begin adding line items to the invoice.
For each invoice that you wish to add, enter a description and amount, and then click the Save Changes button. A new row will then appear to allow adding further line items.
If you wish to customise any of the invoice options, including due dates, payment methods, and tax rates, use the Options tab at the top of the invoice

You can navigate away from the invoice at any time during this process and return to it later. WHMCS will store the invoice as a draft and it will not be visible to the customer until you have marked it as complete and published it. (WHMCS 6.2+)

Publishing an Invoice

To publish an invoice, click the Publish button at the top right of the invoice creation screen. Two publish options are available:

Publish & Send Email — Clicking this button converts the invoice to Unpaid and sends the Invoice Creation email to the customer.
Publish — Clicking this button converts the invoice to Unpaid without notifying the customer.

Note: The publish buttons only display when the invoice is in Draft status.

Sending Emails

WHMCS has a range of Invoice-related Email Templates, which are all fully customisable.

The system sends most of these emails when various automated triggers occur, but admin-level users can also send all of them on-demand.

To send an email:

Navigate to the invoice you wish to send an email for.
Select the email template that you wish to send from the menu under the invoice status banner.
Click Send Email.

Note: The system will not allow you to send emails relating to an invoice that is in Draft status. You must first publish the draft invoice, and then send an email.

Mass Payment

Mass Payment of Invoices allows customers to pay for multiple invoices in a single transaction.

This is often quicker and more convenient for customers with multiple invoices outstanding. It can also reduce your transaction costs by only processing a single transaction.

Clients can request to perform Mass Payment via the client area if it is enabled.

Admin users can also create Mass Payment invoices:

Navigate to the Clients Invoices list within the admin area (you can access this from the Client Summary page).
Select the checkboxes next to the invoices you wish to combine for payment.
Click the Mass Pay button at the bottom of the list of invoices.

Mass Payment is different from Merging invoices. With Mass Pay, the system maintains separate invoices, and when a client pays the Combined invoice, the system marks the original invoices as paid through applying credit. Merging invoices will actually combine all the individual invoice line items into a single invoice, deleting all but one of the merged invoices.

Generated Mass Payment invoices do not count towards the total balance due by a customer and the client area does not display them.

Adding Funds

Adding of funds or credit to an account allows a client to prefund their account ahead of time.

When this option is enabled, clients can deposit funds into their account between a minimum and maximum amount that you define. These funds are the client's Credit Balance.

Automatically generated invoices will always check to see if a client has a positive Credit Balance and auto apply money from the credit to the invoices when the system generates them. If sufficient, the applied Credit Balance will reduce the invoice amount to zero and result in the system processing it as paid automatically, without the customer having to do anything.

Admin users can create and add funds invoices:

Navigate to the Client Summary page for the client.
Click the Create Add Funds Invoice option under the Billing/Invoices section.
Enter the desired amount to deposit to the account.
Click Submit to complete the process and create the invoice.

The customer will receive an email for the invoice that the system generated with a link to pay it.

Use this feature whenever you want to charge a customer and add the amount immediately to their credit balance. This will allow it to apply to future or current invoices.

Splitting Invoices

Splitting invoices allows you to separate one or more line items from an invoice into a separate invoice.

This is useful if you have a situation where items appear together on a single invoice that a client wants to renew separately, or where a merge has been done incorrectly.

To split items from an invoice:

Navigate to the invoice you wish to split items from.
Select the checkboxes next to all the line items that you wish to split out into a new invoice.
Note: All the line items you select here will move to a single new invoice.
Select the Split to New Invoice option in the menu immediately below the invoice line items. The form will auto submit and the page will reload with the new invoice containing only the line items you had selected.

This process does not send any email to the customer. If you wish, you should then use the Send Email option to notify the customer of the new invoice.

When splitting an invoice, the system sets the due date of the resulting invoice based on the current date and the Invoice Generation value in Setup > Automation Settings.

Merging Invoices

Merging invoices allows you to combine multiple separate invoices into a single invoice.

This is useful for when a client would like to pay for items on separate invoices together at the same time.

To merge invoices, follow the steps below:

Navigate to the Clients Invoices list within the admin area (which you can access from the Client Summary page).
Select the checkboxes next to the invoices you wish to combine for payment.
Click the Merge button at the bottom of the list of invoices.

The system won't send an email notification to customers when performing this action, so if you wish to notify the customer, use the Send Email option in the resulting invoice.

Refunding Transactions

Refunding transactions allows you to issue credits and refunds for payments that clients have made.

There are three options for refunding payments:

Refund through Gateway — Many payment gateways in WHMCS support automatic refund capability, meaning WHMCS communicates with the payment gateway and instructs the refund amount for the payment gateway to process. This will return the money to the payment method that the customer used to pay.

Manual Refund Processed Externally — This allows you to record refunds against invoices when something outside of the system processed the refund. For example, you may use this if you process a refund directly within your payment gateway or a chargeback or dispute occurs.

Add to Client's Credit Balance — This allows you to refund money to the Clients Credit Balance for use towards future invoices.

To perform a refund, follow these steps:

Navigate to the invoice you wish to perform a refund for.
Select the Refund tab.
If there have been multiple transactions for the invoice, select the transaction you wish to issue a refund against.
You can only refund one transactions at a time, and the refund amount cannot exceed the total amount of the transaction.
Enter the amount to refund for a partial amount. Otherwise, leave this blank to refund the entire transaction value.
Choose the appropriate Refund Type (see above).
If you do not wish to send an email confirming the refund has been processed, uncheck the Send Email checkbox.
Click the Refund button to perform the refund.

The page will reload and display the results of the refund attempt if you chose Refund through Gateway. If it fails for any reason, the Gateway Log will help you diagnose why.

Even if the system can't automate a refund for your particular gateway, you can still use this process to enter the refund billing entry into WHMCS. It will update the income totals and reflect the refund on the invoice. Then you would go to your gateway and actually send the refund from there.

Reverse Payment

When making a refund, there is the option to reverse the effects of the original payment. For example, you might prefer to set the invoice status to Collections status and reverse the Next Due Date for associated services.

When you select this option, the system's actions while issuing a refund depend on the configuration in the Setup > Automation Settings page. For more information on this feature, refer to the Payment Reversals page.