With Monograph, you can create invoices for your projects broken out by different phases and roles. We've built this workflow based on extensive feedback from our users and with the architecture and design industry in mind.

On the main menu under Money, click on Invoices and then click on the New Invoice button in the top right corner. Then you'll be shown the pop-up below:

Choose your project from the drop-down list and the invoice number will automatically populate the next available number for that specific project (archived projects cannot be invoiced). You can manually override the invoice number with any combination of numbers, letters, underscores, dashes, or dots. Finally, set your Services Through the time frame for the invoice and hit Create.

🚨 Please note: having overlapping Services Through dates can result in incurred Unbilled, Previously Billed, and Complete totals. It can also lead to reporting discrepancies and other issues in the app. The best practice is to NOT have overlapping date ranges.

📚 Looking for information on Monograph Payments? See the Payments FAQ for common questions on payment processing and other payment questions.

The invoice builder is where you will build your invoice and includes several tabs that you'll work through before designing your invoice; they are as follows – Fixed Fee Services > Hourly Services (if applicable) > Consultants Services (if applicable) > Expenses > Additional Items.

Beneath each section title, you'll find a Current Due and when applicable, an Unbilled amount preview that will update as you complete each section.

Within Fixed Fee and Hourly Fee Services, we've also included several columns for reference.

If Adjustable Billing Rates have been assigned to users, and Hourly Services are being invoiced for this project, either a single dollar symbol or two overlapping dollar symbols will appear to display which rates are being utilized.

Despite the rate tables being shown in the tooltip, the rate being utilized for the invoice will be the rate that is applicable on the last date of the Services Through timeframe. This rate will then be used to calculate the "Amount" total for the line items seen on the Invoice Builder.

Note: If the "services through" timeframe is adjusted and the applicable hourly rate changes, the amount for the role-row will remain the same, while the hours are adjusted/recalculated.

The Fixed Fee Services tab allows you to edit the invoice amounts for your Fixed Phases comparing what you planned, vs logged and milestones completed.

The most common way to start is by referring to the Unbilled column, which is the value of the time that has been logged in timesheets but not yet billed. Hovering over the amount for a specific phase will show you how much time has been logged within the "Services Through" timeframe, and any time logged prior but not yet invoiced.

Based on the example above, there is $27,410 of Unbilled time for Schematic Design. Typing this amount into Current Due will automatically update the Current Complete percentage for the phase budget.

If you issue invoices to your client based on major milestones or percentage of work completed, start by hovering over the phase milestones to glimpse where you stand on progress.
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In the example below, you'll see that for Schematic Design, $27,410 worth of hours have been logged under Unbilled, but we've only completed the work up to the 25% Milestone.
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With this information handy, you can now decide what percentage you'd like to bill your client by entering that under Current Complete. Here I've entered 25% based on the completed Milestones, which updated the Current Due to $19,550 (which is 25% of your Planned amount).
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All phases marked as hourly in the project budget will appear under this section, and clicking on the phase name will expand to show all roles for the phase with their planned and logged time.

For each role, click Add to include the logged hours or directly type a number into the hours' box to override the logged amount. Just like in the Fixed Fee section, hovering over Unbilled will let you preview all unbilled time by timeframe.

🎓 For any Hourly Roles where there isn't a Current Due, these Roles will not appear on the invoice. Only Roles with a Current Due will appear, regardless of if there was a previously billed amount.

If you've budgeted for Consultants within a project, either as a Phase consultant or Project consultant, the planned fees for each will appear as an option to add to your invoice under the Consultants Services tab. If you have uploaded bills, they will also show in this tab.
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If a markup has been added to consultants, the middle column will display 'Planned + Markup'. If no markups were added, it will say 'Planned'. If there is a markup, hovering on the number in this column will then show a breakdown of both the planned amount and the markup.

📚 Markups on Consultants will not be shown in the invoice as a separate item. The markup will be included in the consultant fee.
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Consultant Bills uploaded
Bills that have been uploaded for the project will show at the top. If you'd like this pdf to show in the invoice you can select 'Link to this invoice'. You can also add a note if needed.

Only Consultant Bills that have been reviewed and accepted can be added to an invoice.

​Phase Consultants
The summary for each phase consultant will show on first opening the Consultant Services tab. To expand and see each phase and phase amount, hit the arrow to the left of the Consultant Name. Once expanded, you can input the amounts as needed into each phase.

​Project Consultants
For Project consultants, use the current complete and current due fields and complete as needed.

Based on the "Services Through" timeframe that you selected when creating your Invoice, any expenses logged in a user's timesheet during this period will also be available to add to your invoice. You may add these expenses by clicking on the Add All button or Add for selected expenses only.

The markup percentage applied to each expense will automatically calculate the Current Due for each expense line. The markup information will not be visible on the actual invoice for the client.

When you add any expenses that have attachments, these same attachments will be shown as an appendix to your invoice. You'll be able to see it within the Invoice Designer and Invoice Preview.

🚨 Once any expenses that have attachments are included, the attachments will get added to the invoice. If you'd like to not include any receipt images, feel free to toggle off Include receipt images from the Invoice Designer tab.

The Additional Items tab can be used for Retainers, Taxes, and adding single line items for anything that doesn't fit into one of the default categories. These could be items such as One-time Charges, Additional Fees, or even Discounts.

To add one of these items click on + Add Line Item and then select which item you will be adding. You can add just one of these items or you can add all 3.
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If you are adding an 'Other Item', customize the single line item to match your specific needs by manually entering the necessary Item Name, Description, Quantity, and Rate.

To add a Discount, simply change the rate for that specific line item to a negative amount. You can add as many 'Other Items' as you need.
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To add a Retainer, click on 'Add Line Item' in the lower right of the screen. Input the Item, Description, and Amount. Please note: the Item field will pre-populate with the word Retainer, but you can adjust that language to your specific needs, such as kick-off fee or deposit. You can only add one retainer to the invoice. You can read more about retainers here, including how to apply them.
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To add Taxes, you can again select the 'Add Line Item' in the lower right of the screen and select Taxes. Depending on whether you are using QuickBooks Online or not, the way to apply taxes will differ.

The pop-up will allow you to select the tax rates set up in Settings, learn more here, or you can also add a new tax rate directly.

Once you have selected the tax rate, you will then select on which items the Tax applies. Then hit Save and the tax will show as calculated based on the tax rate and which items the tax is applied to. Similar to retainers, you can only add one tax rate to the invoice. Please note: Some locations may have more than one tax rate applied to each invoice. Currently, Monograph can only apply one tax rate. To see all Taxes Collected, please view the Taxes Report.
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Use the toggles below to learn more about taxes for QBO Users using Automated Sales Tax versus Non-Automated Sales Tax.

After you've added all applicable items to your invoice, you can use the Invoice Designer to edit all of the other information that will appear on your invoice. The Project Name and Number will reflect the name and number that you used when creating the project.

To start, add your Company's logo and address if you haven't already done so within the Organization Settings. To add your logo, click on "Upload Logo", and add or edit your address by clicking "Edit Address". Please note that any changes here will also be reflected within your Organization Settings.

Once you've added your Company information, click on Select or add client to select an existing client or create a new one. If you are connected to your QuickBooks Online account, the client list will be pulled from there.

After you've added your client's information, you'll proceed with adding the following information:

After you've added all of your invoice information and you scroll down, you'll find that all of the information you entered in the Invoice Builder is separated accordingly. The Tax amount will show at the bottom and list which items the tax was applied to.

Before moving on to preview your invoice, you have a few display and attachment options to select from:

This gives you the option to include timesheet details from the Project's Time log, which will automatically be sorted by time entry creation (i.e. if a team member logs their time out of order, then it will appear the same in this data).

If this is toggled to 'on' you will also see an option to 'Summarize by role and activity'. This will take all entries across all of the same roles and show the total of hours worked for each activity.

For example, if there are 2 Designers on the project working on the project, this option will sum all the hours worked by activity vs showing the hours worked by each team member.

📚 To learn more about the display options for Consultants within phases and how they appear on an invoice, click here.

The Invoice Preview page is where you'll review your invoice and mark it as open when you're ready. The invoice appears in a continuous scroll format for easy review, but the Preview PDF button can be used to view the invoice as your client would see it.

Here, you can also change the layout, send the Invoice and Payment link, print the invoice, send the invoice to QuickBooks Online (if you sync your QuickBooks Online account), or export it as a CSV to import into QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, or Xero.

To enable the Compact Invoice layout, click on the toggle. Click on it again to disable and return to the original layout. Whichever you select will be remembered for the next invoice for this project.

The Compact Invoice layout will condense the information that is entered within the Invoice Designer and will remove much of the white space in between sections of the invoice.

If you're not ready to mark the invoice as open, the invoice will automatically save as a draft. You can come back to it when you're ready by navigating to the Invoices page.

To see how it will appear to your client—with proper page breaks and formatting—click the Preview PDF button in the top right corner. This PDF preview includes a DRAFT watermark, adding a layer of security to help ensure only finalized invoices are sent to clients.

To add an internal note, type into the Internal Notes field any helpful information. This information will not be shown to the client, it is meant as an internal tracking tool.

🚨 It's important to review your invoice! Once you select "Mark as Open" on the Invoice Preview to mark an invoice as Open, edits cannot be made.

If an edit needs to be made after an invoice has been opened, it will need to be deleted and re-created. If an invoice has already been paid through Monograph, it cannot be reopened, so the invoice cannot be deleted.

After you've created the invoice, you'll want to review it for accuracy before clicking Open and Send to finalize it. After it's marked as Open, follow the steps below to send the request to the client.

If the Stripe integration is enabled, then before sending your invoice to clients, you will be able to choose how you would like the invoice to be paid if you are using the Payments options. Once an option is selected, then the field about passing the convenience fee to the client will appear.

After you choose how you would like to be able to have the invoice paid and confirm that your invoice is accurate and ready to share, click on Open and Send.

​For more information about setting up and using Payments, click here.

After clicking Open and Send, a pop-up will walk you through the two steps to have this invoice sent to your client.

For the first invoice of the project, the Send to email address will default to the email that is associated with the client's billing information.
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After the initial invoice, if you need to send to a different email, you will need to manually update the Send to field. All other invoices after that will pull the Send to email from the invoice prior.
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You can also CC in additional emails as needed.

If a PDF of the invoice should be sent to the client within the invoice email, check the Attach a PDF of the invoice to the email option. Otherwise, the invoice email will not include a copy of the invoice's PDF and the client will access the invoice via the link within the email.

Additionally, you can include a custom email message (text only) to include in the invoice's email. The email message will default to the last message that was used. Once you've made any necessary adjustments, click Send.

🚨 Please note, certain email providers, like Outlook, may adjust the format of the email from what is shown here.

Provides a step-by-step record of an invoice’s journey from creation to completion. The activity is shown in chronological order, with the earliest actions at the bottom and the most recent updates at the top. This timeline helps you easily track the full history and status of each invoice at a glance. It displays detailed information, including:

Once an invoice is sent, the Activity list section will update to show the date, time, and the email address it was delivered to. A confirmation pop-up will also appear, letting the team know the invoice was successfully sent.

💡 If any invoice reminders need to be set up, this can be done from the invoice's Preview page.

Adding comments directly on invoices helps keep the team aligned and supports internal workflows. Specific team members can be tagged, automatically triggering a notification to alert them they’ve been mentioned. This ensures important notes or action items reach the right person quickly, allowing for timely reviews and follow-ups.

To add a comment, simply click in the comment box and select Add. To edit or delete a comment, hover over the three-dot menu next to it. If you need to mention a team member, just type @ followed by their name to tag them.

When using the Payments feature in Monograph, the invoice will automatically update to show as Paid after the client makes the payment on their end.
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If QuickBooks Online is connected, this will also automatically mark the invoice as Paid within QuickBooks Online. On the other hand, if an invoice is marked as Paid in QuickBooks Online, it will also update within Monograph.

For all other users, the invoice will need to be marked as paid manually. Once payment for the invoice is received, navigate to the Invoice page and click on Add Payment. If the client does not pay the full amount that was due, the invoice can be marked as Partially Paid.

This will open a new window where you can select the date that the invoice was paid, which will default to today's date. You will also see the option to send a confirmation to the client about their payment.

If you need to mark an invoice as unpaid, click on the icon with the three dots and select Mark As Unpaid. This is also where you will navigate if you need to duplicate an invoice.

Depending on the payment type, you should receive funds between 3 - 5 business days. Assuming there is no negative balance to pay off (e.g. because of refunds or disputes), then the total amount will be sent.

📚 See the Payments FAQ for more information on payment processing and other payment questions.

When you're creating multiple invoices for a Project, it can be hard to keep track of how much has been paid, how much is past due, and what has been logged but not billed. Monograph offers three ways to stay up to date with your invoices.

1. Unbilled Report

The Unbilled Report automatically adds up the time that your team tracks in Monograph, saving you time on invoicing each month.

2. Project Financials Report

Use the Project Financials Report to gain financial insights on a project, such as time logged compared to what has been billed and paid, broken down phase-by-phase.

3. Project Progress

View the Project Progress on a project's Overview page to see the progress of a project's invoices. When you mark an invoice as "Paid", the Paid Invoices bar will update to show what has been paid compared to what has been billed.

If you'd like to see this progress by phase, click on the Phase drop-down menu of the Project Progress.

Project Progress for All Phases

Project Progress at the Phase level