"I never got it" is the hardest reply to answer
You send an invoice and hear nothing for two weeks. Did it land in spam? Did they open it and set it aside? Is the office manager waiting on the owner? Without any signal, your only move is a vague "just checking in" email.
The invoice itself is rarely the problem. The problem is having no idea what happened after you clicked send, and no record on the customer's page of what's been paid and what's still owed.
How invoices work in Everything Portal
Invoices sit inside the portal, on the same record as the customer's emails, bookings, deals and signed documents.
- Build it: line items, tax and discount.
- Send it: by email or by a private link you can paste anywhere.
- Track it: you see when the invoice email is opened, when the invoice itself is viewed, and on what kind of device.
- Get told: a team chat message arrives the first time a customer views it, so you know the moment it's in front of them.
- Record partial payments: a deposit and a balance, or a customer paying in installments, with what's left always visible.
- Send reminders for invoices that are still open.
There's a difference between an open and a view. Some mail apps, like Apple Mail with Mail Privacy Protection, load images in advance, which can make an email look opened when nobody read it. A view means someone actually opened the invoice link. Read more in how to know when a client opens an invoice.
Payments today, and what's coming
Online card payments are not available yet. Today, customers see your payment instructions on the invoice, such as bank transfer details or how to pay by check, and you record payments as they come in. Card payments through Stripe are coming, and when they arrive invoices will be marked paid for you. You can follow it on the roadmap.
QuickBooks Online isn't built in. We can build a custom connection to QuickBooks for your business, and a built-in version is planned. See integrations.
Automations on sent, viewed and paid
Invoices can start automations, so follow-up happens without anyone tracking it in their head:
- Invoice sent: wait seven days, then create a task for the account owner to check on it.
- Invoice viewed: tag the contact so your team knows the customer has seen it before calling.
- Invoice paid: send a thank-you email, tag the customer as paid up and create a task to schedule the next job.
A plumbing dispatcher can see that the Garcia water heater invoice was viewed twice yesterday and still isn't paid, then call with confidence instead of guessing. A consultant can collect a 50 percent deposit, record it, and invoice the balance at the end of the project.
A week of invoicing
On Monday you finish three jobs and send three invoices from the customer records. By Monday night, two have been viewed and you've had a team chat message for each. On Wednesday, one customer pays half, and you record a partial payment. On Friday you ask Spera, the AI assistant, "which invoices are still open?" and she lists them with balances. You send a reminder on the one that hasn't been viewed at all, since that's the one most likely stuck in a spam folder.
Your goals can track payments collected for the month, showing today's target, your pace and where the month will land.
Getting started
Add your business details and payment instructions, then send your next invoice from the portal instead of your old tool. Turn on one automation for "invoice sent" so open invoices get a follow-up task automatically. For trades and service businesses, see how invoicing fits a full job flow in CRM for HVAC and plumbing companies.
