Invoice Settings

What it is

Invoice Settings is where you decide how your invoices look and read for the customer. It covers three things the customer actually sees: the invoice page they open from the link you send, the PDF they download or print, and the email that carries the link.

You get to it from Settings›Quotes & Docs›Invoice Settings. That opens a page called Estimate & Invoice Settings with two tabs across the top — Estimates and Invoices — already sitting on Invoices. (If you land on the Estimates side, just click the Invoices tab.)

Inside the Invoices tab there are five tabs of your own:

The one thing to understand first: invoices borrow your estimate settings until you save something here. On a tab that is still borrowing you will see an amber line reading "Currently inheriting from your estimate settings. Edit and save to set an invoice-specific value." The boxes are already filled in with your estimate values, so if you press save without changing anything you simply lock those values in for invoices.

When to use it

• Your invoice small print needs to differ from your estimate small print — payment due dates, late fees, what happens if a cheque bounces.
• An estimate says "Review & Sign Proposal" but an invoice should say "View & Pay Invoice", and you want the email to read like a bill rather than a quote.
• You want the invoice price table simplified — total only, no quantities, no unit prices — without changing how estimates look.
• You charge sales tax and want every new invoice to start with the right percentage.
• Your bookkeeper should get a copy of every invoice email automatically.
• You want payment links to stop working after a set number of days.

Use Estimate Settings instead when the change should apply to quotes. Use Company Settings when the company name, logo, phone or address itself is wrong — this page only decides whether those details are shown, it does not store them.

Before you start

• You need admin access. This page sits behind the admin gate. If your login is not an admin one, Joby sends you straight back to the Dashboard when you try to open it. The Settings menu item itself is switched on per role under Settings›Team Roles.
• Fill in Company Settings first. Your logo, company name, phone, email, website and address all come from Settings›Company Settings. The switches on the Branding tab only decide whether each one is shown — if a detail is blank there, switching it on here shows nothing.
• Set your estimate side up first if you can. Everything here starts as a copy of Settings›Estimate Settings, so a tidy estimate setup means far less typing on this page.
• The people sending invoices need the Invoices permission. Turn it on per role under Settings›Team Roles (it sits in the Management group). Without it there is no Invoices tab in the left menu.
• Taking card payments needs your payment provider connected. That is set up separately — see Payments. Nothing on this page turns payments on or off.
• The AI terms writer uses credit. If your account has run out you get "Out of credit. Add credit in Billing -> Credits to keep using AI." instead of a result. See Billing & Usage.

Step-by-step

Open the invoice side of the page

1. Click Settings in the left menu.
2. Scroll to the Quotes & Docs group and click Invoice Settings. (Typing "invoice" into the Search settings… box at the top finds it faster.)
3. The page Estimate & Invoice Settings opens on the Invoices tab. Underneath it you will see Branding, Terms, Portal Text, Defaults and Email.

Each tab has its own Save button and saves on its own. Move to another tab before saving and your typing is lost, so finish one tab at a time.

Branding — what appears at the top of the invoice

1. Open Invoices›Branding.
2. Under Visibility, use the switches to show or hide Show Company Logo, Show Phone Number, Show Email Address, Show Website and Show Address. They start switched on.
3. Under Display Overrides you can type a Company Name Override, Phone Override, Email Override or Website Override. Whatever you type replaces your company details on invoices only. Leave a box blank — the placeholder reads Leave blank for default — to keep using Company Settings. This is how a company that answers billing calls on a different line puts that number on the invoice without changing it everywhere else.
4. Under Accent Color, click the colour square to pick a colour or type the code into the box next to it (it starts at #2563eb). The note beside it says it is used for buttons and highlights on the portal.
5. Click Save Branding.

Terms — your payment terms and small print

1. Open Invoices›Terms. The description reads "Add sections that appear on your invoice portal and PDF."
2. To write them yourself, click Add Section, then fill in Section title (for example "Payment Terms") and Section content. Repeat for each block of wording. The bin icon at the top right of a section removes it.
3. To get a first draft written for you, use the Generate with AI box at the top: describe your business in the text area — the example given is "We are a plumbing company offering residential repairs and installations" — then click Generate Terms. The drafted sections drop into the form for you to edit. Nothing is live until you save.
4. You can drop details into the wording that fill themselves in, such as {{Company.name}}, {{Company.phone}} or {{Invoice.invoice_number}}. The customer sees the real value.
5. Click Save Terms.

Portal Text — the wording on the invoice page

1. Open Invoices›Portal Text.
2. Fill in Heading (placeholder Your Invoice), Subheading (placeholder Review and pay below), Payment Button Label (placeholder Pay Invoice) and Post-payment Message (placeholder Thank you for your payment!).
3. Click Save Portal Text.

The Subheading is the line customers read under your company name at the top of the invoice page, and again in the footer. It is a good place for something short and reassuring like "Licensed & insured — questions? Call us." Leave it blank and the page falls back to "Professional Services".

Defaults — tax, link life and price-table columns

1. Open Invoices›Defaults.
2. Set Default Tax %. Anything above zero is filled into the tax box of every new invoice you start, so nobody has to remember it.
3. Link Expiry (days) decides how long the payment link in the invoice email keeps working. The hint under the box reads "How many days until the invoice payment link expires (default 365)." You can enter anything from 1 to 365.
4. There is also an Invoice Number Prefix box (placeholder INV-). See the warning in Common mistakes before you rely on it.
5. Under Line Item Columns, decide what the price table shows: Show Items, Show Quantity, Show Unit Price, Show Line Total, Show Section Totals, Hide $0 Line Totals and Hide $0 Line Prices. The first four start switched on; the last three start switched off.
6. Click Save Defaults.

These column choices are the starting point for each new invoice, not a lock. When you build an invoice under Invoices›New Invoice there is a Customer Display card with the same switches — Show Items, Show Qty, Show Price, Show Line Total, Hide $0 Totals and Hide $0 Prices — for changing one invoice on its own. The note there says the totals, balance, tax and discounts stay visible whatever you switch off.

Email — the message that carries the payment link

1. Open Invoices›Email.
2. Set the Subject Line at the top. A grey Preview: line underneath shows it with sample details filled in.
3. Add anyone who should be copied on every invoice under CC Recipients. The description reads "These addresses receive a copy of every invoice email sent to customers." — this is where a bookkeeper's address goes.
4. Use the coloured chips near the top of the left column to drop details into your wording. Click into a box first, then click a chip — the note says "Click a variable to insert it into the last focused field". They are grouped under Invoice (Customer Name, First Name, Invoice #, Total Price, Balance, Portal URL and more) and Company (Company Name, Phone, Email, Website, Logo URL).
5. Work down the cards: Header (Title and Brand Color), Body Content (Greeting, Introduction Text, the switches for what the summary box lists, then Button Text and Button Sub-text) and Footer (Phone Number and Footer Text).
6. Watch the Live Preview on the right as you type. It renders the real email with sample details — customer "John Smith", invoice "000042", total "1,250.00".
7. Click Save Template.

Reset to Default at the bottom left puts every box back to Joby's standard invoice wording ("Invoice", "View & Pay Invoice", "Thank you for your business…"). It only resets the form in front of you — press Save Template afterwards to make it stick.

If someone in your business writes HTML, the small Advanced: Edit HTML link opens a switch called Use custom HTML instead of the visual editor and a box to paste a full email into. Leave it alone otherwise — with it switched on, the friendly boxes above stop driving the email.

How to check it worked

• The save landed: a green "Settings saved successfully" message appears (on the Email tab it reads "Email template saved"). If something went wrong you get a red "Failed to save: …" message instead — nothing was stored, so fix it and press save again.
• The tab is no longer borrowing: reload the page and the amber "Currently inheriting from your estimate settings…" line on that tab is gone. That is your proof invoices now use their own values.
• See it as the customer does: go to Invoices›New Invoice, add a line item, and click Preview. Joby saves the invoice as a draft first if it needs to, then opens the real customer page in a window — your colour, your visible company details, your terms and the column choices, all as the customer will see them.
• Check the email for real: create a test invoice with your own email address as the customer, click Save & Send, and read what arrives. Your CC addresses get a copy too, so you can confirm those in the same test.
• Check the PDF: download it from the invoice page. Terms and the price table columns follow the same settings, so anything wrong on screen will be wrong on paper too.

Common mistakes

• Switching a company detail on when it is blank. Show Website shows nothing if no website is saved in Settings›Company Settings. Fill the detail in there first.
• Hiding items and then wondering where the price went. Switching Show Items off hides the whole price table on the customer's copy. The total, tax and discounts still show — but the customer can no longer see what they are paying for, which invites a phone call.
• Expecting old invoices to change. Invoices already sent keep the column choices they were sent with, because those are stored on the invoice itself. Editing defaults changes what new invoices start with.
• Generating terms without a description. Click Generate Terms with the box empty and you get "Enter a business description first". Write a sentence about what you do, then try again.
• Leaving AI-written terms unsaved. The message reads "Terms generated! Review and save." — the sections are only in the form until you press Save Terms.