Invoice several projects in one pass

Start with the work ready to bill

Open Projects → Work in progress to find active client projects with billable work that has not been billed. The list shows Project, Client, WIP hours, WIP value, WIP expenses and Next milestone. Projects appear alphabetically. The tab appears only to people who can see project revenue and expenses.

Work in progress counts unbilled billable time and expenses dated inside the report's period, shown beside Period at the top of the tab. Choose All time to see every unbilled record, whatever its date. A project only appears when it has work in progress in that period. An expense with no date only counts under All time. Work already on a draft invoice is not counted, so a project leaves this list once all its work is on a draft or billed. The WIP value column follows your access to financial values.

Northlight Architects is preparing its next billing run. Riverside Civic Library has time to bill, and another client project has expenses waiting. Select both projects to review their invoices together.

Review each project in two steps

1. 1

   Select the projects. Open Bulk actions and choose Invoice…. This action is available on every Projects tab.

2. 2

   Choose what to bill. The first project opens on the same choices as Create invoice, already filled in from the project: template, bill against, Bill until, the stage-by-stage breakdown, due date, office and client. Check the ticks. Untick a stage you do not want to bill yet, or change a row's line type.

3. 3

   Press Next: review invoice. Monument builds the invoice from exactly those choices and shows it in the window.

4. 4

   Click a line to edit its details inside the window. You can change rates, choose individual time entries, review expenses and previously billed work, or add a line or note.

5. 5

   Choose Draft, Approved, or Approved & synced in the bottom bar. The button beside it says what happens to this invoice: Create draft, Create & approve, or Create, approve & sync. Press it.

6. 6

   The next project opens on its choices. The status you chose carries forward until you change it.

To change a choice after you see the invoice, press Back. The choices are as you left them, and Next: review invoice builds the invoice again. If you edited the invoice, Monument asks first, because your edits would be lost. Cancel keeps the edited invoice.

Choose what to bill

The breakdown lists each stage with its unbilled work and remaining fee. Ticked rows become lines. They start ticked the same way as in Create invoice: stages with unbilled hours, and expenses. Hours offered at a person's charge-out rate start unticked. If nothing starts ticked, a short note above the breakdown says why, for example that the project has no fees or hourly rates set up, or that its time is already on another draft. When hours can be billed at charge-out rates, the note says how many; tick them in the breakdown.

Bill until decides which unbilled time and expenses the invoice bills. There is no start date: older unbilled work is always offered.

• All work in progress is the default. The invoice bills all of the project's unbilled time and expenses, including work dated in the future. It bills until today, or until the date of its latest unbilled work if that is later.
• Pick a date to bill only time and expenses dated on or before it. The invoice bills until that date, and later work waits for the next invoice. Expenses with no date are always included. To go back to all work, press Bill all work in progress.

Some choices carry to the next project, so you set them once: Bill until, the template, the line type you picked for each kind of row (for example time billed as a fixed amount), and Show hidden tasks. Ticks and the milestone belong to each project, and start from that project's own defaults. A project you already built keeps the choices it was built with.

A fixed fee billed each month or quarter bills only the periods that end by the invoice's Bill until date. An earlier date can bill fewer periods.

The heading shows your position and the project name. Use the arrows or project dropdown to move between projects. Each project has a state, such as To do, Draft, Approved or Skipped, so you can see what remains.

Finish when you are done

Press Finish invoicing in the bottom-left corner at any time, on the choices or on the invoice, to end the session and go to the summary. You do not need to step through every project. If the invoice on screen has unsaved edits, Monument asks first: Keep editing returns to it, and Discard and finish drops the edits without saving. When you complete the last project, the summary opens on its own.

Draft saves an editable invoice. Approved also assigns its next invoice number and approves it using today's invoice date and the invoice's Bill until date. While an approving status is chosen, Lock time entries dated before the bill until date is ticked by default and stays as you set it for the following projects. If Bill until is after today, the lock is off and greyed out, because Monument never locks time past today. Approved & synced then sends the approved invoice to your connected accounting system. Only an administrator can choose this option, and only once an accounting system is connected; otherwise it is disabled with an explanation.

For example, choose Draft for Riverside Civic Library while its project lead checks a line. For the following project, change the status to Approved and press Create & approve. The summary shows one draft and one approved invoice. Approved remains selected for any following projects.

If a project has no client, or no office when your firm has several, its state is Needs details and its choices show the missing client or office as an empty required field. Fill it in before you press Next. Creating the invoice saves it to the project, so its next invoice does not ask again. If you cannot edit the project, the field is greyed out with the reason.

Projects that cannot be invoiced appear as skipped with a reason. If nothing is ticked when you press Next, Monument still builds the invoice, empty, with the project's client, office, template and dates. A short note above it says why, for example that the project has no fees or hourly rates set up, that its time is already on another draft, or that all its unbilled work is dated after the date you chose. Add lines with Add line item and create the invoice as usual, or press Skip.

Hours on a stage with no fee set up, or whose fee is used up, are never ticked on their own. They wait, unticked, at each person's charge-out rate. Tick them in the choices, or after the invoice is built choose Add… next to Not on this invoice.

Read the summary and deal with failures

The summary counts drafts, approved invoices, synced invoices, skipped projects and failures. Each failure includes its reason. If you finished early, Not invoiced lists each project you did not create an invoice for. Nothing was saved for them, and they are not counted as skipped or failed. Administrators can choose Sync N approved invoices to sync the approved invoices that still need it together.

If Save or approval fails, the window stays on that project and keeps your edits. Read the displayed message and error code before retrying. If work was billed elsewhere while you were reviewing, check the affected lines before trying again.

If accounting sync fails after approval, the invoice remains approved and its state is Approved, sync failed. Fix the accounting issue and retry sync. You do not need to create another invoice.

Quick review drafts already saved

In Invoices → Drafts, select invoices and choose Bulk actions → Quick review…. The same window opens the saved drafts, ordered by project name and then invoice.

Review the lines and choose Approve or Approve & sync. Your edits are saved when you complete that invoice. Approve & sync is disabled for people who are not administrators, and until an accounting system is connected. Lock time entries dated before the bill until date starts from each draft's own setting, and is off and greyed out when the draft's Bill until date is after today. Skip moves on without saving your changes. Open full page opens that invoice's editor in a new browser tab. Finish review ends the review at any time; the summary lists the drafts you did not review under Not reviewed. They stay drafts.

Non-draft invoices in the selection appear as skipped with a reason. A failed Save, approval or sync keeps you on the invoice with its error message. The end summary offers the same option to sync approved invoices together.

Creating one invoice also starts unsaved

New Invoice → Create Invoice now opens an unsaved invoice in the full-page editor. Review the generated lines and press Save to create the draft. Leaving and choosing Discard leaves no invoice behind. This helps when you choose the wrong project and need to start again.

Use Create and send an invoice for the single-invoice workflow. Approval and sending remain separate choices after Save.

When something needs attention

• Invoice… or Quick review… is missing. These actions need Invoices Edit on your account access level.
• A project is missing from Work in progress. Check that it is an active client project and has billable time or expenses left to bill.
• Recent work is missing from an invoice. Press Back and check Bill until. A date leaves out work dated after it; All work in progress includes it.
• The first invoice needs a different status. Change it in the bottom bar. That choice applies to following invoices until you change it again.
• A sync option is disabled. An administrator must run accounting sync, and an accounting system must be connected. See Sync billing to your accounting system for connection setup.
• You need to send the client a PDF. Saving or approving in this window does not send an email. Open the saved invoice and use Send invoice.

After billing, use Payments and status to track what the client pays.