Invoices
Overview
Apex Lucis generates professional invoices with your company branding, itemised packages, tax calculation, and payment details.
Invoice Types
| Type | When to Use |
|---|---|
| Balance | The remaining balance of a booking. Automatically takes into consideration other invoices when calculating the amount to be paid |
| Deposit | Initial part-payment to secure a booking |
| Full | Can be used to take the full payment for services given |
| Custom | An addition option to handle other use cases |
Invoice Statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Created but not yet sent to client |
| Sent | Emailed or shared with client; awaiting payment |
| Paid | Full payment received |
| Overdue | Past due date and still unpaid |
| Refunded | A way of marking the invoice to indicate a refund was given |
| Void | Raised, then written off. Kept as a record, but no longer owed |
Overdue is worked out, not set
You never mark an invoice Overdue yourself. An invoice is overdue when it has been sent and its due date has passed, so the same invoice counts as both Sent and Overdue — it was sent, and it is now late. The chip counts across the top deliberately do not add up to the number of invoices.
An overdue invoice carries a red Overdue badge beside its status, and its due date turns red. The invoice detail screen also says how late it is — “4 days overdue” — which is usually what decides between a polite reminder and a phone call.
Voiding an invoice
Void is for an invoice that was raised and will never be paid: a shoot cancelled in good time, a duplicate, a figure that was wrong before it was sent.
Swipe the invoice in the list, or touch and hold it (right-click on a Mac), and choose Void. From the invoice itself, choose Void Invoice… from the More menu (⋯) in the toolbar.
Apex Lucis asks first, and Void Invoice confirms it.
A voided invoice keeps its number and stays in your records, but stops counting as owed: it drops out of the overdue count, out of outstanding totals, and stops chasing you with reminders.
Invoice numbers run in sequence, and a deleted one leaves a gap that an accountant will ask about. If the invoice was ever sent, your client has a copy of a document you no longer hold. Voiding keeps the record and says it was cancelled.
A paid invoice cannot be voided — money that arrived and went back out again is a refund, not a write-off.
Accessing Invoices
Business tab → Invoices
All invoices across all bookings are listed here. Filter by status using the chips at the top (All / Draft / Sent / Paid / Overdue / Refunded / Void), or search with Search Invoices.
If a filter has nothing in it, the list says so and offers Show All.
Swipe a row, or touch and hold it (right-click on a Mac), for Mark Paid, Void and Delete.
Above the list, three running totals: Total (everything sent and paid), Pending (sent and waiting), and Overdue. These match the figures on your Business dashboard.
Creating an Invoice
You can create an invoice from:
- The Booking detail screen (recommended) — tap New Invoice on the Invoices tab, or choose it from the booking’s ⋯ menu. Creating an invoice this way automatically associates the invoice with a booking
- Tapping Add Invoice (+) in the Invoices module. You do not need to link an invoice created this way to a booking.
- On a Mac, Business → New Invoice (⌘I).
When creating an invoice:
- Select the type (Full, Deposit, Balance, or Custom)
- Enter the amount (for deposit invoices, this is pre-filled with your default deposit percentage)
- Set the due date (pre-filled from your default invoice due days)
- Add any notes for the invoice footer
- Tap Save
Itemising an Invoice
An invoice can list what it is charging for line by line — coverage, prints, an album, travel — instead of showing a single figure.
Lines are added on the edit screen, not on the one you create the invoice with. Save the invoice first, then:
- Open the invoice and choose Edit Invoice from the More menu (⋯) in the toolbar
- Scroll down to Items
- Type a Description, a Qty and a Price, then tap +
The line appears straight away and the Amount field above becomes the total of the lines. It stops being typeable once there is a line, because the lines are now what the invoice charges.
Swipe a line to remove it. The amount falls by that line’s total.
An invoice with no lines charges whatever is in its Amount field, with nothing itemised. That is a perfectly good invoice, and it is what you get until you add a line.
Only a draft can be itemised
Lines can be added and removed while the invoice is a Draft. Once it is Sent, Paid, Overdue, Void or Refunded the Items section shows what is on the invoice and offers nothing further — your client is holding a copy, and an invoice that changes its figures afterwards leaves the two documents disagreeing.
If a sent invoice is wrong, void it and raise a new one.
On a deposit invoice, add a line saying what the deposit is for — “Deposit — 25% of wedding coverage”. The PDF then explains itself, and you are not relying on the client to work out where the figure came from.
Recharging a Booking’s Costs
Costs you carry for a shoot — studio hire, a second shooter, mileage, a permit — can be billed on to the client without typing them in again.
In Expenses, mark the cost Reimbursable by client and give it the booking it was for. Then open a draft invoice attached to that booking, and the Items section offers a button:
Add 3 recharged costs (£1,240.00)
Tap it and each cost becomes a line, described so a client can read it, priced at what you are charging rather than what it cost you.
If the invoice was priced from the booking’s packages rather than itemised by hand, a line for the shoot itself is added first, at the invoice’s own amount — so a £40 parking charge on a £600 deposit gives the client a £640 invoice listing both, not a £40 one listing the parking.
The button appears only when there is something outstanding to recharge. A cost stops being offered once it is on a line of any invoice, so the same expense cannot be billed twice.
A cost is recovered when the invoice goes out
Adding a cost to a draft changes nothing on the expense — a draft can still be reworked or deleted. Mark the invoice Sent and every cost on it flips to Recovered: it drops out of what is still to be recharged, both on the booking’s Costs & Charges card and in your Expenses totals.
Void or delete the invoice and they all go back to outstanding. Neither one recovered anything, and that money is still owed to you.
Marking a cost Recovered by hand in Expenses is untouched by any of this — use it for anything settled outside Apex Lucis.
Chasing an Unpaid Invoice
Three days after an invoice falls due, its detail screen offers a Chase section: how many days overdue it is, and a button that opens an email already written.
| From | The button says | The message |
|---|---|---|
| 3 days overdue | Send a reminder | Polite. Offers the client a way out — it may have crossed with their payment |
| 14 days overdue | Send a firmer reminder | Asks for a date, or for the problem you can help with |
The message is addressed to whoever the invoice is billed to, with the invoice number and due date filled in. Edit it in Templates → Messages if the wording is not yours.
Below the button, Last chased on… shows when you last opened one. The overdue alert keeps arriving each morning regardless — a chase that was written is not a chase that was answered.
An invoice billed to a client you have since deleted can still be chased. The address is kept on the invoice.
Invoice Calculations
| Figure | How it is worked out |
|---|---|
| Amount | The total of the invoice’s lines, or the figure you typed if it has none |
| Tax | Amount × your tax rate, from Business Settings |
| Total | Amount + tax |
| Deposit | Pre-filled from your default deposit percentage when you create a deposit invoice |
Sharing and Exporting Invoices
From the invoice detail screen:
- Choose Preview PDF from the More menu (⋯), then tap Share Invoice to send it. The PDF uses your company template
- The PDF includes your company logo, contact details, tax breakdown, and payment details
- An itemised invoice lists its lines, showing the quantity where there is more than one. An invoice with no lines lists the booking’s packages instead
- To send the Invoice to a client, you can use the system Share Sheet (email, AirDrop, Messages, etc.).
Getting paid from the PDF
Set a Payment Link in Settings → Business — your own Stripe, PayPal or GoCardless page — and the invoice can carry it two ways:
| Placeholder | On the page |
|---|---|
| `` | The address, as text |
| `` | A square code the client scans with a phone camera |
Both are in the invoice template that ships with Apex Lucis. A single invoice can override the link in its own Payment Link field for a one-off — leave that field empty and it uses the one from Settings, which the form shows you.
Until the invoice is paid, its detail screen shows the link that will be used under the totals, and says whether it is the invoice’s own or the one from Settings. Tap it to check it opens your payment page.
With no link set anywhere, both lines disappear from the PDF rather than leaving a gap. Apex Lucis takes no payment and never sees one — this is a link to you.
The code is sized to scan off a printed page, not only a screen. Print one and try it with your phone before the first invoice goes out.
Sending and Getting Paid
Under the invoice’s header is the one thing to do next:
| The invoice is | The button says |
|---|---|
| Draft | Mark as Sent |
| Sent or Overdue | Mark as Paid |
A paid, refunded or void invoice has nothing further to do, so the button is not there.
You can also swipe an invoice in the list and choose Mark Paid. The booking’s outstanding balance updates automatically.
On a Mac, the Invoice menu holds the same action, Preview PDF and Void Invoice… for the invoice in front.
Other invoices on the booking
A deposit or balance invoice lists the rest of the booking’s invoices under Other Invoices on This Booking. Tap one to open it over the one you are looking at.
History
At the foot of the invoice, History shows when it was raised and when it was paid, and how long the client took — “Paid 12 days after it was raised”.
Deleting an Invoice
Swipe the invoice in the list, or touch and hold it (right-click on a Mac), and choose Delete. On a booking’s Invoices tab, use the ⋯ menu on the invoice. Apex Lucis asks first and says what it will cost — deleting a paid invoice puts the booking’s outstanding balance back up by its amount, because a paid invoice is the record that the money arrived.
In most cases voiding is the better answer. Delete is for an invoice that should never have existed at all.
Apex Lucis provides the Invoice module as to help you organise your payment. You should always check with a trained accountant if you are unsure.
While every effort has been made to make the Invoice module work outside the UK, there is a chance it will not work in your region. You should double check any calculations and generated Invoices before sending them to clients.