Invoicing workflow

This article walks through the typical lifecycle of an invoice in Ceum, from one-time setup to closing the loop after payment.

1. Prepare

Before issuing your first invoice:

Brand and billing info — open Brand invoicing and fill out your company name, tax ID, bank details, address, contact, and (optionally) a logo. See Brand invoicing.
Invoice template — open the invoice template page. A sensible default is created for you on your first visit; tweak colors, label text, and layout, then save. See Invoice template.
Statuses — define your lifecycle on the Invoice statuses page (see Custom statuses). Mark at least one final status as finished — that's how Ceum knows the invoice is paid.
Default tax rate — set it in Brand invoicing; it pre-fills the tax rate on new line items.
Invoicing currency — also in Brand invoicing. This is what invoices are issued in, and it is separate from the display currency in General settings. Individual clients and projects can override it.
Email templates — open the email templates page and customize the invoice-sending template. Available variables include the client name, invoice number, amount, currency, due date, and your name. Customize the overdue-reminder template the same way; it also offers a days-overdue variable.

2. Create the invoice

Open the new invoice form and fill out:

Invoice info — invoice number (your accounting reference), issue date, due date, status, currency, and type (full or proforma). The currency starts on Automatic and follows the client or project you pick; the label names which one it came from. Pick a code yourself to pin it.
Client info — pick a client. The billing fields (company name, tax ID, bank details, client address, client email) are copied from the client when you create the invoice. You can override any of them per invoice.
Line items — each item has a description, an amount, an optional quantity and unit price, an optional tax (a fixed amount) or tax rate (a percentage), and an optional task link. Picking a task pre-fills the description and switches the line to billing by time, taking its hours from the task's tracked time and its rate from your hourly rate. See Invoices.
QR-code data — optional; appears on the PDF if your template's QR-code section is enabled.
Tags — optional.

Save. The invoice gets an ID like I-7.

3. Preview the PDF

The detail page shows a live PDF preview using your default invoice template and your real brand info. To preview a different template, switch your default to it temporarily.

4. Generate and store the PDF

Use the Export PDF action on the detail page. Each export captures the invoice exactly as it was at that moment, so later edits never change a past export. Your stored exports stay downloadable from the detail page, and you can re-export whenever you need a fresh copy.

5. Send by email

From the detail page, use Email. The composer opens with the invoice-sending template loaded and its variables filled in from the invoice. You can attach either a PDF you've already exported or a fresh one generated on the spot. Sent emails are recorded on the Email logs page.

6. Track status

As the invoice moves through your workflow (typically Draft → Sent → Paid or similar), update the status from the detail page or the list. Every status change is recorded in the Entity changelog with who made it and when.

7. Mark paid

Move the invoice to a status flagged finished. Once it's finished, the invoice:

Stops appearing in overdue checks.
Stops surfacing in Alerts — including under "flagged invoices", if you had flagged it.
Stays in the list (filter by status to find paid ones).

Ceum does not automatically create an income transaction when an invoice is paid — log the payment yourself if you want it in your ledger.

8. Overdue and reminders

An invoice counts as overdue when its due date has passed and it isn't in a finished status. Overdue invoices are highlighted red on the list and surface in Alerts and the alert bell.

To send a reminder, use Email and load the overdue-reminder template; the days-overdue value is filled in from the invoice's due date. Reminders are always something you send yourself — Ceum doesn't send them on a schedule.

9. Cancel or void

There's no built-in void status. To void an invoice:

Create a "Voided" status with finished on (so it's excluded from overdue).
Move the invoice into it.
Optionally add an explanatory flag note to the invoice.

You can also delete an invoice outright from its detail page. Deleting an invoice also removes its exports and email attachments.

Invoicing from tasks and tracked time

Instead of building an invoice field by field, you can start from the work itself. Both list pages offer Create invoice in the bulk toolbar once rows are selected.

From the task list, each selected task becomes one line. From the time tracker, the selected entries are grouped by their task — ten entries across three tasks make three lines with the hours summed — because a line bills a piece of work, not a stopwatch reading. An entry linked to no task cannot be billed at all.

How it resolves:

Client — followed from each task to its projects and from those to their clients. A selection reaching exactly one client, with nothing excluded, goes straight to the form; anything else opens a dialog to choose. Rows that cannot be billed are shown greyed out with the reason, never dropped silently.
Project — filled in only when every billed line shares one.
Currency — resolved once for the whole invoice, project then client then brand.
Unit price — the hourly rate from the project, else the client, else the brand default. If no level sets one, the line arrives unpriced for you to fill in.

The invoice number is never generated; the form opens with the cursor in that field. Changing the client or the project afterwards clears the task links on every line, since those tasks belonged to the previous client's projects.

The action counts against the plan's invoice limit like every other way of creating one. At the limit it greys out and the click opens the plan page instead of the form.

On mobile

View, create, and edit invoices — the list and form are available, with native date and picker controls.
Email an invoice — attach an already-exported invoice PDF to an outbound email.
Template editing is web-only — designing the invoice template (colors, layout, labels) is not available on the mobile app — manage from the web app. PDF preview and export also stay on web.