Creating an invoice

How to put together a clean invoice — line items, tax, discounts, the works — and send it to a client.

Invoices are the core of the money side of Studiohaus. You build one from a few line items, the system does the math, you save it, and when it's ready you send it. Your client pays it from their portal by card, the money lands in your own Stripe account, and — if you keep your books in QuickBooks — the payment syncs across on its own.

This article walks through creating a fresh invoice from scratch. For furnishing- and procurement-heavy work where the invoice should mirror your spec list (with deposit/balance handling built in), see Billing from specs — that flow is faster and keeps each line tied back to the item it bills.

📸 Caption: the Financials page with the Invoices tab active, the invoice list, and the "New invoice" button.

Before you can collect

To take card payments, connect your studio's Stripe account once under Settings → Payments. Studiohaus walks you through Stripe's short onboarding (your business details and a payout bank account); when Stripe confirms the account can accept charges, the Pay button switches on in every client's portal. You can build and send invoices before this is done — clients just won't see a Pay button until it is.

The money goes straight to your own Stripe account. Studiohaus doesn't sit in the middle of your funds.

Where to start

There are three ways in:

Bill from your specs — on a project, select the items you've specified and click Bill N specs; Studiohaus drafts the invoice with one line per item. Best for furnishings and procurement. See Billing from specs.
From a project's Invoices tab — click New invoice; the client and project are pre-filled.
From the global Financials page — open Financials → Invoices → New invoice and pick the client (and optionally the project) from the dropdowns.

Filling in the dialog

📸 Caption: the New invoice dialog with header fields, line items, and totals.

Header

Invoice number (required) — Studiohaus suggests the next number for you (e.g. INV-1042); type over it if you keep your own scheme.
Client (required) — pre-filled if you came from a project; otherwise pick from the dropdown.
Project (optional) — set it and the invoice rolls up into that project's financials. Leave it blank for general retainer billing.
Issue date — defaults to today.
Due date (optional) — net-30 from issue is a common default.

Line items

Click Add line for each row. Each line has:

Description — "Design fee — May," "Sourcing — primary bedroom," "Procurement, Smith dining table."
Quantity — usually 1 for fees; set hours or units where it applies.
Rate — the per-unit price in dollars (Studiohaus stores cents under the hood; you type dollars).
Taxable — tick for goods (and services where your jurisdiction taxes them); leave off for design fees in most places.

The dialog keeps a running subtotal as you type.

Totals

Tax rate — a percentage (e.g. 8.875), applied only to lines marked taxable.
Discount — a flat dollar amount off the subtotal, applied before tax. So a $1,000 line with a $100 discount and 10% tax is $900 + $90 = $990.

The grand total updates live.

Save

Click Create invoice. It lands in your list as a Draft.

What "draft" means

A draft is yours alone — the client can't see it, even in the portal. Use it for building over a few sessions, internal review, or bookkeeper sign-off. When it's ready, open the invoice and change the status from Draft to Sent. (More on status in Recording a payment.)

Sending it

Set the status to Sent and the invoice appears in the client's portal under Invoices. You can also download the PDF (the Download PDF button on the invoice) to attach to an email or hand over in person — the portal and the PDF show the same thing.

Getting paid

Once an invoice is Sent, the client opens their portal, goes to Invoices, and clicks Pay. That opens a Stripe checkout where they pay the balance by card; when it succeeds they're returned to the portal with a confirmation.

Behind the scenes, Studiohaus records the payment against the invoice, flips it to Paid, and — if QuickBooks is connected — syncs the payment to your books automatically. You don't re-key anything.

Paid offline instead — a check, a bank transfer? Open the invoice and mark it Paid yourself. Studiohaus records the payment and runs the same QuickBooks sync, so your reports and your books still agree.

📸 Caption: the client portal Invoices page with the Pay button, and the paid-confirmation state.

A note on QuickBooks

QuickBooks is for your books, not for collecting. If you've connected it (see Connecting QuickBooks Online), invoices and the payments against them sync into QBO so month-end reconciles itself. Payment from the client still happens through their portal, on Stripe.

Editing an invoice

Drafts are fully editable. Once an invoice is sent or paid you can still correct a mistake, but consider whether a credit memo or a clean replacement is tidier for your books.