How to Use Invoices and Estimates in the CRM
April 16, 2026 · tropicalhilladmin
Estimates and Invoices share the same underlying pattern — a grid, an editor, a service catalog, and PDF export — but they're two separate sections tied together by one important workflow: turning an accepted estimate into an invoice with one click.
The Estimates grid
Columns: Number, Title, Lead, Client, Status, Total, Issue Date (sorted newest first by default), Valid Until, and Assigned To.
The search box filters across title, number, lead name, customer name, and status.
Select multiple rows to bulk Delete, with a confirmation before anything is removed.
Column order, visibility, and sort are saved per-user, same as everywhere else in the CRM.
Double-click a row to open it, or click + New Estimate to start one.
Each row also has its own quick Convert action — more on that below.
Creating an estimate
Title is the only required field.
Status starts as Draft and moves through Sent, Accepted, Approved, Declined, or Expired as the deal progresses — these are set manually from the dropdown, not automatically.
Issue Date defaults to today; Valid Until defaults to two months out.
Link the estimate to either a Lead or a Customer — not both at once — plus a contact and the user it's assigned to.
Line items can be typed freely (description, quantity, unit, unit price, and a taxable checkbox) or pulled from your Service Catalog, which auto-fills the price and details. Selecting a catalog "package" automatically expands into all of its individual line items for you.
Your tenant's default tax rate pre-fills automatically, and tax only applies to line items marked taxable.
Discount is a flat dollar amount taken off after tax, not a percentage and not applied per line.
Subtotal, tax, and total all calculate live as you edit line items.
There are two separate notes fields: Notes (visible to the customer) and Internal Notes (visible only to your team).
The Invoices grid
Columns: Number, Title, Lead, Client, Status, Total, Balance Due, Issue Date (newest first by default), Due Date, and Assigned To.
Same search, bulk-delete, and saved-column behavior as the Estimates grid.
There's no per-row "Convert" action here — invoices are the destination of that workflow, not the source.
Creating an invoice
Same required Title field and the same line-item/catalog/tax/discount behavior as estimates.
Status options are Draft, Sent, Paid, Partial, Overdue, and Void.
Payment Terms is its own dropdown — Due on Receipt, Net 15, Net 30, or Net 45/60.
If the invoice came from an estimate, you'll see a note showing which estimate number it was created from.
Below the totals, invoices additionally show Amount Paid and Balance Due, calculated automatically from whatever payments have been recorded.
Turning an estimate into an invoice
This is the one workflow worth understanding in detail:
Click Convert from the Estimates grid, or Convert to Invoice from inside an open estimate.
A brand-new invoice is created, copying the title, lead/customer/contact, assigned user, notes, tax rate, discount, and every line item exactly as they were on the estimate.
The new invoice always starts fresh as a Draft, dated today, due in 30 days, with payment terms automatically set to Net 30 — regardless of what dates or terms the original estimate had.
The original estimate is left completely untouched. Nothing about its status or record changes — the connection between the two only shows up as a note on the new invoice referencing the estimate it came from.
You're taken straight into the new invoice so you can adjust dates, terms, or anything else before sending it.
Recording payments
Payments are entered manually — there's no online card checkout for customers to pay an invoice themselves through the CRM. (Stripe is used elsewhere in the platform for your own subscription billing, not for collecting customer payments here.)
Open an existing invoice and use Record Payment to log a payment: date, amount, method (check, cash, credit card, bank transfer, or other), a reference number, and notes.
Every payment is listed in a running Payment History table, and any payment can be deleted if it was entered by mistake.
Partial payments are fully supported — add as many payment rows as needed, and Balance Due updates automatically after each one.
Sending and PDFs
Preview PDF generates a branded PDF of the estimate or invoice, including your company logo if one is set.
Send to client emails the estimate or invoice directly from the editor.
Sending does not create a client-facing approval link — there's no portal for a customer to click "Accept" or "Decline" online. Status changes (Accepted, Declined, Paid, and so on) are set manually by your team based on what the client actually tells you.
A few tips
Build out your Service Catalog before you need it — picking line items from the catalog instead of typing them fresh every time keeps pricing consistent across every estimate and invoice.
Double-check the due date and payment terms right after converting an estimate to an invoice — they reset to Net 30 automatically and won't carry over from the estimate.
Use Internal Notes for anything you don't want a client to see if they ever get a copy of the PDF — the customer-facing Notes field and PDF only ever show the public one.
Since the original estimate never updates itself after conversion, it's worth manually marking it Approved once you convert it, so your Estimates grid still reflects reality.