Send invoices and estimates, and reminders and thank-yous for invoices, right from Harvest. All Administrators can create and send invoices and estimates, while Managers need special permissions to access and send invoices and estimates. 

Sending invoices and estimates

You don’t need to send an invoice or estimate immediately after it’s created. You can save drafts and send later.

1. Go to Invoices > Overview or Estimates > Overview and click into the invoice or estimate you’d like to send.
2. Click the Send invoice or Send estimate button.
3. You’ll then be able to:
   • Change the send as address. This is the address that will receive emails if your client replies to your invoice or estimate.
   • Choose which recipients the invoice or estimate will go to.
   • Make edits to the email subject or message.
   • For invoices, choose to include a PDF version of the invoice. For those with an online payment gateway enabled:
     
     • PDFs will include a link to pay online if online payment is enabled on the invoice.
     • You’ll also be able to choose to include a link to the web invoice. 
   • View a preview of the invoice and send yourself a test email.
4. Click Send.

When you send invoices and estimates to your clients via Harvest, the emails will display your name but always come from notifications@harvestapp.com (see Can my invoices and estimates be sent from my email address? for more information on why). We set your email address as the reply-to address so that when a client replies, their message will be sent directly to you.

If an invoice or estimate fails to be delivered, Harvest will notify you via email so that you can follow up with your client and resend the invoice. To remove as many potential roadblocks as possible, we recommend that clients add notifications@harvestapp.com to the list of addresses they can receive emails from.

Adding recipients to invoices

When you send an invoice, you have the option to choose multiple recipients. To add people to the list of recipients, you’ll type their email address in the text box provided. Beneath that text box, you’ll see email addresses you’ve used to send invoices for that particular client in the past. You can click on those email addresses to add them as recipients.

You can also CC any email address by clicking Add CC. Once you click on Add CC, you’ll see a text box and can type in any email address. You also see the option + Add me as a CC in addition to being able to add any recent email addresses you’ve used for that client by clicking on that email address.

Adding recipients to estimates

When you send an estimate, you have the option to choose multiple recipients. To add people to the list of recipients, you’ll need to create additional client contacts. All Administrators can create new client contacts, but only Managers with permission to create and edit clients can add new client contacts.

1. Go to Estimates > Overview and click into the estimate you’d like to send.
2. Click the Send button.
3. Click Add contact under the list of recipients.
4. Fill out the form and click Save contact.

After you save the contact, they’ll be added to the list of recipients for that client. Check the box next to each recipient you’d like to include.

Note that you can also create contacts from Manage > Clients and by clicking the + Add contact button for the client in question.

Web invoices

Web invoices allow your client to view their invoice online via a link sent with their invoice. The web invoice will always show the current version of the invoice. And when a client views a web invoice, you’ll see a notification in the Invoice history.

If you have the client dashboard enabled in your account, your clients will find a link to their dashboard on the web invoice.

Sending a web invoice with online payment enabled

If you have an online payment gateway enabled in your account and you selected online payment options when you originally created the invoice, you will see the options you’ve made available. You can click the What will my client see? link to view the Web Invoice as your client would see it. 

If you’d like to edit the online payment options available for a particular invoice, you’ll need to edit the invoice ahead of sending it. You can also remove the option to pay that particular invoice online by selecting the Do not accept online payment for this invoice option. These options are available at the bottom of the invoice when in edit mode:

Sending a web invoice when online payment is not enabled

Send the web invoice link directly

If you choose not to accept online payment for an invoice, the web invoice link won't be automatically included in the email you send to your customer. Instead, you can share the web invoice link with your customer by clicking on the Copy invoice link button at the top of the invoice itself. You can then send that link to your customer.

Include the Web Invoice link in your invoice message

If you want to send the invoice via Harvest and let your client view the web invoice, you’ll need to add a link for the web invoice to your invoice message. To do that, add the variable %invoice_url% to your message where you want the link to appear. The variable will expand upon sending your invoice.

To set your default invoice message to include that link:

1. Go to Invoices > Configure > Messages.
   • Only Administrators have access to Invoices > Configure.
2. Add the %invoice_url% variable to the body of your message. You may want to precede it with wording like "Web invoice:" to help your clients understand what the link is for.
3. Click Save message.

Previewing the invoice and sending a test email

Before sending an invoice, you may want to see what your client will see. To do this, click the View preview button at the bottom of the sending options:

Within the preview window, you can click the Send me a test email button to receive a copy of the invoice at your email address:

The test email will arrive in your inbox the same way it would for your client, with the only exception being that the subject line will include [TEST] at the beginning. This [TEST] text will not be visible when you send the invoice to your client and is only meant to differentiate test invoices from ones that have been officially sent.

If you don't choose to send yourself a test email, you can click the Close button to return to the sending options.

Sending invoice, thank-you, and reminder messages

Administrators can configure the default invoice message, thank-you message, and reminder message from Invoices > Configure > Messages.

Administrators and Managers with special permission can also manually send one-off invoice reminders and thank-you messages for individual invoices. 

• To manually send an invoice reminder for a late invoice, go to the individual invoice and click the green Send reminder button on the top left of the invoice.
• To manually send a thank-you after an invoice has been paid, navigate to a paid invoice and click the Send thank-you button on the top left of the invoice.