Quotes & invoices
Quotes and Invoices share a page in the nav (Quotes/Invoices) because they share a shape: a client, a job, line items, a total, and a status. A quote asks for the work; an invoice asks for the money.
Both are part of the Commercial module — see Jobs.
Quotes
Building one
A quote starts as a draft. Add, edit and remove line items freely while it’s a draft — once it’s sent, the line items are locked, because the client is looking at them.
Give it an expiry date and it expires on its own once that date passes.
Sending it
Send emails the quote to the client with a link they can open without a Tobren account. On that page they can:
- read the quote,
- download it as a PDF,
- Accept or Decline it.
Accept and Decline only appear while the quote is genuinely open — sent, and not past its expiry date. A client can’t accept a quote that expired last night.
Quote lifecycle
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Being written. Line items editable. |
| Sent | With the client, awaiting a decision. |
| Accepted | The client accepted it. |
| Declined | The client declined it. |
| Expired | Passed its expiry date without a decision. |
Accepted, Declined and Expired are final. To re-quote, use Duplicate — available on a sent, declined or expired quote — which gives you a fresh draft with the same line items.
Invoices
Creating one
Create an invoice either empty, or from an accepted quote — which copies the line items across and links the two, so what you billed matches what they agreed to.
Populating from flights
Populate from flights builds line items from the flights on the job, rather than you re-typing what you already logged. If there’s nothing to add, the result says so plainly instead of reporting a silent success.
Sending it
Send emails the invoice to the client with a public link. That page is view and PDF download only — there’s no online card payment. Payment happens however you and your client already do it, and you record it in Tobren Operations.
Invoice lifecycle
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Being assembled. Line items editable. |
| Sent | Issued to the client, awaiting payment. |
| Overdue | Past its due date and still unpaid. |
| Paid | Payment recorded in full. |
| Void | Cancelled. Final. |
You can’t set an invoice to Paid. Paid is derived — it’s what the invoice becomes when recorded payments add up to the total. An invoice is settled by recording the money, never by flipping a label, so a paid invoice always has the ledger rows to prove it.
Void is refused while it would strand payments that haven’t been refunded. Duplicate is available on a void invoice.
Recording payments
Payments go on an append-only ledger — entries are added, never edited away.
- Mark paid records a payment in full.
- Record a payment logs one payment, in full or in part, with its method: Check, Cash, Bank transfer / ACH, Card (taken elsewhere), or Other.
- Credit records money going back the other way — a refund actually paid, or a write-off.
Partial payments are fine: the invoice tracks what’s been paid and what’s still outstanding, and reaches Paid when the ledger covers the total.
Recording payments, credits and marking an invoice paid all require Admin. Creating and sending quotes and invoices requires Member.
What Tobren Operations does not do
- No online card payment for your clients. There is no “Pay now” button on a public invoice. Tobren Operations records the money you collect; it doesn’t collect it.
- No accounting. No tax calculation, no expenses, no P&L, no accounting-package export.
(Your own Tobren Operations subscription is billed separately under Billing — a different thing entirely from invoicing your clients.)