Send Invoices and Get Paid

Write an invoice in a few minutes, send it from TimelyDo, and let your customer pay by card on a page made for them. Reminders and receipts go out by themselves.

10 min read Updated October 2026 Invoicing

The short version

Fill in your business details once, add a customer, write the invoice and press Send. Your customer gets an email with a link to the invoice, pays by card into your own Stripe account or by bank transfer, and you see it marked paid.

Overview

What it does

Invoicing lets you bill a customer for any work, not only for bookings. Every invoice gets a number in an unbroken series, a page your customer can open without an account, a PDF, and an email in the customer's language.

You send an invoice → your customer gets an email with a link
They pay by card on that page → the money goes to your Stripe account and the invoice is marked paid
They pay by bank transfer → you record the payment and they get a receipt
TimelyDo never holds your money. Card payments go straight into your own Stripe account. TimelyDo never sees card details.

What you need

Your business details and a customer are enough to write invoices. To send one you also need a connected Stripe account, even if you expect to be paid by bank transfer. That keeps every sender on TimelyDo a verified business.

Business details Stripe connected A customer

If Stripe is not connected yet, the Invoices page says so and links to the Stripe page. You can keep writing invoices in the meantime; only sending waits.

Setup

Your business details

Open Invoice settings. It has one section at a time:

SectionWhat it holds
Your businessYour legal name, trade name, email, address and tax number. These are printed at the top of every invoice.
Invoice defaultsCurrency, payment terms, notes, payment instructions such as your bank details, a footer, and the logo: the TimelyDo logo or your own from Branding.
NumberingHow invoice numbers read, for example INV-2026-0001. Numbers never skip or repeat.
Tax ratesThe rates you charge, such as VAT, GST or sales tax. You choose a rate on each item.
RemindersOn which days a reminder goes out. See Reminders below.
Products and servicesItems you invoice often, with their price, to add in one click.
Payment instructions matter. If you want to be paid by bank transfer, put your bank details there. They are printed on every invoice.

Customers

Open Customers and select New customer. A name is enough to save; an email address is needed before you can send them anything. If the details look like a customer you already have, or a tax number does not look right, TimelyDo tells you next to the field but still lets you save.

A customer can also carry what their invoices start with: currency, language, payment terms, template and colour. On the customer page you can add up to five billing contacts who get a copy of each invoice, and turn on a customer portal: one private address that lists everything you sent them.

Writing and sending

Writing an invoice

On Invoices select New invoice. The editor has a few sections on the left and the invoice as your customer will see it on the right.

1
Customer
Choose who you are invoicing. Their currency and payment terms are filled in for you.
2
Items
Add products and services or hourly work. Hours can be typed as 1.5, 1:30 or 1h30. Pick a saved item from your catalog to add it in one click.
3
Totals
Add a discount, choose whether prices include tax, and decide whether the customer pays in one go or in parts.
4
Notes and look
Notes, terms, a footer, one of four templates and a colour.

Every change is saved as a draft after a moment, and the header shows when. Each section turns green when it is complete. If something is missing before the invoice can go out, the editor lists it and links to where you fix it.

Sending

Select Send. You can change who it goes to, add copies, and edit the subject and message. Choose Send now or Send later to pick a date and time; a scheduled invoice stays a draft you can still change until then.

Before each new invoice goes out you are asked to accept the invoicing terms. Tick Do not show this again and you are only asked again when the terms change.

Daily limits. You can send up to 50 invoice emails a day, and up to 5 to the same address. Until your first invoice has gone out, the message cannot contain links of your own. These limits protect your customers from fake invoices.
Getting paid

What your customer sees

An email with your name, the amount, the due date and a link. The invoice is attached as a PDF. The link opens a page with the invoice, what is due, your payment instructions, a button to pay by card and a Download PDF button. The page and the email are in the customer's language when TimelyDo has it.

Every email and page says who sent it and has a Report this invoice link, so a customer can tell us about an invoice they did not expect.

Payments by card

Your customer pays on the invoice page with Stripe's own card form. The money goes into your Stripe account and the invoice is marked paid as soon as Stripe confirms it. Your customer gets a receipt and you get a notification.

You pay the fees: Stripe's card fee, and TimelyDo's fee of 0.5 percent of each payment. Your customer pays exactly the amount on the invoice.

Payments by bank transfer or cash

Open the invoice and select Record a payment. Enter the amount, the date and how it was paid. You can email a receipt at the same time. A payment for less than what is due leaves the rest open.

Reminders

TimelyDo reminds your customer for you. By default a reminder goes out 3 days before the due date, on the due date, and 3, 7 and 14 days after it, at 9 in the morning in your time zone. Change the days for all invoices in Invoice settings, or for one invoice on its page.

Reminders stop by themselves when the invoice is paid, voided or written off. Send a reminder now sends one at once, at most once a day.

After it is sent

Mistakes and refunds

A sent invoice cannot be changed; that is what keeps your numbering trustworthy. Instead:

You wantUse
To take back part or all of an invoiceIssue a credit note, from the invoice page. It has its own number, lowers what is due, and can refund a card payment.
To cancel an invoice nobody has paidVoid invoice. It keeps its number and shows as void.
To stop chasing an overdue invoiceWrite off. It stops the reminders and shows as written off.

Reports and export

The Invoices page shows what is outstanding, overdue, paid and in draft. Reports adds what customers owe by age, how long they take to pay, what you invoiced and collected each month, and your top customers. Export CSV gives your accountant a spreadsheet of the list as you filtered it. Each currency is shown on its own and never added together.

Help

FAQ

Q

Can I invoice without connecting Stripe?

You can write invoices, but not send them. A connected Stripe account is needed to send, even if you are paid by bank transfer.
Q

Does my customer need an account?

No. They open the link in the email. Nobody else can find the page without that link.
Q

Who pays the card fee?

You do. Your customer always pays exactly the amount on the invoice. Passing card fees on to customers is not allowed in many countries, so TimelyDo does not offer it.
Q

Can I change an invoice after sending it?

No. Issue a credit note to take part of it back, or void it if nothing was paid, and send a new one.
Q

Which currencies can I use?

Every currency TimelyDo supports for payments. Each invoice has one currency, and totals are never mixed across currencies.
Q

Which languages do my customers see?

English or German today. A customer with another language sees English with dates in their own format.

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