What is an Invoice Draft?
An invoice draft is a preliminary version of an invoice, serving as a preparatory step before it is finalized and sent to the client.
It allows you to make adjustments and review the invoice before finalizing it.
Managing Access to Invoicing
By default, Admins, full-access Managers, and Profitability Managers have all invoicing and payment permissions enabled.
Restricted Managers and Restricted Profitability Managers can manage invoices and payments only for the budgets they’ve been assigned to.
Other roles may have limited access by default, but permissions can be customized. For example, you can allow certain users to create drafts, finalize invoices, or sync them with an accounting tool—depending on your setup.
Admins can adjust access through default roles or by creating a custom permission set using the Permission Builder.
📌 Check out the Custom Invoicing Permissions article for more details.
Creating an Invoice Draft
When you start the invoice creation wizard, after selecting the client company and budget, your next step is to create an invoice draft.
From there, you can adjust the fields described below.
Note on Draft Creation (April 2025)
The way you add line items to invoices is being updated. The new workflow—where you select the invoicing method and line item display after clicking + Add Line Items—is currently in Beta.
Some users might still see the older flow, where you choose the invoicing method, line item format, tax rate, and subsidiary before creating the draft.
📌 While the overall functionality remains the same (only the order of steps is changing), this older setup will be phased out and replaced with the workflow described in this article.
Subsidiary
Choose the legal entity you're invoicing from. This is especially important if your organization operates across different countries, tax jurisdictions, or brands.
📌 Read more about setting up subsidiaries here.
Document Template
Choose how your invoice PDF and accompanying email will look when sent to the client. Templates control visual formatting and which dynamic fields are shown.
📌 Learn more about document templates here. Note that switching templates will reset the invoice note to match the new template.
Issuer
The issuer is the person sending the invoice on behalf of your organization.
📌 Learn more about the issuer field here.
Invoice Custom Fields
Custom fields allow you to track extra data on invoices—such as internal tags, cost centers, delivery info, or approval references—based on your organization’s needs.
📌 Read more about using invoice custom fields here.
Add Line Items
The draft starts empty. Click + Add Line Items to begin, and select an invoicing method (Uninvoiced Time and Expenses, Total/Remaining Amount, Percentage of the Total Amount).
Productive remembers your last-used method for each client and pre-selects it next time. You can always change it.
📌 Learn more about invoicing methods here.
From the + Add Line Item dropdown, you can add an empty line item and fill in details manually.
Additionally, you can link a line item from your invoice to a service from any of the client budgets by clicking the 🔗 icon.
📌 Tip: Use the search bar to quickly find the right service.
Line Item Display
Decide how to display line items on the invoice—either as plain text or using dynamic fields.
After adjusting the display and invoicing method, click Generate.
📌 Here are more tips for optimizing invoices with dynamic fields.
Tax Rate
Each line item can have its own tax rate based on your subsidiary settings.
To apply one tax rate across all items at once:
Click the Tax Rate column header
Select your preferred rate
📌 Note: Productive auto-fills tax rates based on what’s set in CRM > Companies (client settings). If missing, it uses the default tax rate from Settings > Company Info (you subsidiary settings).
Custom Note
You can add a note to the invoice—freehand or using dynamic fields.
📌 Note: Changing the document template will replace any existing note.
Automatic Invoice Settings
Productive will automatically preselect invoice settings based on the previous invoice drafted or sent to the same client.
This feature helps you avoid manually selecting the same settings again, making your invoicing process smoother and more efficient.
What's Copied?
Invoicing method
Subsidiary
Document template
"Display line items as" information
📌 The tax rate will be pulled from the settings for the selected client (CRM > Companies). If this information is missing, Productive will pull the default tax rate from the selected subsidiary.
Draft Stage Features
While in draft status, the invoice:
Shows a Draft badge
Does not have an invoice number
Isn’t included in revenue calculations, but is visible in the budget in the Services tab
It will also appear in the Invoices tab within a budget. To learn more about tracking finalized, draft, and remaining amounts, check out the Invoicing Progress Bar article.
Can be tracked in Reports
Will show a Draft watermark if exported to PDF
Managing the Draft
Draft invoices include several tabs:
Invoice: Main invoice details
Feed: A log of all changes and a space for comments and tagging
Payments: Overview of any payments linked to the invoice (once finalized)
Reminders: More on payment reminders (once marked as sent)
You can also:
Manage subscribers – Add teammates who’ll get notified of updates.
Use a custom BCC email address – Link external emails to this invoice. Learn more.
Duplicate or delete the draft or export a timesheet if time has been logged to the budget you’re invoicing, all via the three-dot menu.
Invoice Drafts and Accounting Integrations
An invoice can be exported to the accounting tool even while in draft status.
The invoice number can be also assigned by the accounting tool, as adjusted in the integration settings (Settings > App Marketplace).
Selecting "Copy to accounting" will also finalize the invoice.
Finalizing the Invoice
Once you’re done editing and reviewing your draft, you’ll move on to finalizing the invoice. To learn more about this, check out Finalizing and Sending Invoices.
Monitoring Invoice Drafts
To keep track of your invoice drafts and see how they contribute to your overall billing process, you can build custom reports or use ready-made templates.
Learn more in Monitoring Invoice Drafts and Finalized Invoices.