Add line items to an invoice

This article explains how to add line items to an invoice that you’ve created in FreeAgent.

In FreeAgent, invoices contain line items that detail the specific products or services that you are charging for, along with the relevant quantities and prices. You can also edit or delete the line items after you have added them to an invoice.

Find the invoice

Navigate to the ‘Work’ tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Invoicing’ from the drop-down menu.

Select the relevant invoice from the list.

Add line items to the invoice

Before you can add line items to an invoice, the invoice must be in draft status. To mark an invoice back to draft status, select ‘Make Draft’. If the invoice has been marked as paid, you’ll need to remove the payment link first.

Once the invoice is in draft status, select ‘Add Invoice Item’.

This will bring up the 'New Invoice Item’ screen.

You can either create a new line item or add a line item from a price list.

Creating a new invoice line item

If you are creating a new invoice line item, you will need to complete the following information on the ‘New Invoice Item’ screen.

Quantity and units

First, enter the quantity of units you are invoicing for and then select the unit from the drop-down menu. The default unit is ‘Hours’, but you can select from the following:

If you select ‘Hours’ as the unit, FreeAgent will treat the time entered differently depending on whether you enter the time using a decimal point or colon. Find out how to add time to an invoice line item.

Alternatively, you can use price list items or link invoices to hours which are task based.

Custom units

It’s not currently possible to create custom units on invoices. If you don't want to show a unit, or none of the existing units suit your needs, select ‘-no unit-’ which will leave the unit column blank for the line item on the invoice. You can then manually type the unit description in the line item details section.

There is also a ‘Discount’ option in the unit drop-down menu, which allows you to apply an exact amount discount, rather than a percentage discount, to your invoice. To apply a discount, enter the quantity as ‘1’ and enter the amount of the discount in the ‘Unit Price’ field with a ‘-’ in front of it. Please note that if you don’t include the minus, the discount will not be applied.

Item details

Add a description of the line item in the ‘Details’ field.

Unit price

Next, enter the price per unit in the ‘Unit Price’ field. If you have selected ‘-no unit-’, this will simply be the price of the line item.

Subtotals

If you want to add subtotals to an invoice, you would need to add the invoice lines as normal and then add a further line to the invoice using the drop down unit of 'Comment'. Here you can enter a line stating the subtotal at that point.

If you have multiple lines on the invoice you can use the 'Reorder items' button to move them if required.

Income category

If you’ve created a custom income category, select the ‘Income Category’ drop-down menu and choose which income category you wish to allocate the line item to. For information on viewing and editing income categories, please see this article.

VAT

If your business is registered for VAT, use the ‘VAT’ drop-down menu to choose the correct rate of VAT for the invoice line item. If your customer is based outside the UK, there is a setting under 'Contacts' which will enable you to choose whether or not you want to charge them VAT.

Please note that FreeAgent does the rounding on the VAT figure per line rather than at the end of the invoice.

Adding an invoice item to your price list

If this line item is a new sale that you will make regularly, you can save the information as a price list item by ticking the ‘Add this to your Price List’ checkbox and giving the item a name or code. This will allow you to add the information to other invoices quickly in the future.

Adding an invoice line item from your price list

If the item you are adding to the invoice is already set up in your price list in FreeAgent, you can select it from the ‘Autofill from your price list’ drop-down menu and the item details will automatically be populated.

Once you have entered all the necessary details for the invoice line item, select 'Create and Finish’ to complete the process and add it to the invoice. If you need to add additional line items, select 'Create and Add Another'.

If you no longer want to add this item to the invoice, select ‘Cancel’.

Mark the invoice as sent

After adding the relevant line item(s), select ‘Mark as Sent’ above the invoice template to activate the updated invoice in your account if you don't need to send the updated invoice to your customer.

To send the updated invoice to your customer, select ‘Re-send by Email’.