How to Send Your First Invoice in Sparkforge

Sparkforge supports two invoice types: one-time for fixes, setup fees, and one-offs, and recurring for monthly retainers. One-time invoices allow backdating; recurring invoices start on the current or future date and generate automatically each month.

If you’re invoicing without Stripe Connect, you’ll need to record payments manually — see the manual-payment workflow inside the Payments tab.

Step 1: Set global invoice defaults

Configuring defaults first turns on the features you’ll use across every invoice. Go to Payments → Invoices & Estimates → All Invoices and click Settings.

Business Information

Add your logo, business name, phone number, address, and website. Use + Add custom value for additional fields like a tax ID.

Email Configurations

Set the From email and sender name that recipients will see.

Title, Terms, and Layout

Edit the invoice and estimate titles and terms. Use Customize Layout to change button colors, rename sections, and adjust line-item labels for on-brand invoices.

Payment Settings

• Set invoice due-after days and invoice prefix.
• Manage default Stripe payment methods (all valid methods or bank transfer only).
• Enable partial payments with a minimum percentage.
• Enable late fees — flat or percentage — with intervals, grace period, and a max cap.
• Enable tip payments and set tip percentages.

Reminder Settings

Reminders apply to one-time and recurring invoices where automatic payment is off and no payment schedule exists. Configure email and SMS templates, subject lines, frequency, business hours, and timezone. Add multiple reminders with Add another Reminder.

Billing Custom Fields and Notifications

Add custom fields with + Add Custom Field. Notifications split into Customer (invoice received, payment success/fail, auto-payment alerts) and Team (payment success/fail, auto-payment failures, estimate accepted/declined).

Step 2: Create the invoice

1. Open Payments → Invoices & Estimates → All Invoices.
2. Click + New → New invoice.
3. In Client & Schedule, add the client and edit invoice number, issue date, and due date.
4. Click Add an item to insert products. Edit price and quantity per line.

Add a discount

Click the discount icon below the subtotal. Choose flat dollar amount or percentage and save.

Add taxes

Tax setup is global plus per-invoice:

1. Open Settings → Taxes. Decide whether tax is included in the price or added separately.
2. Add taxes manually with Add tax or enable Automatic Tax with a tax category and eligible locations.
3. On the invoice, click Add Tax below the discount area, or use the Enable tax automatically toggle above the products list.

Add a payment schedule

Click Add Payment Schedule. Choose percentage or fixed amount, enter values and due dates, and click save. Two payments are added by default; click Add Payment for more.

Additional options

• Terms & Conditions — full terms for the client to review.
• Late Fees — percentage or flat, with intervals, grace period, and max.
• Processing Fee & Tipping — set percentages. Processing fees only show after the customer clicks Pay.
• Attachment — file added to the invoice email.

Partial payments, late fees, and tips must be enabled in global Payment Settings first.

Step 3: Send the invoice

Save first — sending an unsaved invoice triggers a generic error because the system clones the saved record at send time.

Click Send for options to edit invoice name, send by email or SMS or both, and edit the email template inline. Click the small downward arrow next to Send to Mark as Sent and Copy Link — useful when you want to paste the dynamic payment link into your own email tool.

Get the invoice link for external email

1. Open the invoice list.
2. Click the three-dot menu next to the invoice.
3. Choose Copy Link.

You can also download the invoice as a PDF and attach it to an Outlook or external email.

Preview the final invoice accurately

The right-side editor preview is layout-only with placeholder data. For an accurate preview, use the three-dot menu → Preview, or open Contact → Email → View Invoice after sending.