Quotes & invoices
Quotes and Invoices share one sidebar entry, Quotes/Invoices, which opens Quotes; a sub-nav switches between Jobs, Clients, Quotes, Invoices and Analytics. 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
Section titled “Quotes”Building one
Section titled “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 a sent quote expires on its own once that date passes (compared as a UTC calendar date).
Sending it
Section titled “Sending it”Send to client 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
Section titled “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 as new draft (the expiry date is not copied) — available on a sent, declined or expired quote — which gives you a fresh draft with the same line items.
Invoices
Section titled “Invoices”Creating one
Section titled “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
Section titled “Populating from flights”Populate from flights adds one line per non-cancelled scheduled flight linked to the job (directly or through its events). Each new line starts at $0.00, so you set the price. Flights that were only logged and never scheduled are not pulled in. If there’s nothing to add, the result says so plainly and you add lines by hand.
Sending it
Section titled “Sending it”Send to client (or Resend) 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
Section titled “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 as new draft is available on a void invoice. Voiding is refused while payments are not yet credited.
Recording payments
Section titled “Recording payments”Payments go on an append-only ledger — entries are added, never edited away.
- Mark paid in full records a payment in full.
- Record payment logs one payment, in full or in part, with its method: Check, Cash, Bank transfer / ACH, Card (taken elsewhere), or Other.
- Credit / refund 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.
On a sent quote or invoice you can revoke the share link and issue a new one. A quote can also be marked accepted, declined or expired by you from its page.
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
Section titled “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.)