Invoicing and getting paid
Turn accepted quotes into deposit, milestone, and final invoices, send them, track payments, and push them into Xero or QuickBooks. Includes late fee rules and online payment via Stripe.
- • A project with an accepted quote
- • Your invoice payment methods set up (Settings → Invoice Payment Methods)
Invoicing is where BuiltUp quietly becomes the most important piece of software you own. Everything you've done up to this point, scope, quote, contract, schedule, has been work you *could* have done in email and spreadsheets, slowly. Invoicing, payment tracking, late fees, and accounting sync are where the time savings become money savings.
Open the Billing tab
Once a client accepts a quote, the Billing tab unlocks in the project sidebar. Click it and you'll see:
- Contract value. The total of the accepted quote
- Invoiced to date, how much you've already billed
- Remaining. The difference
- Payments received, what's actually in your bank
- A list of every invoice on this project, in order
If you've never invoiced this project before, BuiltUp will suggest a default structure based on your workspace settings, usually a 20% deposit, 2-3 milestones, and a 10% retention. You can take the default or build it manually.
Billing
Create your first invoice (the deposit)
Click New invoice and pick Deposit. BuiltUp pre-fills the amount as a percentage of the contract value (default 20%, editable), sets the due date to 14 days from today, and pulls in the client's billing details.
All you have to decide is:
- Description, what shows on the invoice line ("Deposit, Hampton kitchen renovation")
- Due date, shorter for deposits, longer for milestones
- Late fee, optional but recommended; BuiltUp auto-applies it after the due date
Click Send and it goes out by email with a PDF attachment and a web link to pay online.
Enable online payments
On the Billing tab, each invoice has a Pay now button powered by Stripe. When a client clicks it, they can pay by card or UK bank transfer (Open Banking) without leaving the page. The money lands in your connected bank account within 2-3 business days.
To enable this:
- Open Settings → Invoice Payment Methods
- Connect your Stripe account (takes about 5 minutes, needs your business details)
- Toggle Enable online payments per invoice, or set a workspace default
BuiltUp takes no cut of the payment. Stripe charges their own processing fee, which varies by card type and is higher for cards issued outside the UK. Their published rates are at stripe.com/gb/pricing and we are not going to restate a third party's prices here, because they move. You can pass the fee to the client or absorb it yourself.
Set late fees and auto-reminders
Invoices that aren't paid on time go into Overdue state automatically. BuiltUp can:
- Auto-apply a late fee. A fixed amount or percentage of the invoice, added to the next one
- Send automated reminders on a schedule (3 days late, 7 days late, 14 days late) with escalating tone
- Flag the project in your dashboard so you know there's a money issue
Configure these defaults in Settings → Policy Templates → Late fees and they'll apply to every new invoice. Override them per invoice if needed.
Push invoices into Xero or QuickBooks
If you've connected Xero or QuickBooks from Settings → Billing → Integrations, every invoice you issue is written across to your accounting package automatically: client, line items, invoice number, date and due date. The client goes over first so the invoice has a contact to hang on, matched on the client's name so you don't get a second copy of someone you already have. Draft invoices stay put. Nothing reaches your accounts until you've actually issued it.
It goes one way. BuiltUp writes into your accounting package and never reads back out of it, so marking an invoice paid in Xero doesn't change anything in BuiltUp, and reconciliation, bank feeds and your VAT return carry on exactly where they are. What it saves is the re-typing, which once you have a few jobs running at once is most of the job.
The billing loop is the whole point of BuiltUp. Everything else. The scope, the quote, the schedule, the subs, eventually flows into this tab as money. Don't skip setting it up properly.
Try this on a job you have already priced. You know what the answer should be, which makes it the only useful first test.
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Financial reports (WIP + profitability)
BuiltUp's Financials page shows you revenue, margin, and work-in-progress across every project you're running. Here's how to read the WIP report and the profitability breakdown, and when to download the PDF for your accountant.
More in Money & insights
Financial reports (WIP + profitability)
BuiltUp's Financials page shows you revenue, margin, and work-in-progress across every project you're running. Here's how to read the WIP report and the profitability breakdown, and when to download the PDF for your accountant.
Integrations: Xero, QuickBooks, Stripe
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