Clients and invoices are the backbone of Finocket: add a client with GSTIN validation and state auto-fill, then raise any of seven GST document types — invoice, tax invoice, bill of supply, export invoice, receipt, credit note or estimate — from one form, and share it on WhatsApp.
Add a client
Two paths: Add → Client from anywhere, or Clients → + top-right. Only the name is required — phone, email, address and GSTIN can come later. Type a 15-character GSTIN and Finocket checksums it as you type: a valid GSTIN gets a tick and the client's tax state auto-fills from the first two digits; a wrong state code, bad checksum or wrong length shows a red hint with the exact issue.
The Clients screen is built for a real book of customers: a hierarchical tree with sub-clients, search and a Leads/Clients lifecycle filter, a split view on tablets, bulk select and merge, a Cleanup tool that groups likely duplicates, and a CSV import wizard (upload, map columns, confirm a mandatory consent declaration, import). On a client's detail page you can convert a lead to a client, open their ledger and statement, merge or re-parent them, and fire WhatsApp quick actions.
The Leads / Clients filter appears once you have at least one lead. Until then all three buttons would show the same list, so the screen leaves them out.
Clients and suppliers are separate lists
Clients are the people you sell to. Suppliers are the people you buy from. Importing suppliers adds them to Suppliers only — they do not appear in your client list, so a workspace that has uploaded two hundred material suppliers still has a customer list of customers.
A firm can be both, and then it is one record on both screens, not two. That matters: a wholesaler you buy stock from and also sell to is one legal entity with one balance, and splitting them into two records would give you two ledgers for one relationship. So the two roles sit side by side on the same party.
Finocket adds the second role by itself when your books show it. Pay somebody while reconciling a bank statement and they become a supplier; invoice a supplier and they become a customer as well. It never takes a role away — only you can do that, with Not a supplier on the Suppliers screen, and a party you un-mark returns to your client list rather than disappearing from both.
The GST document types
Pick the document type when you create the invoice. Each type gets its own numbering prefix and the PDF header reads whichever you picked:
- Tax Invoice — for GST-registered clients. CGST + SGST for same state, IGST across states.
- Bill of Supply — for composition dealers who can't collect GST.
- Export Invoice — for foreign clients; an optional LUT number declares no IGST is charged.
- Receipt — advance payment or informal acknowledgement.
- Credit Note — returns, refunds or discounts against an existing invoice, on its own series so your invoice sequence is undisturbed.
- Estimate — a quote your client can accept online before any invoice exists. Full flow in Estimates & deposits.
Create and send an invoice
- Open Invoices → New. Pick the document type, numbering series and currency.
- Pick or create the client.
- Set dates and terms — payment-terms presets, due date, PO number, place of supply, reverse-charge (RCM) and LUT switches, shipping address.
- Add line items: pick from your catalog or type fresh, with quantity, rate, HSN/SAC and the GST split (CGST/SGST or IGST — Finocket picks based on states; Australian and US tax handled per region). An HSN or SAC code can be up to eight characters — HSN codes are 4, 6 or 8 digits and SAC codes are 6.
- Review totals — discount, adjustment, coupon; a warning appears if the client is over their credit exposure.
- Add notes and terms, then Save. The invoice saves as a draft and opens its detail page.
Only drafts are editable — once marked sent or paid, an invoice is locked and the edit route redirects, keeping your audit trail honest. From the detail page: print preview, PDF download, WhatsApp share, and a payment link. INR invoices carry a UPI QR automatically.
Credit notes under GST
Open Invoices → New Credit Note, pick the same client, add the returned items and save. It prints as "CREDIT NOTE CN-0001", lands in the client ledger against their outstanding, and reduces your GSTR-1 correctly. Under GST you should issue the credit note by 30 November following the financial year of the original invoice (or before filing the annual return, whichever is earlier).
Sent a wrong invoice?
For an invoice not yet filed, use Cancel & reissue on its detail page — Finocket cancels it (with Undo) and you raise a corrected one; the record of the cancelled invoice is preserved. For an invoice already reported in GSTR-1, issue a credit note instead.
Access & control
Owners and assistants can create and edit; an invited accountant sees everything read-only. Invoicing is a core module — it's on for every business workspace.
Related: Payments & TDS, Reports & GST filings.
If you sell subscriptions through Finocket
When somebody pays for a plan, the tax invoice for that sale is raised in your own books automatically — in the numbering series you set up for it, carrying the same number as the copy the customer receives. It arrives already marked paid, so it appears in your list like any other invoice and you can open, send or forward it.
Two things it deliberately does not do. It never raises a second number for a sale the customer already has a document for, so your series stays consecutive. And billing your own workspace is not recorded as a sale — both sides of that document carry one GSTIN, so there is no supply to report, and booking it would inflate your turnover with money that never came from outside the business.
Finding one invoice, and emailing it
The list filters by document type, by status, and by numbering series — so if you run a separate series for exports, or for a branch, you can look at just that one. Invoices you issued before you had series appear under No series rather than being lost among the rest, and the series row only appears when you have more than one series to choose between.
Each row has an email button that sends that invoice to the address on the client’s record. To send several, narrow the list first — by series, type or status — and use Email all, which sends every invoice currently on screen. It takes two presses and the second names the count, because one press should never email a customer list. Afterwards you are told how many actually went: a batch where some could not be sent says so, and names the first reason — usually a client with no email address on file.
Sending an invoice
From an invoice you can share it on WhatsApp or email it with the PDF attached. The email address is filled in from the customer's record and you can change it before sending — the person who approves the payment is not always the contact on file. You can add a line of your own, or leave it blank for the standard note.
Mark as sent stays a separate button, and it is not going anywhere. If you posted the invoice, handed it over in person, or sent it some other way, say so: your books need to know the invoice is out, and no email is sent.
You will find it at the top of the invoice, in the bar that stays on screen as you scroll — next to Preview, Download, Edit and Share, and, on a draft, Delete. Those used to sit below the line items and the totals, which on a phone was two or three screens of scrolling to reach the button you opened the invoice for. On an estimate the same bar carries Share accept link. The card further down keeps the things that change an invoice's life rather than send it: convert, mark paid, cancel and re-issue.
Leaving an invoice half-written
If you need to change a setting — a number series, a tax rate — while writing an invoice, go and change it. There is a link straight to your number series from the invoice form and a way back from there, and what you had typed is kept.
The same applies if you leave the page by accident. When you come back, Finocket offers the invoice back and shows you what it kept; it never fills the form in behind your back. The draft lives only in that browser tab and is cleared the moment the invoice is saved.
A thank-you when a payment arrives
Finocket can send a short thank-you when you record a payment. It is off unless you switch it on, under Settings → Invoice defaults, because a customer paying in twenty instalments does not want twenty emails. You choose email, WhatsApp or both, and you can write your own wording.
Part payments get one — “received ₹20,000 against INV-14” is what a customer is waiting to hear. Refunds never do. If a customer has no email address, the note is skipped and the reason recorded, so nothing fails silently.
Your items and services master
Rather than retyping a line every time, keep a reusable library of what you sell. Each item carries its rate, its unit, its HSN or SAC code and a longer description — so an invoice line is a pick rather than a paragraph, and the GST code is right because it was set once.
This is your internal library. It is not the same thing as the published items catalog, which is a read-only page you share with customers.
Finding a document in the list
The invoice list has two rows of filters. The first is the document type — Invoice, Tax Invoice, Bill of Supply, Export Invoice, Receipt, Credit Note, Estimate and Delivery Challan — the same list, in the same order, as the Document type dropdown you used when you created it. The second is the status: Draft, Sent, Overdue, Paid or Cancelled.
The two work together, so “Tax Invoice” plus “Overdue” shows only unpaid tax invoices. On a phone each row slides sideways; on a larger screen every option is visible at once.
Pick Estimate and the status row disappears. That is deliberate: an estimate is not money owed to you, so it does not have an invoice’s statuses — it is accepted, declined or converted instead, and it never appears under Paid or Overdue.
Delivery Challan is worth knowing about. A challan records goods moving, not a sale, so it never counts towards what you are owed and never appears under any status. Its own filter is the way to find one.
A challan needs a connection at the moment. Its number comes from the server, so you cannot write one out at a customer’s premises with no signal — raise it before the goods leave. Finocket says this on the form itself when you pick the document type, rather than letting you find out at the gate.
“This document belongs to another workspace”
Open an invoice and the top of the page shows who issued it — your business name, address and logo. If you ever see “This document belongs to another workspace” there instead, it means the invoice on screen was issued by a different business, so Finocket will not put your letterhead above it.
If you work across several businesses — an accountant with a few clients, or an owner with more than one company — open the invoice from the workspace that issued it and the full details appear as normal.
If you did not expect that invoice to be in your list at all, sign out and sign back in on that device. This device is holding an old copy of something it should no longer show, and signing out clears it. Nothing in your own books is affected, and the invoice itself is untouched in the account that does own it.
Pricing a line by size, weight or time
A window is sold by its area, a curtain by its length, a granite slab by volume, jewellery by weight, a consultant by the hour. Open the item under Items and set How is this priced? — by area, length, volume, weight, time or capacity — with the unit the dimensions are typed in and the unit the rate is quoted per. On the invoice, picking that item asks for the dimensions (width and height for area), works the measure out (1460 × 1130 mm = 17.76 sq ft) and derives the rate per piece from the rate per square foot. Quantity stays the number of pieces, and the document prints the size, the measure and the rate per unit in their own columns when the template shows them.
Transport, packing and installation
Use Add charge above the line items. A charge is its own line after the items, with its own SAC and GST rate, and it takes no share of the invoice discount — the discount lands on the goods. The one-tap presets (transport, packing, installation, handling) live under Settings → Invoice defaults, where you can also switch on automatic round-off so every total lands on a whole rupee.
Fields typed per line, and a preview before you save
Custom fields on the Invoice lines entity (under Settings → Custom fields) appear on every line — a location, a batch number, a HUID — and print as their own columns when marked show on PDF. Notes and terms are rich text, and Preview at the top of the form shows the document exactly as the customer will receive it, with the figures as they stand.