Invoicing and getting paid
Turn accepted quotes into deposit, milestone, and final invoices — send them, track payments, and reconcile against your accounting. 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. Stripe charges their standard processing fee (1.4% + 20p for UK cards, higher for international). 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.
Reconcile with Xero or QuickBooks
If you've connected Xero or QuickBooks from Settings → Integrations, every invoice you send from BuiltUp syncs automatically to your accounting package — client, line items, due date, the lot. Payments received in BuiltUp sync back too, so your accountant is always looking at current numbers without you having to re-enter anything.
This is the single biggest time saver in BuiltUp once you have a few jobs running at once. If you're not using either accounting package yet, don't force it — but if you are, connect it on day one.
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.
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
Connect BuiltUp to the tools you already use — Xero or QuickBooks for accounting, Stripe for online payments, and the BuiltClip browser extension for material sourcing. This guide walks through the setup for each one.