Invoices

Bottle raises the invoice and Stripe is one of the ways to pay it. One debt, one number, one document, in a single sequence per business: INV-BTL00001, INV-BTL00002, whether it is for one order or for a month of them. The INV-BTL prefix keeps Bottle’s numbers apart from the INV- most accounts packages start at; change it under Business settings → Numbering, along with the number to start from. Invoices already sent keep the number they were sent with.

Invoices in the rail lists them, newest first, with tabs for Unpaid, Paid and Cancelled.

The two kinds

An order invoice is raised when you press Send payment link on an order somebody is paying online. It covers that order, and the link pays it. See Getting paid.

A period invoice is raised overnight, at the end of a customer’s billing cycle, and can carry three things:

• Deliveries. Gas delivered on account in that period and not paid for another way. Each line says what came, the day it came and the order reference, so it can be matched off against delivery notes. A cylinder deposit charged on a delivery comes in on that delivery.
• Cylinder hire. Rent for the days each cylinder was actually held, worked out from the movements. See Cylinder hire.
• Credits. Deposits owed back for cylinders returned, as a negative line, so the money comes off what they owe rather than waiting for a cheque.

Any one of the three is enough to raise it. Nothing owed means no invoice.

Setting a customer’s cycle

On the customer, Invoicing: weekly, monthly or quarterly. Left blank they are never invoiced by Bottle, which is right for a business that invoices from its own accounting package, and for anybody who pays at the door.

An order is only ever on one invoice. Once it has been billed it is marked, so the next run leaves it alone.

When they go out

Every night, for every customer whose period has closed. The invoice is emailed with whichever ways to pay you offer: a card button where Stripe is connected, your bank details where you have given them, both where you have both. Nothing to press: it is the nightly job’s work.

If the job has not run for a while it catches up one period at a time, so nothing is billed twice and nothing is missed between invoices.

Pay-later deliveries

A delivery to a customer on pay-later terms is invoiced when it is delivered, or when the last of it is closed off: what actually went, due in the customer’s days to pay. The email says which delivery it is for, attaches the PDF, and offers your bank details and a card link. Customers on a hire billing cycle are billed on the cycle instead.

Who owes you

The top of the page shows the total owed, how much of it is overdue, and the five customers owing most, each linked to their record. Everyone who owes opens the customer table sorted by what they owe.

Getting paid

An online card payment marks the invoice paid by itself. Anything else is marked by the office with Mark paid, which asks how it came: Bank transfer, Cash or Card (a card machine or a card taken over the phone). The list, the PDF (“Paid by bank transfer on 24 Sep 2026”) and Xero all say which. It can be unmarked when the money turns out to be somebody else’s.

Cancel invoice puts it beyond use and keeps its number, because a gap in the sequence is the thing an accountant asks about. Nothing is ever deleted.

The PDF, in your name

Press an invoice’s number to open it in full beside the list: the business, who it is to, every line, the totals, whether and how it was paid, and how to pay, just as the customer sees it. Escape closes it.

Every invoice can be opened as a PDF with Download PDF, and the one emailed to the customer has the same file attached, so a bookkeeper has something to file rather than an email to hunt for.

It carries your business name, your registered address and your logo, and your company number at the foot if you have one. Nothing on it mentions Bottle: a customer is dealing with their gas supplier, and a bill advertising somebody’s software is a bill that looks like junk.

The top of the invoice

The top of every invoice comes from Settings › Business › Your business, and there is nothing to type for it separately:

• Business name, the one everybody in Bottle sees.
• Registered address, printed under the name. Find it by postcode or enter it by hand.
• Logo, PNG or JPEG. It is shrunk in your browser before it is sent and prints about 40mm wide. No logo means your business name in plain type, which is perfectly respectable.
• Company number, for a limited company, printed in the small print at the foot. A sole trader leaves it empty.

Your VAT number comes from Settings › VAT and prints under the address when you are registered.

The foot of the invoice

Under Settings › Business › Invoices: bank details for customers paying by transfer, a line of your own at the foot, how many days they get to pay (fourteen by default), and how invoices are numbered.

Finding one

The search box takes whatever somebody remembers: the customer’s name, the invoice number as printed or as a bare figure (“47” finds INV-BTL00047), or a word from a line on the bill (“47kg”, “rent”). The list is paged, twenty at a time unless you choose otherwise, and the tabs narrow it to owed, paid or cancelled.

Cash at the door

An invoice raised for an order follows the order’s money. Where the driver takes the notes at the door, the invoice is marked paid in cash at the door the moment they say so, and the cash page shows the invoice number against the taking. Where they took some of it, the invoice stays owed and says how much has changed hands and how much is really left, so nobody chases money already in a cab. Marking the order paid or unpaid in the office moves the invoice the same way. A bill settled through its own card link is Stripe’s record and is left alone.

Reminders about overdue invoices

Under Business settings › Invoice reminders, off until you switch it on. Bottle then emails a customer when a hire invoice is overdue, with the invoice attached and the ways to pay: the first a number of days after the due date (seven unless you choose otherwise), then every so many days (seven), up to a limit (three). A paid or cancelled invoice is never chased, and one paid between the daily check and the email going is dropped. Invoices for orders paid by card link are not chased: the customer who has not paid has not had the gas either.

If Xero is set to send reminders of its own, the section says so: turn those off in Xero, or your customers get both.

What you have invoiced

What you have invoiced, at the top of Invoices, answers the end of the month question: how much did we bill, and for what. Pick this month, last month, the last three or twelve months, this year, or any two days.

Along the top: everything invoiced with VAT, and then before VAT, split into cylinder rent, gas and goods, delivery charges and deposits (cylinder charges), with how much of it is still owed. Below that, a row per calendar month with the same split, so a slow month shows as one.

Cancelled invoices are left out. Deposits are what was taken less anything refunded as a credit. Each invoice counts in the month it was issued.