Invoices: Line Items, GST and TDS, Any Currency, 28+ Layouts

Why agency invoicing goes wrong

The mechanics of an invoice are easy. What is hard is that the invoice lives in a different system from the agreement it bills. Somebody opens the accounting tool, reads the signed proposal in another tab, and retypes the scope into line items. Add-ons get missed. A discount agreed on a call never makes it in. The number drifts, downward, in the client's favour.

Then the follow-up problem. Once the invoice is sent, the agency knows its status and the client does not, or the client knows and the agency does not, depending on which system you ask. Nobody wants to send the “just checking whether this was paid” email, so it goes out late, if at all. We covered that in how to track which client owes money.

And for a lot of agencies there is a third issue: the accounting tool was not built for their tax regime. GST that needs splitting into CGST and SGST, or TDS that has to be deducted rather than added, becomes a manual override on every invoice, which is exactly where mistakes live.

What Arpixa Invoices is

Arpixa Invoices is invoicing that starts from the client record. A new invoice is created as a Draft the moment you open it, so nothing is lost if you step away, and it is addressed to a client already in your workspace.

The Invoice Studio holds the document itself: line items, tax, currency, notes, and the layout. Alongside it, an invoice list gives you the portfolio view with summary tiles for Collected, Pending, Overdue, and Drafts, so cash position is a glance rather than a report.

Deleting is a soft delete with an undo, including for bulk deletes, which matters because an invoice is a financial record and not a to-do item.

What you can do with invoices

Tax, discounts, and totals

Totals are built from the parts, in the order that matters. Each line is quantity times rate, less that line's discount percentage. Those line totals make the subtotal. Tax is then applied according to its type, and the grand total is what results.

The tax types available are Goods and Services Tax (GST), Value Added Tax (VAT), Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), Service Tax, and Custom Tax. GST carries the standard 5, 12, 18, and 28 percent presets and can be shown as one line or split into CGST and SGST at half the rate each, which is how an Indian invoice is normally expected to read.

TDS is the one most tools get wrong. It is a deduction, not an addition, so Arpixa subtracts it from the total. There are 22 built-in categories carrying their section codes and rates, including professional fees at 10 percent under 194J, technical fees at 2 percent, commission or brokerage at 2 percent under 194H, rent on land at 10 percent and on plant and machinery at 2 percent under 194I, and insurance commission at 5 percent under 194D, along with reduced-rate variants.

Payment tracking has two independent fields: advance paid for money taken up front, and amount paid for what has been collected since. Balance due is the total minus both. That is what makes a real deposit-then-balance arrangement expressible rather than approximated.

Statuses, numbering, and reminders

An invoice moves through Draft, Sent, and then Partially Paid or Paid, with Voided and Refunded for the cases that need them. Overdue is deliberately not a stored status: it is derived, so an invoice reads as Overdue whenever its due date has passed and it is neither Paid nor still a Draft. That means it can never be stale.

Numbering is configurable: set an invoice number prefix and a starting number, and Arpixa produces zero-padded sequential numbers such as INV-00001, continuing from your highest existing number so you can carry a sequence over from whatever you used before.

Overdue reminders are handled server-side on a schedule, with an interval you choose, and go to both the client and your team. Creating an invoice also emails the client on plans where invoice sending is included, and raises an in-app notification for a client with a portal account.

For the document itself, there is a PDF download and a print view, plus Excel export of your invoice data on paid plans.

What the client sees

Two routes, and you can use both. Every invoice has a public pay page that needs no account, which suits the client who will not sign up for anything. And clients with a portal account get a live invoice list that updates as things change, with a View Invoice action, a View Receipt action once it is paid, and a Pay Now action only where there is still a balance.

They can download the document as a PDF, or a receipt once settled. Invoice due dates also appear on the client's calendar, so the date is visible before it becomes a problem.

How the money actually moves — Razorpay and Stripe with your own keys, saved payment methods, refunds, and webhook confirmation — is covered on the Payments page.

How it connects to the rest of Arpixa

• Accepting a proposal drafts an invoice from the package and add-ons the client chose.
• Invoices and payment history appear on the client record in your CRM, where a recorded payment updates the invoice.
• Payments collects the money through your own Razorpay or Stripe keys, with signature-verified webhooks marking invoices paid.
• Clients view, download, and pay from the branded client portal.
• Analytics reports invoice aging in 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, and 90+ day buckets alongside revenue and outstanding totals.
• Automations can react to an invoice being paid or going overdue.

Arpixa has a real Free plan (not a trial), with Starter at $12/month, Pro at $29/month, and Advanced at $89/month. Free allows 5 invoices in total with 3 layouts, cannot email invoices, and shows an Arpixa badge. Starter includes 50 invoices and 50 sends a month with 10 layouts, and Pro and Advanced are unlimited with 30 and 50 layouts. Annual billing lowers the effective monthly cost, and the pricing page is the source of truth for current plan limits.

How to invoice a client

1. Create an invoice, which starts as a Draft, and pick the client it belongs to.
2. Add line items with quantity, rate, and any per-line discount.
3. Set the tax type and rate, and record an advance if one was already paid.
4. Choose a layout, then preview it and download a PDF or open the print view.
5. Save as Draft, or send it so the client gets an email with the invoice.
6. Track it through Sent, Partially Paid, and Paid, recording manual payments where they happen off-platform.

Related reading: create client invoices online and how to bill clients and track payments in one app.

Frequently asked questions