Use the Enter Manual Time & Material Invoice screen to enter a manual time and material invoice for either a specific project or a specific customer, if you do not want to associate the billing for certain costs to a project. You can enter a time and material invoice for any project that has a time and material Project Billing Format screen. Time and material invoices are used to bill for:

• Time spent by employees and subcontractors for work performed

• Materials used (including markup)

Time and material invoices are often used when it’s not possible to accurately estimate the size of the project.

You can even enter a manual time and material invoice for a template project. You can use this invoice as a template for new invoices by copying it to create new invoices. When you create a manual time and material invoice for a template project:

• Certain fields on the General tab are disabled.

• The Lien Release and Referenced Documents tabs are disabled.

• The invoice stage is Template.

Each time and material invoice is assigned an invoice number. The invoice number can be assigned automatically using the next available accounts receivable number in sequence or it can be entered manually.

A time and material invoice can be saved in different stages. A time and material invoice that is in progress can be saved in "draft" stage. You may want to save the invoice as a draft if you intend to route it to other individuals for review or approval. When an invoice is saved as a draft, it is editable and is not available for posting. Once the invoice is complete, you can save the invoice as "ready to post." An invoice that is ready to post cannot be edited or deleted. To make further changes to the invoice before posting, you must reset the invoice stage to "draft" in the Enter Manual Time & Material Invoice screen.

When saving an invoice as ready to post, you must create the PDF of the time & material invoice form and view, print, and/or e-mail the form. These actions can be performed for a single invoice directly from the Enter Manual Time & Material Invoice screen or for multiple invoices from the Print Time & Material Invoices by Batch and View Time and Material Invoice Log screens.

You must have the software required to open a PDF file—such as Adobe Reader—installed on your computer to be able to view it. You can also send an e-mail with the PDF file as an attachment. You must have MAPI-compliant e-mail software—such as Microsoft Outlook—installed on your computer to send an e-mail message with an attachment.

You can post time & material invoices from the Post Time & Material Invoices screen. Once a time & material invoice has been posted, changes can no longer be made to the invoice. However, you can void the invoice using the Void Time & Material Invoice screen and enter a new time & material invoice that reflects any necessary changes.