Invoices

Overview

Invoices represent billing documents generated from Orders. An invoice contains line items and tracks payment status including amount due, amount paid, and full payment date. Invoices support integration with external accounting systems like Xero.

Model: VentureDrake\LaravelCrm\Models\Invoice Table: {prefix}invoices (default: crm_invoices)

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Description
`external_id`	`string`	UUID used in URLs (auto-generated)
`invoice_id`	`string`	Auto-generated invoice number (prefix + number)
`reference`	`string`	External reference
`currency`	`string`	Currency code
`subtotal`	`integer`	Subtotal (stored in cents)
`tax`	`integer`	Tax (stored in cents)
`total`	`integer`	Total (stored in cents)
`amount_due`	`integer`	Amount due (stored in cents, defaults to total)
`amount_paid`	`integer`	Amount paid (stored in cents)
`issue_date`	`datetime`	Issue date
`due_date`	`datetime`	Payment due date — nullable
`fully_paid_at`	`datetime`	Date fully paid
`person_id`	`integer`	Contact person
`organization_id`	`integer`	Organisation
`order_id`	`integer`	Source order
`user_owner_id`	`integer`	Owner user
`user_assigned_id`	`integer`	Assigned user

Note: All money fields are stored in cents. The amount_due accessor returns total if no explicit value is set.

Note: due_date is nullable, and the API accepts a null value for it. It is guarded on the invoices index, on the show page and in all five PDF templates, and the emailed invoice body has a no-due-date variant rather than interpolating a formatted null. Before 2.4.1 a single null due date took down the entire invoices index for every user of the install, not only for whoever created the record.

Computed Attributes

title

Returns a formatted title with the monetary total and organisation/person name.

$invoice->title; // "$1,500.00 - Acme Corp"

Relationships

Method	Type	Related Model	Description
`person()`	`belongsTo`	`Person`	Contact person
`organization()`	`belongsTo`	`Organization`	Organisation
`order()`	`belongsTo`	`Order`	Source order
`invoiceLines()`	`hasMany`	`InvoiceLine`	Line items
`labels()`	`morphToMany`	`Label`	Labels/tags
`customFieldValues()`	`morphMany`	`FieldValue`	Custom field values
`xeroInvoice()`	`hasOne`	`XeroInvoice`	Xero integration
`ownerUser()`	`belongsTo`	`User`	Owner
`assignedToUser()`	`belongsTo`	`User`	Assigned user

Public Portal

Invoices have a public-facing portal page accessible at /p/invoices/{external_id}. This allows recipients to view invoices without needing a CRM login. The page renders the invoice's own PDF template, so what the customer reads on screen is the document they download — see Portal.

Get link

A Get link button beside Preview, on the invoice show page and on index rows, hands over the same 14-day signed portal URL that gets emailed to the customer, with an optional mark as sent tick. Before 2.4.1 the only way to obtain that link was to send the invoice.

The modal is mounted once in the layout rather than once per row, and confirm() re-resolves the record through Support\PortalLink's model whitelist and the invoice policy rather than trusting the component's own state — a tampered payload cannot mint a link to a record the caller may not view.

Line Items

Model: VentureDrake\LaravelCrm\Models\InvoiceLine Table: {prefix}invoice_lines (default: crm_invoice_lines)

Reached from the invoice via invoiceLines().

Attribute	Type	Description
`external_id`	`string`	UUID used by the API
`product_id`	`integer`	The product being invoiced
`product_variation_id`	`integer`	Optional product variation
`description`	`text`	Optional line description
`quantity`	`decimal(15,3)`	Quantity, to at most 3 decimal places
`price`	`integer`	Unit price (stored in cents)
`tax_rate`	`decimal`	Tax rate percentage applied to the line
`tax_amount`	`integer`	Tax on the line (stored in cents)
`amount`	`integer`	Line total (stored in cents)
`currency`	`string(3)`	Currency code
`comments`	`string`	Optional per-line note

Note: quantity is decimal(15,3), so an invoice line can carry 3.5 Kg or 0.25 L. The HasDecimalQuantity trait casts it, which means $line->quantity reads back as a PHP float.

Note: A soft-deleted product stays readable on the invoices that already reference it. InvoiceLine::product() resolves withTrashed(), so the line keeps its description on the show view, in all 14 PDF templates and in the Xero sync. The product pickers query Product:: directly, so a deleted product stays out of selection lists. See Products.

When an invoice is raised from an Order, the quantity is capped at the order line's outstanding remainder, recomputed server-side from the invoices already raised against it.

PDF Generation

Invoices are exported as PDF documents through barryvdh/laravel-dompdf, rendered with one of the five shipped PDF Templates.

The template is resolved per record: the invoice's own pdf_template column when set, otherwise the default chosen for invoice under Settings → Templates, otherwise a PDF view the host has published and customised, otherwise modern. A PDF template select on the invoice create and edit form pins a template to the record; leaving it blank follows the Settings default.

Downloads, the emailed attachment and the portal render all resolve the same way, so all three agree.

The "From" contact block is filled from Settings → Invoices → Contact details, falling back to the shared Settings → General → Document contact details — see Settings. Invoices are the one document type whose From block renders on every template, classic included.

Preview

A Preview action sits beside every download button — on the invoice show page and on index rows — rendering the real generated PDF in a slide-over with pdf.js, rather than sending you out through the browser's download tray to check a document before sending it.

Route laravel-crm.invoices.preview, carrying the same can:view guard as its download twin, so preview grants nothing download did not. The viewer chunk and its pdf.js worker are imported lazily, so a user who never opens a preview downloads none of it.

Creating an Invoice

use VentureDrake\LaravelCrm\Models\Invoice;

$invoice = Invoice::create([
    'currency' => 'USD',
    'subtotal' => 10000,
    'tax' => 1000,
    'total' => 11000,
    'issue_date' => '2026-01-15',
    'due_date' => '2026-02-15',
    'order_id' => $order->id,
    'person_id' => $person->id,
    'organization_id' => $organization->id,
    'user_owner_id' => auth()->id(),
]);

Searching & Filtering

Searchable by reference, invoice_id, and associated person/organisation names. Filterable by user_owner_id and labels.id.

Traits

Trait	Description
`SoftDeletes`	Soft delete support
`BelongsToTeams`	Multi-tenant team scoping
`HasCrmFields`	Custom field support
`SearchFilters`	Search and filter capabilities
`HasCrmActivities`	Activity timeline tracking
`HasGlobalSettings`	Global settings access

Reference

#Invoices

#Overview

#Attributes

#Computed Attributes

#title

#Relationships

#Public Portal

#Get link

#Line Items

#PDF Generation

#Preview

#Creating an Invoice

#Searching & Filtering

#Traits