Turn a Bill into a Client Invoice (PDF)

To turn a bill into a client invoice, open the bill, choose Create invoice, pick who you're billing from your client address book, select the sender profile the invoice should go out under, and generate the PDF. The invoice inherits the bill's line items, amounts, tax, and currency, so you never retype anything. You get a downloadable PDF plus a public invoice link you can send to the client — no login required on their end. This works for freelancers who front costs, small agencies rebilling expenses, and anyone who tracks a purchase first and needs to charge someone for it after. Here's the full flow, plus how the address book and sender profiles keep it consistent invoice after invoice.

Why generate the invoice from the bill (not from scratch)

Most invoicing tools start from a blank form. You retype the description, the quantity, the unit price, the tax, and the total — data that already exists somewhere. If you tracked the purchase as a bill first (a client dinner, a batch of materials, a subcontractor's charge), that line-item detail is already structured. Recreating it by hand is wasted effort and an easy place to fat-finger a number.

Turning a bill into an invoice reuses that structure directly. The bill's items, per-item amounts, tax, discount, and currency carry over. Your job shrinks to three decisions: who you're billing, which of your sender identities it goes out under, and what (if anything) to adjust before you send.

This also keeps your records aligned. The expense and the invoice describe the same event with the same numbers, which matters when you reconcile at tax time or when a client questions a line. You're not maintaining two divergent versions of the truth.

Step 1: Open the bill and choose "Create invoice"

Start from any bill you've already recorded — one you typed, imported from CSV, or captured from a photo of a receipt. Open it and choose Create invoice.

The invoice draft opens pre-filled with the bill's content:

- Line items: each item description and amount from the bill becomes an invoice line. - Tax and discount: any tax or discount on the bill carries into the invoice totals. - Currency: the invoice uses the bill's currency. If the bill was in EUR, the invoice is in EUR.

At this point nothing is sent. You have a draft you can edit. This is the moment to remove personal line items you don't want the client to see, merge several small items into one summary line, or relabel an item in client-friendly language ("Site materials" instead of a hardware-store SKU).

Step 2: Pick the client from your address book

Every invoice needs a Bill-to: the person or company you're charging. Instead of retyping a client's name and address on every invoice, the app keeps a reusable client address book.

The first time you invoice a client, add them once: company or contact name, billing address, and email. After that, they show up in a dropdown and you just pick them. Their details drop straight into the invoice's Bill-to block.

Why this matters: address consistency. If "Meridian Studio, 14 Kralja Petra, Belgrade" is spelled one way on invoice #1 and differently on invoice #7, that looks careless and can slow down the client's own bookkeeping. A shared address book means every invoice to that client is identical, and updating an address once fixes it going forward.

You can maintain as many clients as you need: a freelancer with a dozen recurring clients keeps them all in one list and never retypes an address again.

Step 3: Choose the sender profile you're billing under

The other half of an invoice is the From: you, the sender. The app supports multiple sender profiles, so one account can issue invoices under different identities.

A sender profile holds your billing name, address, and any identifier you want printed (for example a business or tax registration number where relevant). When you generate the invoice, you pick which profile it goes out under, and those details populate the From block.

When multiple profiles help:

- You freelance under your own name and run a registered business, and different invoices need different From details. - You bill some clients as a sole trader and others through a company entity. - You handle invoicing for more than one small venture from a single login.

Set a profile up once and reuse it. Combined with the client address book, both ends of the invoice (who's sending, who's paying) are filled from saved data. The only thing unique to this invoice is the line items you already brought over from the bill.

Step 4: Generate the PDF and the public invoice link

With the client and sender chosen, generate the invoice. You get two things:

A downloadable PDF. A clean, standard invoice document — From block, Bill-to block, itemized lines, subtotal, tax, and total in the bill's currency. Attach it to an email, print it, or file it in your own records.

A public invoice page. The invoice also gets its own shareable link. Send that URL to the client and they can view the invoice in their browser — no account, no login, no app install required on their side. This lowers the friction of getting paid: a client who won't create an account will still click a link.

The public page is token-based, so the URL itself is the access. Share it only with the person meant to see it. For anyone who prefers a document, the PDF and the link show the exact same invoice, so you can lead with whichever the client expects.

A worked example

Say you're a freelance photographer who shot an event for a client and fronted some costs.

You already logged a bill for the props and print materials: Backdrop rental EUR 60, Prints EUR 45, Travel EUR 25 — subtotal EUR 130, plus 20% VAT EUR 26, total EUR 156.

Instead of opening a blank invoice, you open that bill and choose Create invoice. All three line items and the EUR 156 total appear in the draft. You relabel "Prints" to "Print materials" for clarity, leave the rest, and pick Meridian Studio from your client address book. You select your registered-business sender profile so the invoice carries the right billing details. Generate.

Out comes a PDF invoice for EUR 156 and a public link. You email the client: "Invoice attached, or view it here." Total retyping: one word. Every number traces back to the expense you already recorded — no drift, no math redone by hand.

When this workflow fits — and when it doesn't

Good fit:

- Freelancers who front costs and rebill them: materials, travel, subcontractors. - Small agencies passing through expenses to clients at cost or with a markup line added. - Anyone who records the purchase first and needs a formal document to get paid after.

Not the right tool:

- Splitting a shared cost among friends. That's settle-up, not invoicing. Use the group balance and settle-up flow; nobody needs a formal invoice for a dinner four friends are splitting. - High-volume recurring billing with complex accounting integrations: a dedicated accounting suite will fit better once you're past a certain scale.

For the middle ground, where you tracked an expense and now one specific person or company owes you a documented amount, turning the bill into an invoice is the shortest path from recorded to paid.