Unbilled, billed, and paid: how billing states work

Every task is in one of three billing states. Unbilled (red) means the work hasn't been invoiced yet, Billed (blue) means invoiced and waiting for payment, and Paid (green) means money received. The colors show up throughout the app: on the state badge in task rows, the earnings capsule on sidebar project rows, and the state label in the project detail view.

Changing a task's state

1. Open the task and find the dollar-sign state button in the toolbar; it shows the current state.
2. Click it to cycle Unbilled → Billed → Paid → Unbilled. Moving to Billed or Paid stamps today's date as the invoice or payment date; cycling past Paid back to Unbilled clears both dates.
3. To set exact dates instead, long-press the button (about half a second). The Billing Status sheet opens with Invoice Date and Payment Date toggles and date pickers. Turning both off resets the task to Unbilled. Click Done.

How the project's state is derived

You never set an hourly project's state directly. It follows its tasks:

• If any task is Unbilled, the project is Unbilled.
• If all tasks are Billed or Paid (with at least one Billed), the project is Billed.
• Only when every task is Paid does the project show Paid.

So one forgotten task keeps the whole project red. If a project won't turn Paid, scan the state letter badges in the Tasks tab for the stray task.

Fixed-rate projects

Fixed-rate projects have a single billing state for the whole project. Use the same dollar-sign state button, located in the project's own toolbar (individual tasks in a fixed-rate project show no per-task state).

Sync with the Invoice Vault

Billing states and archived invoices stay in step automatically: changing a task's state updates the paid status of any archived invoice that bills it, and marking an invoice Paid or Unpaid in the Invoice Vault flips its contributing tasks. The vault only behaves like a manual checkbox when the task references no longer exist (for example, after the tasks were deleted).

Side effects worth knowing

• Deadline urgency colors (yellow/orange/red) disappear once an item is Billed or Paid; its deadline shows Completed instead.
• The Dashboard's Billed and Paid cards are computed from these states. See Reading your Dashboard statistics.
• You can filter the sidebar by state via View Options → Billing Status (Billed, Unbilled, Paid).

When it's time to actually produce the invoice, see Creating your first invoice.