Creating invoices
How to create an invoice in Arvello: line items with Estonian VAT applied automatically — 24% standard, reverse charge for EU clients — and sequential numbering.
Creating an invoice takes a minute or two once your clients are in the system. You pick a client, add lines, and Arvello handles the VAT, the totals and — when you finalise — the invoice number and the accounting entries behind the scenes.
Everything here lives under Sales → Invoices. If you have not been through the invoice setup wizard yet, start with setting up your company.
Creating an invoice
Go to Sales → Invoices and select New Invoice.
Pick a client from the list, or create one on the spot without leaving the form. Choosing a client fills in their defaults — the due date comes from their payment terms (issue date plus their default number of days), and their default currency carries over. See Clients & suppliers.
Each line has a description, quantity, unit price and tax code. Arvello picks the tax code from the client: an Estonian client gets the standard rate (24% as of 2026), an EU business with a valid VAT number gets Intra-community services (0%), where the customer accounts for the VAT (reverse charge), a business client outside the EU gets zero-rated export, and a private individual outside the EU starts at the standard rate. You can change the code on any line, and the VAT recalculates as you go — the full list is in VAT rates & tax codes.
Confirm the issue date and due date — the due date must be on or after the issue date. Optionally add a reference or PO number, customer notes (these appear on the PDF) and internal notes (these stay between you and your team).
Save Draft keeps the invoice editable. Finalise assigns the invoice number, creates the journal entries and locks the document, ready to download or send. Send Invoice does the finalising and the emailing in one go. A draft whose subtotal is zero can't be finalised, because there is nothing to book.
Invoicing in another currency works too: pick the currency on the form, and Arvello records the European Central Bank daily rate and the euro equivalent — your company's books are kept in euros. The invoice PDF shows the VAT in euros as well, as the VAT Act requires — see VAT rates & tax codes. Because the books are in euros, an invoice's subtotal has to be worth at least one euro cent at its exchange rate: a 0.01 invoice in Polish złoty, for example, is worth less, so Arvello won't finalise it.
How invoice numbers are assigned
Drafts have no number. The number is assigned at the moment you finalise, by combining your invoice prefix with the next number in your sequence — with the default settings that produces INV-000001, INV-000002 and so on. Because numbering happens at finalisation, deleting a draft never leaves a gap in the sequence.
You chose the prefix and starting number during the invoice setup wizard; both can be changed at any time in company settings.
Drafts versus sent invoices
What you can do with an invoice depends entirely on its status.
| Status | What it means | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Not yet finalised, no number | Edit anything, delete |
| Sent | Finalised: number assigned, entries posted | Resend, fix and re-issue or cancel (while unpaid), duplicate, issue a credit note |
| Partial | Sent, with part of the total paid | Same as Sent, except cancelling |
| Overdue | Sent and past its due date | Same as Sent |
| Paid | Fully paid | Duplicate, regenerate the PDF, issue a credit note |
| Partly credited | Sent, with part of the total reduced by a credit note | Same as Sent, except cancelling |
| Credited | Credit notes cover the whole total | View, regenerate the PDF |
| Cancelled | Cancelled: journal entries reversed | View only |
A credit note itself appears in the same list with the status Credit note.
A finalised invoice cannot be edited. It has accounting entries behind it, and under Estonian rules an issued invoice is corrected by cancelling it or with a credit note, never changed in place. So if something is wrong, there are two ways to correct it:
- Fix and re-issue, while no payment is recorded, no credit note has been issued and the month's VAT return has not been filed. Arvello cancels the invoice (reversing its entries) and opens a copy as a new draft, with the same dates and lines and the client's and your company's details as they are now. Correct what was wrong, whether that is the client's address, a line or a rate, then finalise the copy. It takes the next number, and the cancelled invoice keeps its own number, marked cancelled. If you had emailed the invoice, tell the client it has been replaced. Once an e-invoice of it has been sent, it is in the client's books or may still arrive there, so it can't be cancelled or fixed and re-issued: use a credit note.
- A credit note in every other case, and whenever only part of the invoice needs correcting. Then issue a new invoice if one is needed.
Who the invoice was issued to
When you finalise an invoice, Arvello records your company's details and the client's exactly as they are printed on it: names, registry codes, VAT numbers, addresses and bank details, plus the client's VIES check. Editing the client or your company settings afterwards changes new and draft invoices only. A finalised invoice, its PDF, its e-invoice and the VAT return annexes keep the details it was issued with. When a client's details have changed since, the invoice page says so and shows which correction is open to it.
Once finalised, an invoice can only be cancelled (or fixed and re-issued), credited or duplicated, never edited. Worth a glance over the details before confirming.
Duplicating an invoice
Duplicate on any invoice creates a fresh draft with the same client, lines and notes. The issue date becomes today, the due date keeps the same payment-terms gap as the original, and the reference field is cleared. Handy for near-identical jobs; for genuinely regular billing, recurring invoices save you the clicking.
Common questions
A line has the wrong VAT rate
While the invoice is a draft, change the tax code on that line and the VAT recalculates immediately. The default comes from the client's country and VAT number, so if the wrong rate keeps appearing, check those fields on the contact. If the invoice is already finalised, use Fix and re-issue while it is unpaid and its month is unfiled, or issue a credit note for the wrong line and invoice it again at the right rate. Each code, and where it reports on the KMD (the Estonian VAT return), is in VAT rates & tax codes.
I want to change the numbering
The invoice prefix and the next sequence number live in company settings. Changes apply to invoices finalised from that point on; existing numbers stay as they are. If you moved to Arvello from other software, set the next number to continue from your last invoice.