Invoice line templates

Flowtly Editorial Team4 min

Some counterparties expect their invoice lines to be worded a particular way — a contract sentence, an infrastructure address, a reference number the contract specifies. A counterparty can hold a library of these wordings, so you write the sentence once and pick it when you write an invoice line, instead of retyping it every billing period.

A template supplies wording only. It never touches an amount, and it never creates a line.

Saving wording on a counterparty

Open the counterparty and go to Invoice line templates. Each template has two fields:

  • Name — what you pick it by in the invoice editor. It is not printed on the invoice, so name it for whoever has to choose between them: Site access — monthly, Framework contract — first tenant.
  • Text — the sentence that goes onto the invoice line.

Give each template a distinct name. The name is the only thing you see when picking, so two templates sharing one label leave you with a choice you cannot make.

One counterparty cannot hold two templates with the same name, and names are compared loosely rather than character by character: capitalisation is ignored, and most accented letters count as the same letter as their plain form — so Site access and Sité Access are the same name here. A few letters that look like accented forms are treated as letters in their own right, ł beside l among them, so those may coexist. If the name is already taken, the Name field says so and the template is not saved; change the name and save again.

Anyone who can edit the counterparty can maintain its templates. They sit alongside the counterparty's other defaults, such as its default project and tags.

Filling in the billing period

Wording that repeats every period usually has to name the period it covers. Two placeholders are filled in for you when the template is applied:

Placeholder Becomes
{period} The billing month — for example 07/2026.
{quarter} The quarter — for example Q3 2026.

So a template written as Infrastructure access fee, 18 Mill Street, for period {period} reaches the invoice line as Infrastructure access fee, 18 Mill Street, for period 07/2026.

Use {quarter} for counterparties invoiced quarterly and {period} for the rest. Nothing is deduced from the counterparty — the template you pick is the one that says what you mean.

Anything else in braces is not a placeholder and is printed exactly as you typed it. The editor points this out when it sees one, in case it was a typo, but still lets you save: text that prints visibly is easier to spot and correct than a gap in the line.

The month format — 07/2026, 07.2026 or 2026-07 — is set once for the whole organization under Organization settings. It is deliberately separate from the date format, because a billing period covers a month and has no day. Quarters read as Q3 2026 regardless of that choice.

Applying a template to an invoice line

While editing an invoice line, choose Use a template. The list shows each of the counterparty's templates rendered for the invoice's billing period, so you are reading the sentence as it will print — including the month — rather than the raw text with a placeholder in it.

Picking one writes its text into the line's description. That is the whole effect:

  • No amount changes. Quantity, net price, VAT, discount and the invoice total are exactly as you left them.
  • No line is created. If a counterparty is invoiced on three lines, you add three lines and pick a template for each. Nothing generates them for you.
  • The text becomes the line's own. It is copied, not linked, so you can edit it afterwards like any other description.

Use a template appears only when the invoice's client is linked to a counterparty that has templates saved. If the option is missing, either the client has no counterparty record or that counterparty's library is empty.

Picking a template replaces whatever the line's description already said, so pick first and then adjust, rather than the other way round.

Editing a template later

Because the wording is copied onto the line when you pick it, changing a template afterwards affects only lines written from then on. Invoices already drafted, approved or sent keep the text they were issued with, and nothing rewrites them.

If a line is wrong, fix that line — either pick a different template or edit its description directly.

Example use cases

  • Store the exact contract sentence a landlord requires on every monthly infrastructure invoice, and apply it in one click each month.
  • Keep one template per end customer under a single framework contract, and pick a different one for each line of the same invoice.
  • Word a quarterly counterparty's lines with {quarter} so the period reads Q3 2026 without anyone typing it.
  • Change the organization's period format to 2026-07 so every line built from a template matches an accounting system's expected notation.
  • Correct a contract reference on a counterparty's template, knowing invoices already sent to that counterparty stay untouched.

Connection map

Refers toUses upPart ofDerived from
Documented hereDocumented elsewhere
invoice billed to counterparty. invoice taxed by tax-group. cost spends against budget. cost owed to counterparty. bank-transaction reconciled to invoice. contract schedules payment-schedule-line. contract attached to budget. budget covers project. invoice billed from project. project linked to budget. lead becomes counterparty. deal sold to counterparty.billed totaxed byspends againstowed toreconciled toschedulesattached tocoversbilled fromlinked tobecomessold toIInvoice — A sales document issued to a client: line items, dates, tax. It is created, reviewed, previewed and then sent.InvoiceCCounterparty — The other side of a financial document — a client billed, or a supplier owed.CounterpartyTTax group — The tax treatment applied to a line, so rates are set once rather than per document.Tax groupCCost — Money the organisation owes or has spent, tracked against a budget.CostBBudget — The financial envelope an engagement is measured against — what was planned, versus what has actually been spent.BudgetBBank transaction — A movement on a connected bank account. Matching it to an invoice or a cost is what makes the books agree with the bank.Bank transactionCContract — The financial terms of an engagement: a structured set of payment schedule lines, in one direction or the other.ContractPPayment schedule line — One dated amount on a contract, in a direction — money owed to a supplier, or due from a client.Payment schedule linePProject — The core organizational unit for a business initiative, client engagement or internal work. Everything tracked — time, cost, invoicing, profitability — hangs off one.ProjectPProspect — A company you are working but that is not a customer yet. It sits at New, Contacted or Qualified, and everything done to it is logged against it.ProspectDDeal — A sale in progress: a customer, an amount, and the stage it has reached. It cannot exist without a customer, and its stage is never blank.Deal