Track clients, generate PDF invoices, and get paid. Without leaving Google Sheets™.

After installing the add-on, open any Google Sheet and go to Extensions → Invoice Manager for Sheets™ → Set Up New Sheet. This creates three tabs: Invoice Tracking (your main workspace), Client Database, and Settings.

Fill in your Settings tab first. Your business name, email, and payment terms are used on every PDF and email you send. Then add at least one client before creating your first invoice.

The essentials are your Business Name, Email Address, Invoice Prefix (e.g. INV-), Default Tax Rate, and Currency Symbol. These appear on every invoice PDF.

You can also add a tagline, phone, address, website, payment terms, a footer note, and a review link (Google, Yelp, or any URL). When filled in, a "Leave us a review" link is added to your invoices and emails automatically.

Go to Extensions → Invoice Manager for Sheets™ → Add New Client (or use the sidebar). You'll need a contact name and email address. The email is used to pre-fill Gmail and share the PDF with your client. Company name, address, and zip are optional.

Each client gets an auto-generated Client ID. If you already have clients with a custom format (like C-001 or CLI100), Invoice Manager detects that format and continues it automatically.

Go to Extensions → Invoice Manager for Sheets™ → Add Invoice Row (or use the sidebar). Fill in the invoice number (auto-filled based on your existing invoices), select a client, add a description, quantity or hours, and your rate.

The new row is added to your Invoice Tracking tab with today's date and a due date 30 days out. Subtotal, tax, and total calculate automatically.

Once your invoice row has a Qty and Rate filled in, check the checkbox in column M. Invoice Manager generates a professional PDF, saves it to your Google Drive™, shares it with your client (view only), and replaces the checkbox with a link to the file.

If you delete the PDF link from column M, the checkbox restores itself automatically so you can regenerate. You can also use Generate All Missing PDFs from the menu to bulk-generate PDFs for any rows that don't have one yet.

Two common causes: the invoice row is missing a Qty or Rate (a $0 total is blocked), or the Client ID doesn't match any entry in your Client Database tab. If an error dialog appears, it will tell you exactly what's missing.

Generate the PDF first (check the box in column M), then click the ✉ Send Email link that appears in column N. Gmail opens pre-filled with your client's email address, a subject line from your Email Subject Template, and a message body with the PDF link, due date, and payment terms. Review it and hit send. Invoice Manager never sends email on your behalf.

The sidebar shows a "Sending as [your email]" line at the top so you can check before clicking the send link. If it shows the wrong account, switch to the correct Google account in your browser first, then click the link.

Use the sidebar buttons or the menu to mark invoices as Sent (blue), Paid (green), or Overdue (red). Every time you open your spreadsheet, Invoice Manager also checks automatically. Any Sent invoices whose due date has passed are marked Overdue so nothing slips through.

Yes. The ⚙ Settings tab has an Email Subject Template row. Type any text and use placeholders that fill in automatically for each invoice: {{invoice_num}}, {{client_name}}, {{company}}, {{amount}}, {{due_date}}, {{payment_terms}}, and {{biz_name}}.

For example: Invoice {{invoice_num}} from {{biz_name}}, due {{due_date}}. The same placeholders work in the email body, which also supports {{pdf_link}} and {{footer}}.

Template customization and support for quotes and estimates are both coming. Email me to vote. Requests from real users decide what gets built next.

Everything stays in your Google account. Invoice Manager reads and writes to your Google Sheet and saves PDFs to your Google Drive. No data is transmitted to or stored on external servers.

Each permission maps to one specific feature:

• "See, edit, create, and delete all your Google Sheets spreadsheets": how the add-on reads and writes your invoice workbook.
• "…only the specific Google Drive files you use with this app": the narrow Drive permission. It can only touch the PDF invoices it creates; the rest of your Drive is invisible to it.
• "Connect to an external service": how PDFs get saved. The "external service" it connects to is Google's own Drive system.
• "Display and run third-party web content": the sidebar and dialogs you see inside Sheets.
• "Run when you are not present": Google's standard wording for the small background trigger that watches for your checkbox in column M and colors your statuses. It runs only when your invoice sheet is edited, and touches nothing else.

Nothing is ever sent outside your Google account, and I never see your data. See the privacy policy for the full details.

That almost always means the browser is signed into more than one Google account. Google routes add-on sidebars to whichever account signed in first, so the sidebar can end up running as the wrong one. It's a known Google limitation that affects every add-on from every developer. Nothing is wrong with your invoice workbook or your data.

The quick fix: open the spreadsheet in a window signed into only the account you use with the add-on. The lasting fix is giving each Google account its own Chrome profile. Here's the full explanation and both fixes.