Your first invoice

Here's how to make and send your first invoice. It takes a few minutes. Haven't filled in your business details yet? Do that first: without them you can create a draft, but you can't finalise it.

1. Start a new invoice

Go to Invoices and click New invoice. You can also use the button on your dashboard.

2. Choose your customer

Search for an existing customer, or type a new name and choose New customer. From the customer we automatically take:

• the payment term and invoice language (if you set them on the customer),
• the VAT treatment: a business in another EU country with a VAT number gets EU customer, for example. See Choosing a VAT treatment.

3. Fill in the lines

For each line you enter a description, quantity, unit, price excluding VAT and VAT rate. Pick a product fills in a saved product. Totals and VAT per rate update immediately. Everything about lines, discounts and units is in Create an invoice.

4. Check dates and payment term

The invoice date is today and the due date follows from your payment term (14 days by default). Did you deliver before today? Fill in the delivery date, or a period if you're invoicing a month of work, for example.

5. Look at the preview

On the right (or via Toggle preview) you see the PDF as you type. A draft has a "DRAFT" watermark.

Click Save as draft (or press ⌘ S or Ctrl S). From then on your changes are saved automatically.

Your free invoices

On the Free plan you have 5 invoices a month. An invoice counts as soon as you save the draft. If you delete a draft that was never finalised, you get it back. Credit notes and the example invoice from the welcome guide never count. Neither do invoices you make without an account in the free invoice generator: they never reach our servers.

6. Finalise the invoice

Click Finalise (or ⌘ Shift Enter, Ctrl Shift Enter on Windows). EenFactuurMaken.nl:

1. checks that everything the law requires is on it. If something is missing, you see exactly what and where to fix it. See Invoice checks;
2. gives the invoice the next number in your sequence, for example 2026-0001;
3. locks the invoice. After that you can't change it. You fix a mistake with a credit note.

More in Drafts and issuing.

7. Send the invoice

Click Send. We fill in your customer's email address and a default message. The PDF and (if you like) the e-invoice in UBL format are attached. Your customer's replies go to your own mailbox. See Sending by email.

Prefer to send it yourself? Download the PDF or the UBL via More actions. Or share the online invoice.

8. Mark it as paid

Has your customer paid? Choose Mark as paid and enter the date. If the invoice is past its due date, you'll see Overdue and can send a reminder.

Keep your invoices

On the Free plan we keep your invoices for 60 days. So download them, or upgrade to Pro. See Storage and retention.