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User guide

Projects and milestones

Group the estimate and invoices for one job under a project, split the work into milestones with budgets and due dates, and see what is invoiced, paid and still to bill.

Updated: 2026-09-09

A long job rarely fits on one invoice. A bathroom remodel starts with an estimate, then gets billed in stages as the demolition, tiling, fixtures and finishing work are signed off. Without something to hold those documents together, you end up scrolling the Documents list and adding numbers in your head. Projects in Invoice Flow solve this: a project is a folder for one engagement, attached to a client, with its own list of linked estimates and invoices, a checklist of milestones, and a Money tab that adds up what has been estimated, invoiced and paid.

This guide follows Redstone Renovations in Denver, which bills the Hartley master bathroom remodel in four milestones: demolition and rough-in ($3,800), tile and waterproofing ($5,200), fixtures and plumbing finish ($4,100) and paint, glass and punch list ($2,400). The whole job was estimated at $15,500.

Projects are optional. If most of your work is one invoice per visit, you can ignore this feature entirely. Reach for it when a single client engagement will produce several documents over weeks or months.

What you see on the screen

Projects live under the client. Open the Clients tab, tap a client, and you will find five tabs across the top of the client detail screen: Info, Documents, Projects, Contracts and Activity. The Projects tab lists every project attached to that client, with a folder icon, the project name, its status in plain lowercase text and, on the right, the total invoiced so far. A small round + button in the bottom-right corner starts a new project that is already linked to this client. When there are none, the tab simply says No projects for this client.

There is no Projects entry in the bottom navigation, the Tools screen or Settings. The client’s Projects tab and the Projects tile inside the invoice editor are the two places you will meet the feature, so if you cannot find your projects, go through the client.

Invoice Flow app client detail screen for Megan and Tom Hartley on the Projects tab, listing Hartley master bathroom remodel (active, $13,100.00) and Hartley powder room refresh (completed, $2,150.00) with a round plus button in the corner
The client's Projects tab is the front door to the feature; the plus button creates a project pre-linked to this client.

Tapping a project opens its workspace. The title bar shows the project name with three icons: a pencil (Edit Project), a circular arrow that recalculates the money totals, and a bin (Delete project). Below the title sit four tabs:

TabWhat it holds
DocumentsEvery estimate and invoice linked to this project, with document type, raw status and total. Tap a row to open the document.
MilestonesThe stage checklist, each with a status icon, an optional due date and a three-dot menu. An Add milestone button floats at the bottom.
MoneyFive figures: Estimated, Invoiced, Paid, Remaining and Remaining to invoice.
NotesOne large free-text field with a Save button, for gate codes, site quirks and anything else that is not for the client.

How to create a project

Start from the client so the link is made for you.

  1. Open the Clients tab and tap the client, here Megan and Tom Hartley.
  2. Tap the Projects tab, then the round + button in the bottom-right corner.
  3. In the New Project form, type a Project name. This is the only required field; leaving it empty shows a red Required hint when you try to save.
  4. Check the Client dropdown. It is already set to the client you came from; you can switch it or pick Not specified for an internal project.
  5. Leave Status on Active, or choose On hold, Completed or Cancelled.
  6. Add a short Description of the scope if you like, then tap Save in the top-right corner.
Invoice Flow app New Project editor with Project name Hartley master bathroom remodel, Client Megan and Tom Hartley, Status Active and a Description describing a full gut of the master bath billed in four milestones, with a Save button in the top bar
Four fields and only the name is mandatory; the client is preselected when you start from the client's Projects tab.

The form deliberately stops there. There are no budget, colour, currency or date fields to fill in. The money side of a project is computed from the documents you link to it, and the schedule side is expressed through milestones, both of which live on the project detail screen you land on after saving.

How to add milestones

Milestones are the stages of the job. Each one carries a name, an estimated amount, a status and an optional due date. They are a planning and progress tool: the app does not generate an invoice from a milestone, and a milestone does not know which invoice paid for it. You still create each stage invoice yourself and link it to the project, as described in the next section.

  1. From the client's Projects tab, tap the project to open its workspace.
  2. Tap the Milestones tab, then the Add milestone button at the bottom.
  3. Type the Milestone name, for example Paint, glass and punch list.
  4. Enter the stage budget in Estimated as a plain number (2400, no currency symbol).
  5. Pick a status from the dropdown: Not started, In progress, Done or Skipped. New stages normally stay on Not started.
  6. Tap the Due Date row, choose a day in the calendar and confirm with OK. The × on the right clears the date again.
  7. Tap Save. The sheet closes and the milestone appears in the list.
Invoice Flow app Add milestone bottom sheet over the Milestones tab, filled in with Milestone name Paint, glass and punch list, Estimated 2400, status Not started, Due Date Sep 30, 2026 and a full-width Save button
The Add milestone sheet: name, estimated amount, status and an optional due date.
Invoice Flow app project Milestones tab listing Demolition and rough-in (Done, Aug 14, 2026), Tile and waterproofing (Done, Aug 28, 2026), Fixtures and plumbing finish (In progress, Sep 11, 2026) and Paint, glass and punch list (Not started, Sep 30, 2026), each with a three-dot menu, plus an Add milestone button
Four stages of the remodel: green ticks for finished work, a play icon for the current stage, an empty circle for what is still to come.

Repeat for every stage. The list is ordered by creation, so add milestones in the order you plan to do the work. As the job progresses, use the three-dot menu on a milestone row to move it along: In progress when you start, Done when the client has signed the stage off, Not started to reset it. The same menu has Edit Project (which, despite its label, opens the milestone editor sheet for that row) and Delete milestone.

How to bill a milestone

Billing a stage means creating a normal invoice and pointing it at the project. The link is made inside the invoice editor through the Projects tile, which sits directly under the Client tile.

  1. Create the invoice as usual: from the Documents tab, the dashboard, or by duplicating the previous stage invoice. Add a line such as Milestone 4: paint, glass and punch list with the agreed amount.
  2. Scroll to the Projects tile below the client. It reads Not specified until you pick something.
  3. Tap the tile. A sheet lists Not specified followed by every project on your business profile, not only the ones for this client, so read the names.
  4. Tap Hartley master bathroom remodel. The sheet closes and the tile now shows the project name.
  5. Finish the invoice and tap Save Draft (or send it). Saving is what writes the link and refreshes the project's totals.
Invoice Flow app invoice editor for draft RR-2026-058 with the Projects picker sheet open at the bottom, offering Not specified, Hartley master bathroom remodel, Hartley powder room refresh and Okafor basement kitchenette
The Projects tile in the editor opens a picker; choose the engagement this invoice belongs to and save.

The same tile appears on estimates, so link the original quote too. Once it is linked, the project’s Documents tab shows the quote and each stage invoice in one list, and the Money tab knows the job’s estimated value.

Invoice Flow app project detail Documents tab for Hartley master bathroom remodel listing EST-2026-018 Estimate sent $15,500.00, RR-2026-041 Invoice paid $3,800.00, RR-2026-047 Invoice paid $5,200.00 and RR-2026-052 Invoice sent $4,100.00
The Documents tab collects the quote and every stage invoice; tap a row to open it.
The picker only appears once the editor knows which business profile the document belongs to. On a brand-new document this happens as soon as the default profile has loaded; if the tile is missing, wait a moment or check that you have a business profile set up.

How to read the progress

Open the project’s Money tab for the financial picture. The figures are computed from the linked documents, not typed by you:

RowHow it is calculated
EstimatedSum of the totals of linked estimates.
InvoicedSum of the totals of linked invoices (anything that is not an estimate).
PaidSum of the amounts recorded as paid on those invoices.
RemainingInvoiced minus Paid: what clients still owe you on this job.
Remaining to invoiceEstimated minus Invoiced: how much of the quote you have not yet billed.

Documents with status cancelled, declined or expired are ignored, so a rejected first quote does not inflate the Estimated line.

Invoice Flow app project Money tab showing Estimated $15,500.00, Invoiced $13,100.00, Paid $9,000.00, then Remaining $4,100.00 highlighted and Remaining to invoice $2,400.00
Three stages billed and two paid: $4,100 is outstanding on the sent invoice and $2,400 of the quote is still to bill.

For the Hartley job this reads: $15,500 estimated, $13,100 invoiced across three stage invoices, $9,000 received, so $4,100 is waiting on the fixtures invoice and $2,400 (the final milestone) has not been invoiced yet. Combine that with the Milestones tab and you have both the schedule and the cash position of the job without opening a single document.

  1. Open the project and tap Money.
  2. If a figure looks stale, tap the circular-arrow icon in the title bar. The app re-reads every linked document and rewrites the totals; a short Money confirmation appears at the bottom.
  3. Switch to Milestones and mark the finished stage Done from its three-dot menu.

Rules and details

Known issue: after you edit a project through the pencil icon and save, the project can vanish from the profile-wide project picker in the invoice editor. It is still there under the client's Projects tab, and existing document links are unaffected. Until this is fixed, prefer creating the project correctly the first time and use the Notes tab for later changes.

Tips

Link the estimate before the first invoice. With the quote attached, Remaining to invoice starts at the full agreed price and counts down as you bill each stage, which is the quickest way to spot a stage you forgot to invoice.
Name milestones the way you will name the invoice lines. When the invoice for stage three reads "Fixtures and plumbing finish", the client sees the same wording they agreed to in the quote, and you can match rows in the Documents and Milestones tabs at a glance.
Use the Notes tab for site logistics: gate codes, where the dog stays, material lead times, who signs off. Notes are never printed on a document and are saved with a single tap on Save.
Give each stage a due date even if it is rough. The Milestones tab shows the date next to the status, so an "In progress" stage with a date that has passed stands out as the one to chase.