How does invoicing hours work in Moneybird?
A Moneybird invoice is a contact, one or more invoice lines and your administration settings: invoice numbering, payment term, company details and layout. Hours are ordinary lines with a quantity, a unit price, a description, a VAT rate and a ledger account the revenue is booked to.
Moneybird also has projects. Link a line to a project and you can later see what was invoiced per project. Useful if you look back per engagement, but not required.
The hard part is rarely Moneybird itself. It's the step before: knowing which hours are billable, which were already invoiced and whether they've been checked. That's where retyping hours from a spreadsheet goes wrong.
What do you set up before the first invoice?
A few things you set once. After that every invoice goes faster and your figures hold up.
| Item | Why |
|---|---|
| Contacts with address and e-mail | Without a billing address or e-mail you can't send properly. |
| Revenue ledger accounts | For example separate accounts for advice and development, so you see revenue per type of work. |
| VAT rates | Each line gets a rate: 21%, 9%, 0%, or reverse-charged for a business client in another EU country. |
| Invoice template and e-mail text | Your logo, company details, IBAN and payment term on every invoice. |
| Projects (optional) | To see what was invoiced per engagement. |
Give enough detail to avoid questions: a line per task or per day with a short description works better for most clients than one line saying ‘work in October’.
Step by step: hours from Half5 into Moneybird
With the integration you stop retyping lines. Half5 builds the draft invoice; Moneybird stays the place where you send and book.
- Connect Moneybird under Integrations. You sign in to Moneybird (OAuth) and pick the administration. No password or API key is shared.
- Half5 fetches your contacts, projects, ledger accounts and VAT rates. New clients and projects you create in Half5 are added to Moneybird too.
- Pick a default ledger account on the connection, and give activities that belong elsewhere their own ‘Ledger account’. Mark each activity ‘Billable’ or ‘Non-billable’.
- Your team logs hours on client, project and activity. With ‘Approve hours before invoicing’ on, an approver approves them first.
- Open the report, filter by period or client and choose ‘Create draft invoices from report’. Half5 makes one draft per client with the billable hours not yet invoiced.
- The draft appears in Moneybird straight away, with project, ledger account and VAT rate per line. Change the draft in Half5 and the Moneybird draft is updated.
- Send with ‘Send via Moneybird’: Moneybird e-mails the invoice to the client. Or choose ‘Finalize’ if you send it yourself; Moneybird then marks it as sent manually.
What syncs and what doesn't?
Of the four accounting integrations in Half5, Moneybird is the only one that also syncs projects. Otherwise it works the way you'd expect: hours and drafts go from Half5 to Moneybird, status comes back.
- Lines you edit in Moneybird itself don't flow back to Half5. So edit the draft in Half5 where you can.
- Rides and leave never become invoice lines, even when they show in the report.
- Hours on an activity marked ‘Non-billable’ stay off the invoice.
| Data | Direction | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | Both ways | New clients in Half5 go to Moneybird; Moneybird contacts appear in Half5. |
| Projects | Both ways | Invoice lines are linked to the Moneybird project. |
| Ledger accounts and VAT rates | Moneybird to Half5 | You pick them in Half5; Moneybird stays the source. |
| Draft invoice | Half5 to Moneybird | Changes in Half5 update the draft. |
| Sent or paid | Moneybird to Half5 | Send it or mark it paid in Moneybird and Half5 picks that up, with the invoice number. |
What do you check before sending?
Check that the hours per client match what you expect and that descriptions read well for the client. A client pays sooner when they can see at a glance what for.
For foreign clients, check the VAT rate. Half5 picks it from your country and the client's; for a business client in another EU country that's 0% with VAT reverse-charged, and the client's VAT number has to be filled in.
How Half5 does it
Half5 connects to Moneybird through OAuth. Contacts, projects, ledger accounts and VAT rates sync. From the report, ‘Create draft invoices from report’ makes one draft per client with the billable hours not yet invoiced; with approval on, only hours marked ‘Approved’. The draft appears in Moneybird right away.
You send with ‘Send via Moneybird’ (Moneybird e-mails it) or ‘Finalize’ (you send it yourself). Sending and payments in Moneybird come back to Half5. How to decide which hours are billable is in Billable hours; the full process is in Invoicing from hours.
Frequently asked questions
Why is an hour missing from my draft invoice?
Usually the activity is set to ‘Non-billable’, the hour was already invoiced, or it isn't approved yet while ‘Approve hours before invoicing’ is on. Filter the report on approval and invoice status to find it.
The draft doesn't show up in Moneybird. What now?
Check that Moneybird has an active VAT rate with the same percentage as the invoice line, and that the client is synced as a contact. If either is missing, the draft can't be created.
Which ledger account does the revenue go to?
To the activity's ‘Ledger account’, and otherwise to the default ledger account you pick on the connection. That lets you book advice and development separately, for example.
Can I still change the invoice in Moneybird?
Yes, it's a normal Moneybird draft. Changes you make there just don't flow back to Half5, so editing in Half5 keeps both in step.
Do payments show up in Half5?
Yes. Mark the invoice as paid in Moneybird, or send it from there, and Half5 takes over that status and the invoice number.
