Write off an invoice that won't be paid

Sometimes a client just isn’t going to pay, and you take the loss. Writing the invoice off takes it off your list of what you’re owed, so it stops showing up on your home screen every time you sign in.

Write off an invoice

Open the invoice.
Choose ⋯ at the top right, then Write off.
Check the amount in “Write off invoice #…?” and choose Write off.

The invoice now shows Written off where it said Balance due, with a note saying when it was written off.

You can write off any invoice that was sent and still has something owed on it, including one that was partly paid. Only what’s still owed is written off; the payments already made stay on it.

What changes

A written-off invoice no longer counts as money you’re owed:

It’s not under Awaiting payment or Past due on your home screen or the Invoices page, and not in Receivables or Needs attention.
No more payment reminders go out for it, including ones that were already waiting to be sent.
Your client’s page no longer counts it in Balance owing. It shows what you’ve written off for them underneath instead, which is good to know before you take on more work for them.
The client’s Client Hub no longer lists it under things to pay.

The work still counts as done and billed: the invoice still counts toward what you’ve invoiced, and its visits stay billed, so the job doesn’t come back asking to be invoiced again.

To see every written-off invoice, open Invoices and choose the Written off tab. The total at the bottom is what you’ve written off.

If they pay after all

Record the payment on the invoice as usual with Record payment. Once nothing’s left on it, the invoice is marked paid. If they pay part of it, it stays written off for what’s still left.

The client can still open their link to the invoice, and pay it there if you take payments with Stripe.

Undo a write-off

Open the invoice and choose Undo write-off. It’s owed again, and past due if its due date has passed. Undoing it doesn’t send a reminder straight away.

Write off or void?

Write off is for a real bill the client won’t pay. The work was done, so it still counts as invoiced.
Void invoice is for a bill that shouldn’t have been sent at all, like a mistake or a duplicate. A void invoice doesn’t count as invoiced, its visits can be invoiced again, and it can’t be undone. An invoice with payments on it can’t be voided.

If you use Stripe

Stripe calls a written-off invoice “uncollectible”, and Crewtavo keeps the two in step:

If you mark an invoice uncollectible in Stripe, Crewtavo writes it off too.
If you write off an invoice that was made in Stripe, Crewtavo marks it uncollectible in Stripe.
For an invoice made in Crewtavo, its Stripe payment page is closed when you write it off, the same as when an invoice is paid. If the client pays later from their link, Crewtavo makes a new one.

Undoing a write-off in Crewtavo doesn’t change the invoice in Stripe, because Stripe can’t reopen an uncollectible invoice.

You can also ask Claude or ChatGPT to write off an invoice, or to undo a write-off, if you’ve connected them to Crewtavo.