Invoicing & Tax Settings
These settings control how new invoices behave by default: payment terms, sales tax calculation, and online payment processing through Stripe. You'll find them under Settings > Invoicing & Tax in the console.
Quick Start
- Go to Settings > Invoicing & Tax
- Pick your Default Payment Terms
- Choose a Sales Tax mode and rate
- Connect or review your Stripe Payment Account
- Decide whether to pass processing fees to customers
- Click Save Settings
Defaults apply to new invoices. You can still adjust terms and tax on an individual invoice when you create it.
Invoice Defaults
Default Payment Terms sets the due-date terms new invoices start with:
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Upon Receipt | Due immediately |
| Net 15 / 20 / 30 | Due 15, 20, or 30 days after the invoice date |
| Net 45 / 60 / 90 | Longer terms for commercial work |
Sales Tax
Three tax modes:
| Mode | How it works |
|---|---|
| No Tax | Invoices calculate no sales tax |
| Fixed Rate | One rate (and tax label) applied to taxable line items everywhere you work |
| Automatic (Location-Based) | The rate is looked up from each project's location, so jobs in different jurisdictions tax correctly |
Location-based tax looks up the rate at the project's GPS location. A pump or service work order uses the location of its parent project. Make sure well locations are filled in on projects if you use this mode.
Which Lines Are Taxed
Sales tax applies only to the lines marked taxable. This is the same in Fixed Rate and Automatic mode.
- On a proposal or an invoice, each line has a Taxable checkbox. A new line starts checked.
- Clear the box on a line that is not taxable, such as drilling labor. That line adds nothing to the tax.
- In Products & Services, each item has its own Taxable checkbox beside its Tax category. When you pick an item for a line, the line takes the item's setting. To tax materials but not labor, leave your material items taxable and clear the box on your labor and drilling service items.
To exempt a whole customer, open the customer's contact, click Edit, and check Tax exempt under Tax Settings. Their invoices then carry no sales tax on any line.
When automatic tax cannot be calculated
In Automatic mode, DrillerDB does not create an invoice without its sales tax. If the tax cannot be calculated, nothing is saved and you see one of these messages:
| Message starts with | Cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Sales tax could not be calculated because this job has no GPS location | The project has no GPS location | Add the job's location on the project, then create the invoice again |
| Sales tax could not be calculated for this job site | The tax lookup did not answer | Try again in a few minutes. If it keeps failing, contact DrillerDB support. |
For a recurring invoice, that run creates no invoice, and the message shows as Last run error on the Recurring Invoices page. Fixed Rate and No Tax invoices are not affected.
Stripe Payment Account
The Stripe Payment Account card shows whether online payments are live. From here you can set up the connected account, refresh its status, open Manage in Stripe, and review account settings. Once connected, invoices can include a Pay Online link and the customer portal can take card and ACH payments.
Payment Processing Fees
The Payment Processing Fees card has one checkbox, Pass credit card processing fees to customers. Credit card payers then see any processing fee added to their total at checkout. Leave it off to absorb the cost yourself. Debit cards are never charged a processing fee.
The box under it states the limits: pass-through is capped at 3% of the amount paid, and lower state caps apply. It also shows the Platform Fee per transaction.
Some states restrict credit-card surcharges. Confirm local rules before enabling fee pass-through.
Colorado caps a card surcharge at 2 percent (C.R.S. 5-2-212), and the same statute bans surcharging a debit card outright, rather than capping it. DrillerDB does not surcharge debit cards, and you absorb the processing cost on those payments.
Colorado credit cards pay the pass-through fee, capped at 2 percent. This applies only when your company's state is set to Colorado in your settings, so set your state before you turn pass-through on. The card type is read when the customer clicks Pay, before the amount is fixed, on invoices and on proposal deposits. A debit card, or a card whose type cannot be read, pays no fee, so a fee the statute forbids is never added. If the total changes after the card is read, the customer sees the new total and the statute text, and confirms before the charge.
You do not have to write the required notice yourself. When your state is Colorado and you pass fees on, the statutory disclosure appears for your customer on the payment page, on both invoices and proposal deposits.
Credit Card Payment Limit
The Credit Card Payment Limit card sets the largest invoice a customer can pay by credit card. Enter a dollar amount in Maximum credit card payment, or leave it blank for no limit. Above that amount the customer's pay page offers bank transfer or check only, and the invoice PDF says so.
Customer Notifications
Control the automatic emails your customers receive about payments. The checkbox Pause "Payment Received" emails to customers stops the confirmation that is sent when a payment lands.
Proposal & Invoice Template
The Proposal & Invoice Template card controls what prints on proposal and invoice PDFs and on the customer's online copy:
- Show the Project ID on invoices prints "Project ID" on the invoice PDF and "Project #" on the online invoice and the invoice email. Turn it off if customers confuse it with a permit or well number. The invoice number still prints.
- Show the Project ID on proposals and change orders does the same for proposals and change orders.
- Show only the description on proposal and invoice lines hides the item name or part number above each line's description. A line with no description still shows its item name. Saved lines do not change.
Click Save Settings after any change on this page.
Related Topics
- Creating Invoices - Build and send invoices
- Stripe Payments - Online payment setup in depth
- Down Payments - Collect deposits before work starts
- Accounting - Receivables, aging, and statements