Before you start creating and sending invoices, it helps to learn the vocabulary Cornerspot uses throughout the Invoices feature. This guide walks through the invoice lifecycle, every status you'll see, and the money fields on an invoice's detail page — so the rest of the Invoices guides click into place.
The invoice lifecycle
Every invoice starts as a Draft — a work-in-progress you can edit freely. When it's ready, you finalize it: Cornerspot assigns an invoice number, sets the issue date, computes the due date from the payment terms, and locks the invoice so it can't be edited. From there it's Open, ready to be sent and paid.
Because finalizing locks the invoice, you can't edit it afterward. If a finalized invoice has a mistake, you void it and create a fresh draft instead.
Invoice statuses
The status badge at the top of an invoice tells you exactly where it stands:
- Draft: A work-in-progress with no invoice number yet — fully editable and not visible to your customer.
- Open: A finalized invoice with its
INV-number, awaiting payment. - Partially paid: Some — but not all — of the balance has been paid.
- Paid: The full balance has been collected.
- Overdue: An open or partially paid invoice whose due date has passed.
- Void: A finalized invoice that's been cancelled — it stays in your records for audit.
- Uncollectible: An overdue invoice you've written off as bad debt, while keeping its record.
The hero card: the money at a glance
The hero card at the top of the detail page summarizes the money on the invoice. It leads with the headline amount — Amount due while there's a balance, or Total paid once it's settled — and then breaks it down:
- Subtotal: The total of the invoice's line items before tax and discounts.
- Collected / Paid: How much has been received so far (the label reads "Paid" once the invoice is fully settled).
- Refunded: Any money returned to the customer.
- Outstanding: The remaining balance still owed.
The lifecycle timeline
Below the money stats, a progress bar shows the percentage collected and a timeline tracks the invoice through four steps:
- Drafted: The invoice was created.
- Sent: It was sent to the customer.
- Viewed: The customer opened it.
- Paid: The balance was collected (shown as "Awaiting payment" until it is).
The totals band
Further down the invoice, the totals band gives the full arithmetic — from the line-item subtotal down to the balance due:
- Subtotal → minus Discount → plus Tax → Total.
- Amount paid is subtracted from the Total to give the Balance due.
Putting it together
With this vocabulary in hand, the rest of the Invoices guides will make sense: you'll create a draft, add line items, taxes, and discounts, finalize and send it, record payments as they arrive, and watch the status and balance update along the way. Online card and bank payments require connecting a payment processor (Stripe) — see the Payments guides.