Notion Masterclass: Build an Invoicing System

In this video, you'll learn how to build into your Notion workspace the ability create, send, and track your businesses' invoices.
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I'm definitely taking notes. Super useful, thanks Ziki and Ben!!!

[@OptiOppNotion]

Our pleasure!

[@kevynlopez6831]

Amaziiing!

[@OptiOppNotion]

Glad you liked it, Kevyn!

[@Smaffs59]

I am wondering why you do not import the company name and details rather than having to type it, but having read the comments is this to stop the clients being able to then look at the companies database? If so then surely being able to control, or rather lack of, what data a user can see must be a huge weakness for Notion. Excellent videos, keep them coming. I am new to Notion so learning

[@OptiOppNotion]

You could export as a csv and upload each time. Thats a good idea. What you cannot do is share the deal line items from the database that already exists because you would have to share it in its entirety for your customer to be able to see it. I assume most don’t want to share how much their other customers are paying. Hoping Notion eventually gets to improving database permissions to handle this use case. It would be huge.

[@Babysoft]

Ben, you did the CRM masterclass video about 3 months before this one and you had created the Deal (or Invoice, Estimate, Work Order, whatever you want to call it) with an external Line Item database that you used as a "View" within the Deal template with a Self Referential filter. In this video you are just creating a separate instance of a Line Item database within each invoice created. Could you explain the differences in doing that? Does creating a separate external Line Items database allow for the ability to more easily create analytics views on the data (i.e. being able to break down sales numbers on individual products and service)? Thanks for these great videos!!

[@OptiOppNotion]

The reason for that is because at this time Notion Database permissions doesn't give you the ability to use your internal line items database without exposing other customer data. When they click into the invoice, they'd be able to navigate and see how much your other customers are paying you. I'm hoping they can soon improve how data is exposed in database's so that workarounds like this aren't necessary.

[@Babysoft]

@@OptiOppNotion Ahh! Understood. I'm creating a small business OS for home service companies. I don't anticipate having anything within the OS to be shareable directly with the actual clients. It will only be accessed internally by the business owners/managers and service techs in the field. I'm trying to design the Invoice so that the service technician can put together the line items with pricing on a tablet while at the client's home, and then generate a PDF of the final invoice/receipt in order to email it to the client after the service is complete. Since I won't be sharing the invoices directly with the clients then I guess using separate product/services & line item databases within the invoice should work much better since it will allow for the ability to calculate "KPI" details from those databases. Thanks for your response and explaining that for me!

[@nickkootsikas9422]

Love your simplicity! Only thing I've been coming up with when creating my own invoicing system is that the formula properties never export with the formatting of a number with commas and a $ symbol. For example, I'll have a line item with a combined total of "$560.00", but when I export it to PDF it will show as only "560". However if I happen to have decimals it will show as "560.25" if what I see in Notion is "$560.25". After seeing your PDF example it looks like you're encountering the same thing. It's annoying how these numbers don't match regular number properties, which always have a "$" symbol and always have a ".00" at the end when formatted to US Dollar. I suppose I could add another formula that adds the "$" and ".00" to the total so when it exports it will look good but then if I have a decimal at the end of the calculating process the total would look like "560.25.00". Are there any workarounds to this? Would love to hear your thoughts!

[@evazivanovic]

So this is not the most convenient option but I would recommend converting the number into a string and using regex to only display the first two decimals. It wouldn’t be the easiest formula out there but it should be possible.

[@OptiOppNotion]

Thanks for answering Eva!

[@nickkootsikas9422]

@@evazivanovic Interesting, I'll have to look at that and see if I can make that work. Thanks!

[@bardsaeter]

Great resource! In the Invoices database after having selected the 'ID' property, my numbers are not in - they are all random. How do you get them to show "1, 2, 3, 4" like in your example? Thanks so much!

[@OptiOppNotion]

Thanks! It sounds like you need to sort the database by ID or created date to show them in the order they were created. The assigned ID is based on its order created in the database. Let me know if that helps!

[@takeupspace_withk]

I used the exact formula you used in the Overdue property and it's not working. Has notion changed since you made this video?

[@user-on3qb8hv8e]

Mine too

[@zestyzike3860]

I also had the same problem. I'm not sure what went wrong but I figured out a way to solve it. In the 'if' function, instead of "invoiceSent && pastDue", use "and(invoiceSent, pastDue)," Hope that solves it👍🏾. You can copy it and past it in place of it. Just make sure to remove the quotation marks.

[@OptiOppNotion]

Thanks for helping out! Not sure what has changed that has caused the formula to error out since we filmed this video.

[@ahmedrioo2849]

hey if someone wanna start creating crm's and sell it, but still new to notion and only knows the basic things, what do you recommend to start learning? i can create dashboards and such, but kinda new in the Data base and formulas.

[@OptiOppNotion]

I recommend going to Notion Academy (Notion's Documentation) and learning there.