Docs
How this works
The lifecycle of a bill: Quote (optional) → Invoice → approval → sent → paid. Corrections after that go through a Credit note, never an edit.
Documents
Quote
A non-binding estimate. Nothing is owed, no number is assigned to identify it as a contract until sent. Once a client accepts it, converting it creates a real invoice - the quote itself never becomes a bill on its own.
Invoice
The actual bill. A draft has no number - one is assigned only when it's approved, inside a transaction that can never produce a duplicate. Once approved, it's locked: nothing about an issued invoice can be edited again.
Credit note
How you correct an issued invoice. It doesn't touch the original - the original stays on record exactly as it was issued, marked "Credited", and the credit note is a separate, independently-numbered document that reduces what's owed.
Void
For an invoice that should never have existed at all, rather than one that was simply wrong. The original stays on record marked "Cancelled" and its number is never reused - use a credit note instead if any part of it was correct.
Receipt
Generated automatically the moment a payment is verified. There's no button to create one directly - it's proof that a specific payment was confirmed.
Statement
A client's own running account: every invoice issued to them in a date range, what's settled, what's outstanding - kept separate per currency, never blended into one number.
The approval pipeline
Draft
Being written. Fully editable. No number yet.
Submitted
Handed off for review. The person who created it can no longer edit it themselves while it's in this state.
Approved
Signed off by someone other than whoever created it - the same person can never approve their own invoice. This is the moment a real invoice number is assigned.
Sent / Paid
Emailed to the client, then settled once payment is recorded and verified.
Payments
Record payment vs. verify payment
Two different steps, done by two different people on purpose. Recording says "a transfer came in." Verifying confirms it actually cleared. The same person can never do both for the same payment - that's the whole point of the check.
Tax your client pays for you
Some clients take tax off what they owe you and pay it to the government instead of to you. When one does, open the invoice and fill in the rate they took off. Chasing the proof, which you need to reduce your own tax bill, is under Reports.
Part payment
A client can settle an invoice in more than one transfer. Each one is recorded and verified separately, with its own receipt, and the invoice stays "Partially paid" until the balance reaches zero.
Overdue
Not a status you set - it's worked out from today's date against the due date and what's still unpaid, every time the page loads. There's nothing to mark and nothing that can go stale.
Repeat billing
Duplicate vs. recurring schedule
Duplicate copies one invoice, once, as a new draft - use it for a one-off repeat. A recurring schedule (Settings → Recurring invoices) generates a fresh draft automatically on a schedule you set. Neither one ever submits, approves, or sends anything by itself - every generated invoice still needs a human to review it.
Payroll and compliance
Employee
Their pay terms live on their own record: basic salary, allowances, and which deductions apply to them. A contractor, for instance, might sit outside the pension scheme a permanent colleague is in.
Salary structure
A named set of figures you can give to several employees at once. Applying one copies its numbers onto that employee there and then - editing or retiring the structure afterwards never moves pay that was already given out under it.
Payroll run
One pay period for one of your businesses. Working it out shows every employee's pay before anything is final. It has to be approved, by someone other than whoever worked it out, before anyone is actually owed the amounts shown - the same rule an invoice follows.
Payslip
Issued the moment a payroll run is approved, and frozen from that point on, the same as an invoice. A mistake found later is fixed in the next run, never by editing a payslip that already went out.
Statutory deductions
Income tax, pension, the housing fund and the rest, worked out from Nigeria's actual tax rules, not typed in by hand. You can't edit these rates yourself - they're the same for every business using this platform, and each payslip names exactly which document its figure came from.
Compliance obligation
What your business owes an authority because of a payroll you approved, and by when. Mark one paid and attach the evidence once you've actually remitted it - the product calculates and records, but paying the authority itself happens from your own bank.
Your subscription vs. your clients' invoices
Two entirely separate flows of money
Your subscription (Settings → Billing) is what you pay to use Ugwo. Ugwo invoices you for it - the invoice and receipt come from Ugwo (operated by Suwebatu Limited, trading as Ugwo) - and payment is taken by our processor, Paymish, by card, bank transfer or USSD. The invoices you create are what your own clients pay you, and they work completely differently: your client pays into the bank account printed on the invoice, you record the transfer, and verifying it issues the receipt. We are never in the middle of that money, and your subscription lapsing never touches your clients' invoices or their payment history.