How to create an invoice generator

Generating invoices is a fundamental process for many businesses. However, manually creating these invoices every month is a monumental task that demands a lot of time – something that businesses don’t have. The solution: an invoice generator.

An invoice generator is an intelligent tool that automatically creates your invoices using the data you provide. The tool uses a ready-made template as the basis for every invoice. It takes the data you insert into a file and then transfers this data into the corresponding areas of your template. At this point, the invoices are automatically created, ready to send out to your clients. With an invoice generator, not only are you saving time, but you are also eliminating human error, which is particularly important. For example, let’s say you have a huge list of clients that purchase a variety of your products per month. Rather than manually entering hundreds of invoices for your clients, an invoice generator can automatically transfer your clients’ order data to create accurate, custom invoices immediately.

An invoice generator is an essential tool for any business. Let’s look in more detail at how you can create your custom invoice generator with Sheetgo.

How to create an invoice generator

There are many invoice generator tools on the market that you can implement into your business operations. Although these can be extremely helpful, creating your own custom invoice generator offers the ability to optimize the invoice generation process to meet your specific objectives.

Why use Sheetgo?

Sheetgo created its very own fully developed invoice generator workflow that you can easily implement and customize into your organization.

Here are just some benefits of using the Sheetgo invoice generator:

• Automated workflow from start to finish: Sheetgo offers an entire workflow that takes you from entering invoice data, all the way to sharing the final product with recipients. You can complete your entire invoice process in just a few clicks of a button.
• Use Sheetgo Forms to input data automatically into your invoice document: Sheetgo provides useful forms where you can input your invoice data. Sheetgo then automatically inserts this data into an invoice document, ready to be shared.
• Turn your invoices into a PDF: Using Sheetgo’s document generation feature, you can turn your invoices into PDFs – the perfect file format to send to your clients.
• Automatically send invoices via Gmail: Sheetgo’s integration with Gmail means you can automatically send invoices to specific recipients with ease.
• Customize and build on your workflow to suit your needs: Workflows are developed with customization in mind. You can easily build on your workflow and adapt it you your business needs, so you get the most out of your invoice generation.
• Easy use with existing tools: The entire workflow runs based on connections between Google Sheets, Google Docs, and Gmail; tools that are well-known and used by users already.

Step-by-step guide on how to create an invoice generator with Sheetgo

The best thing about the Sheetgo invoice generator is that the hard work is already done for you; you simply have to customize the templates for your business.

Use the following step-by-step guide on how to use the Sheetgo web app to create and run your invoice generator.

1. Install the invoice generator within the Sheetgo web app

Simply click the blue button below to access the invoice generator.

It takes you to the Sheetgo web application where you can sign up for Sheetgo with your Google, Dropbox, or Microsoft account.

After that, you enter the invoice generator installation screen.

Here, click Install template. The following message will pop up:

Simply authorize Sheetgo to add the invoice generator to your Google Drive.

2. Edit the invoice document template

Sheetgo provides a ready-made invoice document template with variable placeholders that your data will replace to create your custom invoices. You can access the file in your Google Drive by navigating to Sheetgo templates > Invoice generator > Invoice generator document. In this document, you can edit the various features to reflect your company, such as the logo and your company details.

Please note: If you would like to customize your invoice document further (for example, creating new columns/rows or adding new variable placeholders), you can do so. However, you must make sure that any new variable placeholders must also be added as a new column within the corresponding spreadsheet.

3. Input your invoicing data using Sheetgo Forms

Open up the Invoice generator spreadsheet database and delete the sample data. It’s now time to add your own. Sheetgo has 3 ready-made forms for different areas of your operations. These forms are made up of fields which correspond to the columns in the spreadsheet. This means that when you enter data into your form and submit it, the data is automatically assigned to the correct column in the spreadsheet, and each form appears as a new row.

Each form is sent to its corresponding tab within the invoice generator dashboard Here are the 3 forms you can add data to:

Register client: First, use this form to register any new clients and their information
Register item: Register all of the items in your inventory
Register invoice: Fill out these forms once your clients and items are registered. These use the client and item data to complete the form.

If you already have an existing database full of data (for example, a database of client information, or items list), you can copy and paste your data directly into the spreadsheet database. Make sure that you add the correct data to its corresponding column.

4. Edit your connection

Now that you have inputted your data via the forms, you can now choose to edit your connections to fit them to your needs. Under the Connection tab of your workflow overview, press the More options icon (⋮). Select Edit. This will give you an overview of how each file is connected, and where your documents will be saved.

There are many adaptations you can make, for example, changing the file location for our newly generated invoices. For this, navigate to the Destination folder section under the Generate process. Here, you can choose and rename a folder for all of your generated invoices.

5. Add your contacts to the Gmail integration

Similar to the step above, you can use the Edit feature of your workflow to add contacts to the Gmail integration. Under the Share process, you can manually add your contacts to the Gmail integration by selecting Use custom recipients.

Otherwise, Sheetgo will automatically send out your invoices through the dynamic data, by using one of the columns from your spreadsheet (in this case, Column D: Client email address). You can also customize other settings as well, such as your sending method and email subject line.

6. Generate your invoices

Now that you have customized the invoice generator workflow to your needs, you can now run the workflow to start the invoice generation process. Sheetgo will now update the entire system with your new data.

As a result, you should now see a spreadsheet with all of your new data, a folder of individual invoices saved as PDFs, and emails with each invoice sent to the corresponding recipients.

7. Automate your workflow

Sheetgo allows you to schedule the frequency of automated updates on your workflow so that you constantly receive the latest data. You can alter the update frequency to match the frequency of your invoices (weekly, monthly, etc.)

To do this, enter the Workflow tab and click on the button labelled Automate near the bottom of the screen. Slide the button Run automatically and select the frequency of your updates in days and hours. Once you’re happy with the estimated number of updates per month, press Save.

8. View your metrics

You can also access metrics to monitor how your inventory is affected by your invoices. Simply click the Metrics tab in the menu on the right-hand side of your screen. Here, you will find important information such as the total invoices issued in a month, your top clients, and even your top selling items.

Your workflow is now complete! From now on, every time you enter new data into your spreadsheet via forms, Sheetgo will create, generate and share the custom invoice automatically. You can then monitor your invoices under the metrics tab!

There you have it!

Now you have your very own custom invoice generator workflow that automatically handles the entire invoice generation process! With a combination of Sheetgo forms, spreadsheet dashboard, invoice template and Gmail integration, you have a fully automated workflow that creates, generates and sends all of your invoices for you!

If you would like to see more of Sheetgo’s latest workflow templates, why not take a look at our article on the Sheetgo inventory system with barcode scanner! Alternatively, discover more blog posts on how to solve with Sheetgo below!