Docs

Setting up

The first time you open Paydesk it asks three things, and you can change all of them later.

1. Your business. Enter your business name, your name and your country or region. Paydesk suggests a home currency, paper size, fiscal year, tax preset and document language for that region; adjust any of them. Tax presets are starting points, so check the rate with your accountant.
2. How your documents look. Pick one of the three templates (Ledger, Swiss or Atelier) and drop in your logo. Clients only ever see the PDF, and you can change the template on any document.
3. How to start. Start with a sample project fills Paydesk with a few clients, projects, invoices and hours, all marked as sample, so you can see how it fits together. Start empty begins with your own first client.

When you’re ready to use Paydesk for real, remove the sample in Settings → Data → Remove Sample Data. Your own records stay; only time you logged on a sample project goes with it.

Before your first invoice, it’s worth five minutes in two places:

• Settings → Business: your address, email, tax ID and logo, which print on every document.
• Library → Payment Methods: your bank details or a payment link, so invoices tell clients how to pay. See The Library.

Finding your way around

The sidebar has three groups:

• Desk, Board, Projects, Clients: your work and who it’s for.
• Documents: Proposals, Quotes, Invoices, and Receipts & Credit Notes. Invoices shows how many are overdue.
• Records: Time, Expenses, Reports and the Library.

Three things save the most clicks:

• ⌘1 to ⌘9 jump between sections: Desk, Board, Projects, Clients, Documents (Invoices), Time, Expenses, Reports, Library.
• ⌘N creates whatever fits where you are: a task in a project, a client on Clients, a quote on Quotes, an expense on Expenses, a time entry on Time, and an invoice almost everywhere else. ⌥⌘N always makes an invoice.
• ⇧⌘O opens Open Quickly: type part of a client, project, task or document number and press Return.

The timer lives at the bottom of the sidebar and in the menu bar, so it’s always one click away. See Tracking time.

The Desk

The Desk is the page to open each morning. The first line is what you’re owed and how much of it is overdue. Below it, “This month” shows what you’ve invoiced, received and spent, and the chart shows money in and out for the last twelve months.

Needs attention lists what’s worth doing next, each with a button:

• Overdue invoices, with Remind to open a reminder in Mail.
• Quotes and proposals that expire within three days, with Open.
• Projects with at least half an hour of unbilled time, with Bill Now, which turns that time into a draft invoice.
• Draft invoices older than a week that were never issued, with Review.

Today lists tasks due today or earlier, plus anything you’re currently doing, and a one-click way to resume your last timer.

Clients and rates

Add clients in Clients → New Client. Beyond the name and contact details, the Documents section of the client form is what saves time later: set the client’s currency, document language, payment terms and hourly rate once, and every new document for them picks them up. Leave any of them on Business default to use your settings.

Paydesk chooses an hourly rate in this order:

1. The project’s rate, if it has one (project → Overview).
2. The client’s rate.
3. Your default rate in Settings → Time.

A client’s page shows their lifetime revenue, what they owe, how long they usually take to pay, and all their projects and documents. A client with issued documents can’t be deleted, so your records stay complete.

Projects and the Board

Every project moves across the Board through seven stages: Lead, Proposal sent, Accepted, In progress, Delivered, Invoiced, Paid. Drag a card to move it, or select it and use ⌥⌘← and ⌥⌘→. Moving a card into some stages offers the obvious next step, such as creating a proposal, turning an accepted quote into an invoice, or billing unbilled work. Not Now skips it.

Much of this happens on its own:

• Issuing or sending a quote or proposal moves a Lead to Proposal sent.
• Accepting a quote moves the project to Accepted.
• Starting a timer on an Accepted project moves it to In progress.
• Issuing an invoice moves a Delivered project to Invoiced, and once every issued invoice is paid it moves to Paid.

Open a project to see its four tabs:

• Tasks, as a board (To do, Doing, Review, Done) or a list. Select a task to open its inspector: due date, estimate, priority, checklist, notes, and a timer for that task. Paste a list of lines onto the task board to create one task per line.
• Time: every entry for the project, what’s unbilled, and Bill Unbilled Work.
• Money: the project’s quotes, invoices and expenses.
• Overview: name, client, stage, rate, due date, a brief, and the numbers, including your effective hourly rate (what you’ve been paid divided by the hours logged).

When a project is finished and paid, Archive it (right-click on the Board, or in Overview). It leaves the Board, the timer and the Desk, and stays in Projects under “Active and archived”.

Tracking time

There’s one timer, and you can start it from several places:

• Start Timer at the bottom of the sidebar, which lets you pick a recent project.
• The menu bar, which works with the window closed and lets you switch projects.
• A project’s toolbar, or a task’s inspector to time that task.
• The global shortcut ⌃⌥⌘T from any app. It stops a running timer, or resumes your last project. Choose a different combination, or turn it off, in Settings → Time → Start or stop timer.

Starting a timer stops the one that was running, so switching work is just starting the next project. A timer still running when you quit carries on when you open Paydesk again.

If you step away with a timer running, Paydesk asks what to do when you’re back: Keep the time, Discard it, or Split into New Entry, which records the time away as a separate, non-billable entry. Set how long counts as away in Settings → Time → Ask about idle time after (10 minutes to start with).

For time you didn’t time, use Log Time (⌘N on Time). Enter a duration like 1:30, 1.5, 90m or 1h 30m, or switch to start and end times. New entries are billable unless you turn it off.

Time shows entries by day, or a week at a time with Week. Filter to Unbilled only to see what you haven’t invoiced yet.

Double-click an entry, or right-click it and choose Edit, to write what you did or to change its project, date or duration. A running timer’s description can be written while it runs. Once time is on an invoice its hours are fixed, and once that invoice is issued so is its description.

Time Report in the toolbar exports the hours for any client, project, task and dates as a PDF in your document template or as a CSV, with each entry’s date, description, hours and amount.

To bill in fixed increments, choose one in Settings → Time → Round billed time up to (6, 15 or 30 minutes). Each entry is rounded up when it’s billed; the time you logged stays exact.

Quotes and proposals

Create a quote from Quotes, from a project’s Money tab, or by right-clicking a card on the Board. It’s edited the same way as an invoice (see the next section), with two extras:

• Valid until, set in the inspector. New quotes are valid for 30 days; change the default in Settings → Documents. Once the date passes, the quote shows as Expired.
• Optional lines: right-click a line to mark it optional. Optional lines print as options and aren’t carried over to the invoice.

After you issue and send it, record the client’s answer in the inspector with Mark as Accepted or Mark as Declined. Convert to Invoice creates a draft invoice with the same lines, minus the optional ones, so you never retype a quote.

Writing an invoice

The quickest invoice is one you don’t type. Bill Now on the Desk, or Bill Unbilled Work on a project, creates a draft from the project’s unbilled time and billable expenses: one line per task, in hours, at the rate in effect, with the dates in the line’s details. If something can’t be added, Paydesk tells you why, usually a missing hourly rate or exchange rate.

You can also start from scratch with ⌥⌘N. A draft is edited on the page itself:

• Click the client area to choose a client. Their currency, language and terms fill in.
• Add Line, Add Section for a heading, or From Library (⌘L) for a saved service.
• Right-click a line to change its unit (hours, days, items, words, pages, months), its taxes, or give it a percentage discount. Drag the handle to reorder.
• Type hours as 2:30; 2.5 and 150m work too.
• Dashed guides show where the PDF will break onto a new page.

The inspector (⌥⌘I) holds the rest:

• Project and a reference, such as the client’s PO number.
• Payment terms.
• Currency and language.
• Tax profile, whether prices include tax, and the treatment (Standard, Reverse charge or Exempt). The last two print a note you can word yourself.
• Template and paper.
• Which payment methods to print.
• The Unbilled section, where Add brings in any project’s unbilled work.

Deleting a draft, or a line that came from billed time, puts that time and those expenses back to unbilled.

Issuing and sending

When the draft is right, choose Issue Invoice (⌘↩). A document needs a client and at least one line. Issuing does several things at once:

• Gives the invoice its number and today’s date.
• Sets the due date from the terms.
• Fixes the contents, so what the client received stays on record.

Issuing can’t be undone; to change an issued invoice, see Fixing an issued invoice.

Send (⇧⌘D) opens a new message in Mail with the PDF attached, written in the document’s language. Check it and press Send yourself; Paydesk never sends anything on its own. Afterwards it asks whether to mark the invoice as sent. If you email invoices another way, use Export PDF (⇧⌘E) or Print (⌘P).

An invoice made from tracked time also has a timesheet: a second PDF listing every time entry behind it, with the date, what you did, the hours and the amount, adding up to the invoice’s own totals. Choose Export Timesheet in the inspector, or turn on Settings → Documents → Attach a timesheet when sending invoices to have Send add it to the email.

When an invoice goes overdue, it appears on the Desk with Remind, which opens a polite reminder in Mail with the invoice attached again.

Getting paid

When money arrives, open the invoice and choose Record Payment. The amount starts at the balance due. Change it for a part payment, and add the date, the method and a reference such as the transaction ID. A payment can’t be more than the balance. For an invoice in another currency, also enter the exchange rate on the day the money arrived; each part payment has its own. Paydesk works out the rest:

• A partial payment marks the invoice Partially paid; the remainder stays on the Desk.
• Paying the full balance marks it Paid.
• Turn on Create receipt if the client wants one, or right-click the payment later and choose Create Receipt. Receipts and credit notes appear under Receipts & Credit Notes.
• Recorded a payment by mistake? Right-click it in the inspector and choose Delete Payment.

Invoices print the payment methods you ticked in the inspector, with a QR code where it helps. A SEPA (EPC) code lets clients in the euro area pay the exact amount by scanning it in their banking app. Paydesk itself never takes card or online payments.

Fixing an issued invoice

Issued invoices aren’t edited; they’re corrected, the way accountants expect. Open the invoice and choose Correct Invoice in the inspector. Paydesk then:

• Issues a credit note that cancels the invoice in full and marks it Void.
• Opens a new draft with the same lines for you to fix and issue.
• Moves billed time and expenses to the new draft. Payments already received move to the replacement when you issue it.

This works even on paid invoices, and like issuing it can’t be undone.

Expenses and receipts

Add an expense with New Expense, or drag receipts (PDFs or images) onto Expenses. Each receipt opens a new expense with the merchant, date, total and tax filled in from the receipt, read on your Mac with Apple’s text recognition. Check the figures and save.

To pass a cost on to a client, choose the project and turn on Bill to client, optionally with a markup. The next time you bill that project, the expense becomes its own invoice line. Select an expense and press Space to Quick Look its receipt.

Paid in another currency? Enter the rate from your statement, and the expense is counted in your home currency at that rate.

Reports and your accountant

Reports covers any period, from this month to last fiscal year, with all amounts in your home currency:

• What you invoiced, received and spent, and your profit.
• Who owes what, and for how long (Aging).
• Tax charged.
• Expenses by category.
• What each project earned per hour.

At the end of a quarter or year, choose Export → Accountant Pack. It saves one ZIP with:

• CSVs of invoices and credit notes, payments, expenses, time and aging.
• A PDF of every document issued in the period.
• Every expense receipt.

The same CSVs are available one at a time from the Export menu.

To keep a complete copy of everything, use Settings → Data → Export Everything. It saves your whole library as documented JSON, with your receipts and issued PDFs.

The Library

The Library holds the things you set up once and reuse:

• Items & Rates: services and products with a price, unit and taxes. Add them to any document with ⌘L.
• Tax Profiles: your taxes, including whether prices include tax, how tax is rounded, compound or withholding taxes, split taxes such as CGST and SGST, and the notes printed for reverse charge and exempt supplies. Tax rates change and Paydesk never updates them for you, so Mark as Reviewed Today helps you keep track of when you last checked.
• Payment Methods: bank details (with an IBAN check), payment links and instructions, each with an optional QR code. Turn on Add to new invoices for the ones you always use.
• Exchange Rates: what one unit of each currency you use is worth in your home currency, from your bank or statement.

Other currencies

You can invoice any client in their own currency. The client’s currency fills in on new documents, and when you issue one in a foreign currency, Paydesk asks for the exchange rate and stores it on the document. Each payment keeps the rate you enter when you record it, so Reports show what actually reached your account, and the invoice’s inspector shows the exchange gain or loss against the rate it was issued at. Expenses keep their own rate.

Every report converts each item at the rate recorded with it, so last year’s figures never change when rates move. Paydesk never fetches rates; enter them from your bank or statement.

Your home currency can be changed until you issue your first document or record your first expense; after that it’s fixed, so your history stays consistent.

Document numbers

Each kind of document has its own sequence, set in Settings → Documents → Numbering. A format combines a prefix with tokens:

Choose whether numbers restart Yearly, by Fiscal year, or Never. A format must include {seq}, and a year or fiscal-year token when numbers restart, so no two documents ever share a number. Numbers are assigned when a document is issued, with no gaps, and the row shows the next number before you commit to it.

Keyboard shortcuts

In lists, Return opens the selected row. Delete removes a selected draft, after asking, or the selected Library entry.

Habits that keep it accurate

• Start the timer when you start the work, not afterwards. The shortcut makes it a single key press from any app.
• Set a rate on every client, or at least a default in Settings → Time, so Bill Now never stops to ask.
• Bill from the Desk. If a project shows unbilled hours there, that’s money you haven’t asked for yet.
• Record payments the day they arrive. The Desk and your reports are only as current as your payments.
• Mark expenses billable when you enter them. It’s easy to forget a cost by the time you invoice.
• Review your tax profiles once a year, or whenever rates change, and use Mark as Reviewed Today.
• Export Everything now and then, alongside Time Machine, for a copy of your records you can open anywhere.

Good to know

• Your data stays on your Mac. Paydesk has no network access and no account. Your library is included in Time Machine backups and moves with Migration Assistant. See the privacy policy.
• Billed time is fixed. You can edit an entry until it’s on an invoice; after that, remove its line from the draft first.
• Reminders aren’t automatic. Paydesk shows what’s overdue; you decide when to send a reminder.
• Email wording is built in for each document language and can’t be customised yet; you can edit each message in Mail before sending.
• There’s no import, no sync between Macs, and no recurring invoices yet.
• The app’s interface is in English; documents and emails come in nine languages.

Something missing, or not working the way this page says? Email [email protected] or see Support.