We use proposals, and when we create a proposal we use “fixed items, subtotals only”.
When a proposal is accepted and the job becomes a work order, the billing section is populated with all items from the proposal, along with the individual line item pricing that we do not want to show.
Why isn’t “fixed items, subtotals only” a selection on invoices?
In chatting with help staff, I was told to remove the line item pricing, which is great, but then we cannot track profitability, and the subtotals etc do not calculate.
We can put in a new line and call it subtotal and then enter the pricing for the entire job into that line, but again, no more profitability calculations.
We use a custom template, and at the moment, the work around has been to change the pricing column to white text so that the individual line items are not visible on the invoice.
Whilst this works for proposals turned into invoices, it does not work for my day to day service invoicing where I do want to include individual line item prices.
So I ask the question, why can’t we select “fixed items, subtotals only” on invoices, the same we do on proposals?
For invoices, the documented way to control whether item pricing is shown is via invoice templates, rather than a proposal-style “Fixed Items, Subtotals Only” selector; ServiceM8 invoices and quotes are generated from templates, and whether they itemise materials and services depends on the template used.
That means you shouldn’t need to delete pricing from the job’s Billing section to change what the customer sees on the PDF; a custom invoice template can keep item names/descriptions, remove per-line price fields, and keep subtotal/total fields such as job.materials_subtotal_price, job.labour_subtotal_price, job.subtotal_price, and job.total_price.
For your mix of proposal jobs and day-to-day service invoicing, the practical workaround is to keep your normal itemised invoice template for standard work, and create a second invoice template for proposal jobs that hides the per-line pricing but keeps the subtotal/total fields.
Once you’ve set up multiple invoice templates, you can choose which template to use on a job-by-job basis when producing the invoice from the Online Dashboard.
If you want a native invoice option that mirrors Proposal “Fixed Items, Subtotals Only”, that’s best submitted as a feature suggestion with the workflow/problem details so our product team can review it.
as far as I can see, removing pricing from an invoice, as opposed to being able to hide the pricing from an invoice, is likely to affect profitability calculations.
We have progressed with amending the invoice template so that the pricing is in place, however, it prints white - white text on a white background renders it invisible to the customer.
This outcome also means that staff do not need to worry about using the correct invoicing template. Less choices means less room for error.
As the “fixed items, subtotals only” functionality exists, why not have it as an option on invoices - this would be the easiest workaround for sure.
You’re right that there’s an important difference between removing billing values from the job and hiding item pricing on the customer-facing invoice PDF.
For Job Costing, ServiceM8 calculates profit from the invoiced amount less material, labour and admin costs, and the invoiced amount is the amount that appears on the invoice sent to the customer.
So, if your goal is to preserve job profitability while changing what the customer sees, keeping the billing data in place and controlling the invoice output with the template is the right direction.
At the moment, the documented controls for invoice itemisation are template-based: invoices and quotes are generated from templates, and whether they show line items, subtotals, or totals depends on the template used.
A native invoice option matching Proposal “fixed items, subtotals only” would be a feature enhancement rather than a documented invoice setting we can point you to today, and the best path is to submit that as a feature suggestion with the workflow detail you’ve outlined here.
Good callout. Bundles are a documented option here because they can roll labour, materials or services into one preset bundle with a fixed price and a single client-facing description on quotes and invoices. The individual items inside the bundle don’t show on quotes or invoices, with only the bundle name shown to the client.
One caveat is accounting sync: when an invoice with a bundle is sent to Xero, QuickBooks Online or MYOB, the bundle is broken into its components so the correct cost and income codes are used.
For Deborah’s original workflow, the documented invoice itemisation controls are template-based. If you’d like a native invoice setting that matches Proposal “Fixed Items, Subtotals Only”, submit it as a feature idea with the workflow detail and problem it would solve.