Invoicing, tax & expenses
Raise invoices with line items, tax and a due date; send them by email with a link to a secure online portal where clients view and pay (card, PayPal, custom link or bank transfer). Set up Recurring invoices to generate automatically, and the daily job chases overdue ones with reminder emails. Track Expenses by category to get a profit & loss, and see revenue, outstanding invoices and P&L by month, quarter or year under Finance reports.
Configure tax, numbering and categories on Settings → Invoicing; edit the invoice emails on Settings → Messaging.
Example
A monthly daycare client has a recurring plan: on the 1st an invoice is generated and emailed with a pay link, they pay by card via the portal (auto-marked paid), and it lands in your revenue report under “Daycare”.
FAQ
How do clients pay?
Each invoice has a portal page with the payment methods you’ve enabled. Card/PayPal/custom links open the provider; bank details are shown to pay manually. Open a client and use “Preview portal” to see exactly what they see.
How are overdue invoices chased?
Once past the due date they’re marked overdue and a reminder email goes out, repeating weekly until paid.
Can I set my own tax?
Yes — name it (VAT/GST/Sales Tax), set a default rate, and add your tax number. Rates can be overridden per invoice.
Where do expenses fit?
Record expenses by category; Finance reports subtract them from revenue for a profit & loss, grouped by period.
Can I give a discount with a code?
Yes. Under Finance → Discount codes create a code (percentage or fixed amount) with an optional validity window, usage limit, minimum spend, and which items it applies to (any item, or only chosen services / classes / packages). Enter the code on an invoice and it’s validated and applied when you save. Finance reports shows a “Discount codes applied” total plus a table of who applied which code, to which invoice/client, and when.
Where does Pet Central come from now?
The free plan is on the WordPress plugin directory — install it from Plugins → Add New in your own dashboard, the same as any other plugin. You only order through our website if you also want us to provide hosting, a domain, or to install it into a site you already have somewhere else.
How do I get the paid features?
Open Upgrade, pick a plan, and pay. Everything else happens for you: the licence is applied and, on a site installed from WordPress.org, the extra features are downloaded and switched on before you leave the screen. There is no zip to fetch and no key to paste.
Some menu items have a padlock — why can I still see them?
On purpose. Hiding them would mean never knowing the plugin does that at all. The padlock says which plan it needs, and opening one shows what it does and what it costs.
How do I find one invoice among hundreds?
Type the invoice number into the search box on Finance → Invoices — it matches the number itself, not just the title, so it works for invoices raised by an import, a recurring plan or the demo as well as ones you typed. Clicking the Number heading sorts the list into issue order.
An invoice I imported says Paid but still shows an amount outstanding.
That was a bug in imports before 2.195.0: the row was marked paid without the payment being written to the ledger, and outstanding is worked out from the ledger. Re-import the affected invoices, or open each one and record the payment on it, and the outstanding figure clears.
Can I try it with sample data?
Yes — Demo data → import Invoices and Expenses to populate a few months, then explore Finance reports. Remove it cleanly afterwards.