An invoice gathers a client's billable line items for one payer over a billing period, so you can review the charges and send them for payment. Here's the full flow.

Invoices are for private-pay payers — the client, their family, or another direct (non-insurance) payer. Insurance and other third-party payers are billed through claims instead, a separate flow covered in the Insurance & Claims articles.

Go to Billing → Invoices → Create Invoice, then choose:

If a client has no policy linking them to a payer, you'll be prompted to create one first — that's how Careswitch knows what to charge and for what services.

Invoices are organized into invoice groups — one per client, payer, and billing cycle — so related charges stay together.

Every invoice (and reimbursement invoice) carries a consistent invoice number — for example, CS-PP-1023. The same number appears everywhere the invoice does: the invoice page, PDFs, emails, payment pages and receipts, exports, and file names. You can search for an invoice by its number from the invoice tables or the global search, and if you sync with QuickBooks Online, the number in QuickBooks always matches.

On the invoice you can see and adjust everything before it goes out: line items (shift hours, travel time, mileage), expenses, the amount due, and any convenience fee. While line items are Billable you can add, remove, or edit them; once the invoice is sent, they lock.

Invoices tell you whether anything is missing. When a billing period ends, the invoice page flags shifts from that period that aren't on the invoice yet — grouped by whether they're ready to add, still need review, or were never worked — with one-click Add and Add all actions to pull the ready ones in. If you send an invoice while shifts are still missing, the send confirmation warns you first.

Two statuses help you manage the review step on private-pay invoices:

Every line item — shift hours, travel time, mileage, and expenses — can be moved to another invoice, individually or in bulk. Select items with the per-item checkboxes and choose Move to invoice… to consolidate the selection onto one destination invoice. Moves never change rates or payers on their own — the amounts stay exactly as they were. (Items can be moved while they're still Billable; once an invoice is sent or marked Reviewed, its items are locked.)

Sending the invoice moves its line items to Billed. An invoice moves through these statuses:

For how clients pay online, see "Collecting private-pay payments and convenience fees."

The Billing → Invoices tab has summary cards across the top — Submission Ready (unsent billing waiting to go out), Total Paid, Total Outstanding, and Total Billed. Click a card to filter the table to the invoices behind it, and use the Invoice Age filter to narrow by how long invoices have been outstanding. When unsent billing is waiting, a pulsing indicator on Billing in the navigation tells you at a glance. For a payer-by-payer view of what's owed and for how long, see the Receivables tab.

For a private-pay invoice, you choose the billing period when you create it. (Third-party claims run on a set billing frequency instead — see the Insurance & Claims articles.)

The client needs an active private-pay policy linking them to the payer, and the service must be covered by it. Set up the policy first. (If the payer is insurance, you'll bill them through claims, not an invoice.)

No — once sent, its line items are Billed and locked. Void the invoice if you need to start over.

Insurance is billed through claims rather than these private-pay invoices. We cover that in the Insurance & Claims articles.