Documents, Agreements and Client Invoices
How to write agreements, bill your client for logged expenses, collect signatures, and what these records do not change.
The **Documents** page holds two kinds of paper: **agreements you write** and **invoices you send to a client**. Both can be signed electronically, downloaded as a PDF, and shared to the client portal.
Two things this page does *not* do:
- It does not change any money. Creating, sending, signing or marking an invoice paid never alters your Budget, your expenses, your vendor payments, your draw requests or a change order.
- It does not give you a contract. Every agreement here is text you type yourself. OwnerDraw provides no template and no legal advice — have your own counsel review anything binding.
Start here
1. Open **Documents** from the **More** menu, or go to `/documents`.
2. To write an agreement, select **New Document**, enter a **Title** and the full **Document Text**, then select **Create Document**. It is saved as a **Draft**.
3. To bill a client, select **New Invoice**, tick the expenses you are billing, then select **Create Invoice**. It is also saved as a **Draft**.
4. Decide how the other side receives it:
- **Email to Client** — sends a signing link to an address you type, and copies the link.
- **Share to Portal** — makes it visible in your client's portal, with no email.
- **Sign as Builder** — opens the signing page for your own signature.
5. Select **PDF** at any time to download a copy.
Nothing leaves OwnerDraw until you choose one of those actions. A draft is private to your project team.
The two document types
| Type | Created with | What it is for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Agreement | **New Document** | Any text document: a pre-construction agreement, a scope letter, an acknowledgement. Signed by builder, client, or both. |
| Invoice | **New Invoice** | A bill to your client, built from expenses you have already recorded. Signature optional. |
There is no separate "contract" record type, no template library and no clause builder. A **Title** and a body of plain text is the whole document; paragraphs and line breaks are kept exactly as you typed them, and that is what the signer sees.
Writing an agreement
**New Document** asks for two things:
- **Title** — for example *Pre-Construction Agreement*
- **Document Text** — the entire agreement
Select **Create Document** to save. Use **Edit** on the card to change the title or text later, and **Save Changes** to keep it. An invoice reopens in the same builder, where the button reads **Save Invoice**.
**Edit** is switched off once a document is fully executed, and once an invoice has been marked paid.
Building a client invoice
An invoice bills expenses you have already recorded on the **Expenses** page. You cannot type a free-hand line item.
The **New Client Invoice** window has:
- **Title** and **Invoice #** — the number is suggested for you and can be changed
- **Issue date** and **Due date** — the due date starts at 14 days out
- the expense list, grouped by category, with a tick box per expense
- **Payment terms** — free text, pre-filled with *Payment due within 14 days of the invoice date.*
- **Note to client (optional)** — appears above the lines
- a switch that asks the client to sign the invoice as well as read it
Each line carries the vendor name, the expense date, the description, the amount and the receipt if one is attached, so your client sees what they are paying for.
**Costs are billed exactly as entered.** There is no markup field, no tax line, no retainage and no rounding. The invoice total is the sum of the ticked expenses.
**An expense can only sit on one live invoice.** Anything already billed is hidden while you build a new invoice, so you cannot bill it twice. Turn on **Show already invoiced** to see them anyway, marked with the invoice they belong to. Voiding an invoice makes its expenses billable again.
Sending, signing and status
| Status shown | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| **Draft** | Saved, seen by nobody outside your project team |
| **Out for signature** | A signing link exists and is waiting |
| **Fully executed** | Builder and client have both signed |
| **Sent — awaiting payment** | An invoice that has left draft and is not yet marked paid |
| **Paid {date}** | You marked the invoice paid |
| **Voided** | An invoice you cancelled; its expenses are billable again |
The buttons behave like this:
- **Email to Client** opens a small window where you type the recipient's address. Leaving it blank just copies the link instead of emailing. The button then reads **Resend to Client/Bank**, which is how you send the same link to a lender.
- **Share to Portal** posts the document into the client portal. If a signature is wanted, your client can sign there without any email.
- **Sign as Builder** opens the signing page in a new tab for your own signature.
- **Copy Client Link** copies the client's signing link while it is still pending.
- **PDF** downloads the document, including the signature images and audit record once signed.
- **Delete** removes the document and any outstanding signing links. Copies already downloaded are unaffected.
Once your client has signed, **Resend to Client/Bank**, **Share to Portal** and **Edit** are switched off for that document — a signed record is not rewritten. **Share to Portal** reads **In Client Portal** while a client signing link is pending.
**Signing links last 7 days.** While a link is still valid, sending again hands over that same link — the signer never ends up with two competing links for one document. Once it has lapsed, the button reads **Link expired — Get a New Link**: selecting it issues a fresh link on the same document, keeping the same recipient, the same version and the same history, and the old link stops working. A document that has already been signed, cancelled or voided cannot be reopened this way. There are still no automatic reminders — chasing a signature is a phone call, not a feature.
Versions and changes
There is one living copy of each document, not a numbered version history. If you **Edit** a document you have already sent:
- the change is saved immediately, over the top of the old text
- a signing page the client already has open keeps the text it loaded, so what they sign may not match what you now see
- once the client has signed, **Edit** is switched off and the record stands as signed
If wording matters after signature — and on a binding agreement it usually does — leave the signed document alone and write a new one.
Who is billing whom
These four things are separate records, and the app never converts one into another.
| Thing | Where it lives | What it records |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Client invoice | **Documents** → **New Invoice** | Money you are asking your client for |
| Recorded client payment | **Mark Paid** on that invoice | Your own note that the client paid. It is a date stamp on the invoice. |
| Vendor expense | **Expenses** | A cost you incurred, from a vendor |
| Vendor payment | the expense's own payment fields | Whether *you* paid that vendor |
So: **Mark Paid** on an invoice does not pay a vendor, does not mark any expense paid and does not fund a draw. Equally, funding a draw does not mark a client invoice paid. **Mark Unpaid** clears the date if you stamped it by mistake.
What do I do next?
| If you… | Do this |
| --- | --- |
| are starting a build with a client | **New Document**, write the agreement, **Sign as Builder**, then **Email to Client** |
| want the client to sign without email | **Share to Portal**, then tell them to open **Documents** in their portal |
| are ready to bill costs | record the expenses first on **Expenses**, then **New Invoice** and tick them |
| see an expense missing from the invoice list | it is already on a live invoice — turn on **Show already invoiced** to find which |
| billed the wrong expenses | **Void** the invoice, then build a new one; the expenses become available again |
| got paid | **Mark Paid** on that invoice — and remember this is only a note, not a money entry |
| need a copy for your lender | **PDF**, or **Resend to Client/Bank** to send the signing link |
| had a signing link expire | select **Link expired — Get a New Link** on that document and send the new link |
Common questions
**Does an invoice change my budget?** No. Invoices read your recorded expenses; they never write to Budget lines, change orders or draws.
**Can I invoice for something I have not recorded as an expense?** No. Record it on **Expenses** first.
**Can I add a markup or a fee?** Not as a line. Costs bill at the amount entered. Anything else belongs in your agreement or in your own expense record.
**Is the electronic signature binding?** OwnerDraw records the signature image, the date and time, the signer's name and email, their IP address and browser, and keeps that with the PDF. Whether a given document binds a given party is a legal question — ask your attorney.
**Can two people sign?** Yes — one builder signature and one client signature per document.
**Does my client see drafts?** No. Only documents you have emailed or shared appear in the portal, and voided invoices are hidden.
Professional builder notes
- Cost-plus billing only: selected expenses at cost, no fee, tax or retainage line, no progress billing against a schedule of values. AIA-style progress billing lives on **Bank Ready** and **Draw Requests** and is aimed at your lender, not your client.
- Invoice numbers are suggested sequentially per project but are editable and not enforced unique.
- One live invoice per expense is enforced in the builder, so cost-plus double billing is prevented; voiding is the release mechanism.
- No accounts-receivable ageing, no partial payments, no statements. **Mark Paid** is a boolean date stamp.
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