Run invoicing, payment follow-up, and month-end from one PopPay workspace.

Choose the right first-run track

The Get Started screen is the shortest path into the product. Pick the track that matches the records you already have, then complete only the first checks needed for that track.

1. Open Get Started from the dashboard or profile menu.
2. Choose Xero already live if your accountant already relies on Xero.
3. Choose Testing Xero if you want to pilot with sample data before changing process.
4. Choose Native PopPay if PopPay will be where you create invoices and supplier records.
5. Finish the checklist: business identity, EFT details, and team or accountant invitation.

What to keep handy

• Company registration details, VAT number, and trading address.
• Bank account details customers should use for EFTs.
• The accountant or finance teammate email addresses you want to invite.

Business profile setup, step by step

Use this setup before you send a customer-facing document. The details saved here become the source for invoice PDFs, quote PDFs, payment pages, VAT reports, and accountant review.

1. Open Settings from the profile menu or left navigation.
2. Choose Businesses and select the business you are working in.
3. Enter the display name your customers recognise and the legal trading name your accountant expects.
4. Add your logo, address, registration number, VAT number, and default VAT rate if registered.
5. Save default EFT details: account holder, bank, account number, branch code, account type, and payment reference rule.
6. Open the profile menu again and confirm the active business name before creating documents.

What accountants should verify

• The legal name and VAT number match SARS registration records.
• The VAT category, basis, submission method, and customs code are correct before VAT review.
• The payment details on invoices match the bank account used for statement imports.

Customize invoices, quotes, pro-formas, and their emails

A PopPay template is one shared design with three document modes: Invoice, Quote, and Pro-forma. Branding and the base layout stay consistent, while each mode can have its own default template, document title, legal copy, saved email introduction, and preview.

1. Open Templates and create a shared template, or edit one you already use.
2. Switch between Invoice, Quote, and Pro-forma at the top of the page to preview each context and choose its default template.
3. Set the shared logo, colour, font, header, footer, bank details, and payment terms.
4. Choose a safe PDF layout. You can use stacked or inline business identity, a bounded logo size, stronger table headings, totals alignment, and legal-note placement.
5. With Detailed header, show, hide, and reorder optional business, customer, document, lower-section, and banking fields. Required document fields stay locked.
6. Set separate invoice, quote, and pro-forma titles. Add invoice T&Cs or quote acceptance terms only where they apply.
7. Write a saved email message for each document mode, or leave it blank to use PopPay's standard wording.
8. Preview all three modes, save the template, and set the appropriate default for each mode.

Personalize the message without breaking the email

• Your saved message appears inside the standard PopPay email. PopPay still controls the sender, document summary, payment or view action, tracking, attachment details, and compliance footer.
• Use the insert buttons for supported details such as customer name, document number, amount, business name, invoice due date, or quote valid-until date.
• The invoice, quote, and pro-forma messages are saved separately, so the wording can match the purpose of the document.
• Messages are plain text and limited in length. Raw HTML, custom scripts, and unsupported merge tags are rejected.

What happens to existing templates

• Nothing is duplicated or discarded. Every existing template stays as one shared template with its current branding, layout, terms, bank details, and numbering settings.
• The old default template initially remains the effective default for invoices, quotes, and pro-formas. You can then choose a different default for any document mode.
• New per-mode email messages start blank, so existing sends keep PopPay's standard email wording until you add custom copy.
• Invoice and quote numbering continue from the existing next numbers. Numbering belongs to the business, not the visual template; pro-formas share the quote sequence. You can lower Starts at to reuse numbers from deleted invoices or quotes. If a number in the lowered range is still on an issued invoice or quote, PopPay reports it and saves your other changes — you can then confirm the rewind explicitly, and new documents reuse the freed numbers while skipping numbers that are still issued.

How PopPay protects issued documents

• Template changes affect future documents only. PDFs issued from this upgrade onward are stored as fixed artifacts and do not change when the template, logo, business details, or terms change later.
• PopPay cannot recreate the exact original bytes of a document issued before this protection existed. The first later download is frozen as a legacy snapshot and recorded honestly as not having known original-issue bytes.
• Each meaningful template save creates a version record. Each send records the resolved message and the document artifact used for that delivery.
• Required identity, number, date, line-item, total, and VAT information cannot be hidden or moved into an unsafe layout.
• If an issued document needs a correction, create a proper new revision or accounting document instead of silently changing the old PDF.

Create and send an invoice

Use Invoices when work is ready to bill. The goal is to send a clean tax invoice with the correct customer, line items, VAT treatment, payment terms, and EFT details.

1. Open Get Paid > Invoices and choose Create Invoice.
2. Select an existing contact, or create the customer before you continue.
3. Check invoice number, issue date, due date, and payment terms.
4. Add line items with clear descriptions, quantities, rates, and VAT treatment.
5. To add a discount, choose Add discount and enter a percentage or a rand amount. A rand discount is incl. VAT: it comes off the total, so R100 off a R1,150 invoice (R1,000 + 15% VAT) leaves R1,050, of which R136.96 is VAT. The API's discount_value works the same way.
6. Choose the saved bank account customers should pay into.
7. Preview the PDF. If everything is correct, send it, download it, or share the public pay link.

Before sending

• The customer email or phone number is correct.
• The payment reference is easy for the customer to copy, usually the invoice number.
• VAT-registered sellers include the seller VAT number, and high-value tax invoices include the buyer VAT number when required.
• Payment terms match what you agreed with the customer.
• If the active template has extended invoice T&Cs, check the PDF preview so the long terms appear in the right place and do not surprise the customer.

Use quotes, deposits, and recurring invoices

Use Quotes before the customer has approved the work. Use recurring invoices when the same customer is billed on a predictable schedule.

Quote to invoice

1. Create the quote from Get Paid > Quotes.
2. Choose quote or pro forma style, add line items, and add any required deposit or prepayment.
3. Send the quote from Your WhatsApp or by email. A customer email is only needed for email send.
4. When accepted, convert the quote into an invoice instead of retyping the sale.
5. If a deposit was paid, record the deposit against the invoice trail.

Recurring invoices

1. Open the recurring invoice tab from the invoice screen.
2. Choose frequency, start date, customer, line items, and delivery preferences.
3. Review the first generated invoice before relying on the schedule.
4. Pause the schedule before holidays, cancelled contracts, or price changes.

Share a public pay link

Public pay links are useful when the customer is on WhatsApp, shared the PDF with their team, or needs a simple page with the available payment options, manual EFT details, and proof upload in one place.

1. Open the invoice or quote and choose the share or public link action.
2. Check the amount due, due date, account holder, bank, account number, and payment reference.
3. Send the link to the customer by email, WhatsApp, or your usual channel.
4. For manual EFT, ask the customer to use the invoice number as the payment reference. The payment page Copy buttons copy each bank value; if the phone blocks clipboard access, the page says so and the customer can still copy the visible value.
5. The customer can upload proof from the same link after a manual EFT.
6. Use a verified checkout result, bank match, or reviewed manual payment record before treating the invoice as paid. Proof alone is not settlement evidence.

Payment options today

When online checkout is not available for your workspace or this document, manual EFT plus proof upload remains available.

Deliver stock and get it signed for

1. Go to Get Paid > Delivery Notes and choose New delivery note.
2. Pick the customer, then add each product with the quantity delivered. Add a unit price if you plan to invoice from this note later — it stays hidden on the PDF unless you switch prices on.
3. Leave Show prices on the PDF off for consignment. Add any terms or notes, then save. The note starts as draft.
4. Choose Issue, then Mark delivered as the stock goes out. Download the PDF to send or print with the delivery.
5. Choose Copy sign link and send it to the customer. They open it, type the name of the person receiving the goods, sign on screen with a finger or mouse, and confirm. The note then shows a green Signed badge with their name, and the signature is stamped into the PDF.

What the customer sees on the sign link

• Your business name, the delivery note number, and the list of items and quantities delivered.
• A box to type their name and a signature pad to sign in. No login, no account needed.
• A "Receipt acknowledged" confirmation once they sign. A note can only be signed once.

What signing records

• The typed recipient name, the drawn signature, the signing time, and basic request metadata for the acknowledgement trail.
• A PDF hash is stored when the signature is captured so the signed document can be checked against the generated PDF.
• The signature confirms receipt of the listed goods. It does not mark an invoice paid and does not create a VAT event by itself.

Monthly stock-take and progressive invoicing

1. Open the delivery note and choose Stock take.
2. For each product, enter how many units are Remaining at the customer. PopPay shows Sold = Delivered − Remaining automatically.
3. Choose Generate invoice. PopPay creates a draft invoice for the sold quantities at their unit price and lands you on it to review and send.
4. Next month, do another stock-take on the same note. PopPay only invoices what has sold since last time, so you never double-bill a unit.
5. When every delivered unit has been billed, the note closes to invoiced on its own. Each invoice it created shows as a linked Invoice # chip on the note.

Worked example

Month 1 invoices 8 / 4 / 1 units. Month 2's stock-take bills whatever sold next, and so on until the consignment is fully sold or returned.

Build a reliable contact list

Start with the import path that matches where your customer list already lives. PopPay maps recognised columns, updates existing contacts when it can, and skips duplicates it cannot safely merge.

1. Open Contacts.
2. Use Upload CSV for exports from Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, Google Contacts, or a spreadsheet.
3. Use Upload Wave Contacts when moving a Wave contacts export through the guided import flow.
4. Use Sync Address Book only in a supported secure browser and select the contacts you want to import.
5. Use Import from Invoices to backfill customer and supplier records from existing PopPay invoices.
6. Open each important contact and add missing VAT, address, payment terms, and notes before sending new documents.

Fields worth checking

• Email and mobile number, especially when invoices or statements are sent by email or SMS.
• VAT number and VAT treatment before relying on VAT reports.
• Payment terms and credit limits for customers who buy on account.
• Supplier bank details only after verifying them outside PopPay.

Use statements and aged receivables

A contact statement shows invoices, credit notes, payments, and the running balance for one customer. Aged receivables shows outstanding balances grouped by age across customers.

1. Open a contact card or detail panel.
2. Use Open Statement to review the date range, totals, and running balance.
3. Send the statement by email or SMS when the contact has the right details, or download the PDF.
4. Use the Aged Receivables view to export overdue balances before collections or accountant review.
5. If a customer appears twice, merge contacts first, then refresh the statement.

Set up your catalog

Keep catalog records short enough to find quickly, but detailed enough that the line item still makes sense to the customer and accountant later.

1. Open Catalog from the Get Paid area.
2. Use quick add to create one item with name, type, unit price, and unit.
3. Click an item to edit the full name, description, product/service type, unit, price, and category.
4. Use CSV Template for bulk setup. The template includes name, type, unit price, unit, category, description, SKU, tax rate, tax-inclusive flag, and aliases.
5. Use search and the product/service filters to find items before editing or reusing them.
6. Delete only items you no longer want available for future documents. Existing invoices and quotes that used the item are not removed.

CSV import tips

• Include a name, product/service type, unit price, and unit wherever possible.
• Use SKU when it is the best unique identifier for a product list.
• Use aliases for common customer words, abbreviations, or older item names.
• Check skipped rows and import errors before relying on the catalog in live invoices.

Use catalog items on invoices and quotes

The line item field can search saved catalog items as you type. Selecting a match can fill the description, unit, price, and related catalog link for that line.

1. Open an invoice or quote editor.
2. Start typing in a line item, or open the catalog picker.
3. Select the matching product or service, then check quantity, unit, price, and VAT treatment.
4. If there is no match, use New Service or New Product to save the line for future documents.
5. If the saved description needs a lasting update, save the catalog description from the line item before sending.
6. Keep one-off wording on the document when the change is only for this customer or job.

Upload and review a proof of payment

Use this flow when a customer sends a bank screenshot, PDF confirmation, or WhatsApp proof. PopPay can read the proof and suggest the matching invoice, but a person should still check the details before the record is treated as settled.

1. Open Proofs or use PopBot's document upload menu.
2. Choose Upload Proof of Payment and select the image or PDF.
3. Review extracted sender, amount, date, reference, and file name.
4. Review the suggested invoice match and confidence score.
5. If the suggested match is correct, confirm it. If not, use manual link or leave it in review.
6. Once a bank statement import confirms the money, finish reconciliation from Banking or Matches.

Reject or pause when

• The amount differs from the invoice and no partial payment was agreed.
• The proof reference does not match any invoice or customer name.
• The image is blurry, cropped, edited, or missing bank confirmation details.
• Your bank statement does not show the money after the expected settlement window.

Capture supplier costs without losing the paper trail

Use Expenses for costs you already paid, Bills for supplier invoices you still need to pay, and Purchase Orders when you approve spend before a supplier sends the final invoice.

Receipt or paid expense

1. Open Pay > Expenses and choose scan or create expense.
2. Attach the receipt or enter the vendor, date, amount, category, and VAT treatment.
3. Mark whether the amount includes VAT and whether it is capital or operating spend.
4. Match it to a bank statement line when the payment appears in Banking.

Customer-recoverable expense

1. Open Pay > Expenses and turn on Bill to customer.
2. Choose the customer or contact, add the project or job name if useful, and record the paid-through account.
3. Save the expense and watch the reimbursement status: not invoiced, invoiced, or reimbursed.
4. Use Create draft invoice when you are ready to bill the customer for that cost.
5. Review the draft invoice wording, VAT treatment, and supporting receipt before sending it.

PopPay creates a review-required draft reimbursement invoice for one expense at a time. If the linked draft is cancelled or voided you can create a replacement; once the linked invoice is paid, reconciled, or confirmed, the expense shows as reimbursed.

Bulk capture and export

• Use bulk add when a team member brings back several receipts for the same customer or project.
• Fill in the billable customer, project, and paid-through fields before saving the batch.
• Use the Expenses export when your accountant needs the billable fields, reimbursement status, and linked invoice reference.

Supplier bill

1. Open Pay > Bills and capture the supplier invoice.
2. Check due date, supplier, total, reference, and VAT treatment.
3. Use a payment run as a planning list until a confirmed payment or bank record exists.
4. Keep supplier documents linked so your accountant can review input VAT evidence.

Before month-end

• Attach the supplier invoice or receipt, not only a payment screenshot.
• Check supplier VAT numbers before claiming input VAT.
• Check customer-recoverable expenses before sending reimbursement invoices, especially VAT wording and whether the cost is a disbursement or a recharge.
• Separate personal spending, capital purchases, and operating expenses.
• Leave uncertain VAT treatment for the accountant review queue.

Import a statement and allocate entries

Bank CSV import is the supported statement workflow today. Use it to bring real bank activity into PopPay, then allocate entries to invoices, payments, expenses, or bills.

1. Download a CSV statement from your online banking profile.
2. Open Books > Banking and choose Import CSV.
3. Confirm which bank account the file belongs to and upload it.
4. Review the import summary for skipped rows, duplicate rows, and date range.
5. Open statement entries that need review and choose Allocate.
6. Link income to invoices or payments, and link outgoing amounts to expenses or bills.
7. Use VAT toggles carefully; ask the accountant before changing tax treatment on unclear rows.

Use Exceptions when

• A payment exists but no matching invoice can be found.
• An invoice is overdue and no statement line or proof supports payment.
• The amount is an overpayment, partial payment, or refund.
• The customer name or reference is too vague to confirm safely.

Workspace data hygiene

1. Review Contacts before statements, collections, or accountant handover.
2. Review Catalog before large invoice or quote batches.
3. Add VAT numbers and VAT treatment where records need accounting review.
4. Verify supplier bank details through a trusted channel before using them for payment planning.
5. Merge duplicate contacts before month-end so statements and reports do not split the same customer across two names.

Team and owner-only actions

1. Invite each person with their own email address. Do not share the owner login.
2. Use accountant access when an external accountant needs reports, VAT review, and exception queues.
3. Keep owner-only settings for business profile, integrations, team management, backups, and account deletion.
4. Remove access promptly when staff or accountants no longer support the business.

Security and exports

1. Enable 2FA for owners and anyone who can export financial records.
2. Store backup codes somewhere the business owner can access if a phone is lost.
3. Use exports for accountant handover, audits, or offboarding, then store them securely.
4. Before deleting a business or user, export the records your accountant still needs.

Accountant review workflow

The accountant workflow starts with access, then moves through exceptions, statement records, VAT settings, and reports. Accountants should never need the owner's login.

1. Ask the business owner to invite you from Team with the accountant role or persona.
2. Confirm the active business name in the header or profile dropdown after login.
3. Open Books > Accountant Workbench to see client cards and review status.
4. Review exception counts, overdue invoices, overpayments, refunds, and unmatched statement entries.
5. Open Tax and confirm VAT category, basis, period, output VAT, input VAT, and net VAT.
6. Export reports or summaries only after records are reconciled enough for review.

What to ask the client before filing

• Are all bank statements for the period imported?
• Are large customer payments matched to the right invoices?
• Are supplier bills and receipts attached for input VAT claims?
• Are bad debt, refunds, and overpayments approved for the period?

VAT review and export workflow

PopPay helps prepare evidence and summaries, but VAT treatment still needs accountant review. Use the Tax screen as a working checklist before the normal SARS filing process.

1. Confirm the client has imported every bank statement for the VAT period.
2. Open Tax and choose the period under review.
3. Check output VAT from sales invoices and credit notes.
4. Check input VAT from expenses, supplier bills, and attached receipts.
5. Review exceptions: unmatched statement rows, overpayments, refunds, bad debt, and missing supplier evidence.
6. Export the summary only after unresolved exceptions are either fixed or explicitly carried forward.
7. To keep the reviewed figures, open Reports > VAT, choose Last month or Last quarter, and save a review snapshot. PopPay only saves a snapshot once the period has ended, so no invoice dated in the period is left out of a return.
8. To tie the books to the return, use the VAT control recon card on the same tab (VAT-registered businesses only). It lists every movement on the VAT control accounts (1200, 1250, 2200 and 2250) with its amount, the VAT period of its posting date, whether that period is filed, the return id once it is filed, and the last person who changed it. Export control recon CSV downloads the same rows. Expense lines show no last editor yet.

Filing boundary

These docs describe PopPay's review records. They do not replace an accountant's professional judgement or the SARS eFiling workflow.

Using the accounting features

You do not post journals by hand. You capture normal business documents, and PopPay keeps the books behind them. Your job is to review, not re-key.

1. Capture the source document as normal: an invoice, a customer payment, an expense, a credit note, or a fixed asset.
2. Open Books to see the Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, and General Ledger the documents produced.
3. Open Tax for the VAT201 view of the same period.
4. Drill from any report figure back to the documents and journal entries behind it.
5. Fix issues at the source document; the report follows automatically once the document is corrected.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure in Books is the sum of ledger entries, and every ledger entry was posted by a document you can open. There is no separate set of books to reconcile against.

It is a real double-entry ledger

Every invoice, customer payment, expense, credit note, and asset movement automatically posts a balanced journal entry — debits equal credits — to a general ledger. This is a proper ledger, not a spreadsheet of totals.

• Editing a document re-posts it. PopPay replaces the earlier journal for that document; it never stacks a second entry on top, so amending an invoice cannot double-count.
• Voiding or cancelling reverses. The original journal is reversed with an equal and opposite entry, leaving a clean audit trail rather than a deletion.
• Every document is traceable. Each journal links back to the source document, and each report figure links back to its journals.

Chart of accounts

PopPay posts to a standard chart of accounts. These are the control accounts you will see when you drill into the ledger.

Accrual basis, net of VAT

The Profit & Loss is prepared on the accrual basis. Revenue is recognised when an invoice is issued, not when the cash arrives, and expenses are recognised when they are incurred. Both are recorded net of VAT.

• VAT is never income or expense. Output VAT collected is a liability and input VAT paid is an asset; neither touches the P&L.
• A bare receipt is not revenue. Money banked without a linked invoice sits in AR-Clearing (1150) until you match it. Only once it is matched to an issued invoice does the sale appear in income.
• Timing is document-driven. Because recognition follows the invoice date, the period you file for reflects what you earned in that period, regardless of when customers actually paid.

The reports tie to the ledger

The reports are not independent summaries; each is a different view of the same journal entries, so they reconcile by construction.

• Balance Sheet = trial balance. It is the ledger's asset, liability, and equity balances, and it includes cash. Assets equal Liabilities plus Equity because every journal was balanced when it posted.
• Profit & Loss = ledger income and expense. The P&L for a period equals the net of the income and expense accounts over that period.
• VAT201 = VAT-control movement. The output VAT on the return equals the movement on the Output VAT account (2200) for the period, and input VAT equals the movement on Input VAT (1200).

VAT201

VAT is calculated per line at the actual rate that applies to it — standard-rated at 15%, zero-rated, or exempt — not as a flat percentage of the total. Input VAT is claimed from expenses and supplier bills, and reverse-charge VAT on imported services is self-assessed on the same return.

A filed period is locked, and history is kept

When a VAT period is filed, PopPay locks it and serves a stored snapshot of the return. Later edits to documents in that period cannot change the current snapshot. Reopening unlocks the period for amendment; it does not erase the earlier snapshot. Saving again writes a new version. Reports > VAT shows that history (version, when it was filed, who filed or reopened it, and the net VAT total).

Reopen is for a correction after the period has ended. PopPay refuses to save a period when a later locked snapshot already includes the same invoice or expense, so that row is not declared twice.

Bad debt and credit notes

Adjustments keep VAT correct as well as the sale.

• Credit notes reverse the sale and its VAT proportionally, linked back to the original invoice, so both revenue and Output VAT come down by the right amount.
• Bad-debt write-offs book the loss to bad-debt expense (6100), reclaim the VAT, and clear the receivable from Accounts Receivable (1100).

What PopPay does not do

We would rather be clear about the boundaries than have you assume more than the books provide.

• It does not submit to SARS eFiling. PopPay prepares review records and a VAT201 view; you still file through SARS.
• It does not compute income tax. The P&L stops at net profit before tax; provisions and tax computations are the accountant's work.
• It is ZAR-only. There is no multi-currency; documents are denominated in rand.
• Depreciation is posted cumulatively, not on a fixed monthly schedule, so review the depreciation charge before relying on a month-by-month split.

Before you hand off: month-end tidy-up

A few minutes of cleanup before you invite your accountant saves a lot of back-and-forth. Aim to give them a period that already reconciles.

1. Reconcile your bank statements so every payment in and out is imported and matched.
2. Upload any outstanding proofs of payment so receipts link to the right invoices.
3. Clear your exceptions: unmatched statement rows, overpayments, refunds, and unlinked receipts.
4. Confirm your VAT settings — registration number, VAT category, and basis — are correct.
5. Then invite the accountant from Team and let them know which period to review.

Exports: where to find each one

If your accountant prefers a file, or needs something for their own working papers, everything exports from inside the app.

• VAT review CSV with the audit trail — from the Tax screen for the chosen period.
• Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, and other reports — from Books.
• Invoice and statement PDFs — from each invoice, or from a customer's or supplier's statement.

What your accountant needs from you

Hand this checklist to yourself before the review call.

• All bank statements for the period imported and reconciled.
• Proofs of payment uploaded for outstanding invoices.
• Supplier bills and receipts attached so input VAT can be claimed.
• Exceptions cleared or noted with an explanation.
• VAT registration number, category, and basis confirmed.
• The accountant invited from Team and told which period to review.

Use PopBot as the quick path, not the only path

PopBot is useful when you know the outcome but do not remember where it lives. It can answer business questions, help you find overdue invoices, and accept document uploads.

Useful prompts

• "Get me set up" for onboarding guidance.
• "Who has not paid yet?" for overdue invoice review.
• "Walk me through payment links" before sharing a public pay page.
• "Scan a document" before uploading a proof, supplier invoice, or receipt.
• "Log this receipt and bill it to Customer A" when an expense should be recovered from a customer.
• "How is cash flow this month?" for a quick summary before opening reports.

When to leave feedback

Use Leave feedback when something is broken, confusing, unexpectedly useful, or missing from your workflow. PopPay attaches your current page and recent PopBot context so the team can triage the issue without asking you to repeat the basics.