A proforma invoice is a preliminary bill you send before work begins or goods are delivered, laying out the expected charges so the client knows what to expect. It looks like an invoice, but it isn’t a demand for payment — it’s a good-faith quote you both agree on first.
Proforma vs. final invoice
The two documents look similar on paper, but they do very different jobs. The proforma comes first and sets expectations; the final invoice comes later and asks to be paid.
- Proforma invoice — issued before the work. It shows itemized charges, taxes, and any deposit so the client can review and approve. It is not yet a record of money owed.
- Final invoice — issued once the work is done (or the deposit is due). It is a payable bill with a due date, and it belongs in your books.
The reason this distinction matters: a proforma keeps your accounting clean. You don’t want a “maybe” sitting in your revenue numbers. You want the real invoice to land only when the client has said yes.
A real-world example
Say you’re a photographer quoting a half-day shoot. You send the client a document listing 6 hours × your rate, a travel fee, two prints as units, sales tax, and a 30% deposit. That’s a proforma invoice. The client reads it, agrees, and pays the deposit. Now you turn it into a real invoice and start working. Nothing hit your “owed” column until they approved — exactly as it should be.
Tip: If you ever find yourself sending an “invoice” and then editing it after the client pushes back on price, that’s a sign you wanted a proforma. Quote first, bill second — it keeps your revenue reports honest.
A note on tax and legal use
In some places a proforma invoice is also used for customs or to request advance payment, and the rules for what counts as a valid tax document vary by country and even by region. Fee-Lion gives you the building blocks — a tax % field and a deposit % on every estimate — but it can’t tell you which document your jurisdiction requires. When in doubt, check with your accountant about how proforma and final invoices should be treated for your taxes.
How Fee-Lion handles it
Fee-Lion doesn’t have a separate “proforma” button, because the estimate already is your proforma — and a smarter one. Here’s the flow:
- In the left sidebar, open Estimates and build your quote: tasks priced as hours × rate, plus fees and units as qty × rate, with discounts or surcharges as needed.
- Add your tax % and deposit %. Set sensible defaults once under Settings → Preferences so every new estimate starts pre-filled.
- Send it. Your client opens a no-login portal link, reviews the figures, and approves — your proforma, signed off without a single PDF email thread.
- One click converts the approved estimate into a real invoice (or a project), carrying every line, tax, and deposit across untouched.
That final invoice gets a Pay button, so the client can pay by card straight into your own Stripe account. The preliminary document and the payable one stay cleanly separate — which is the whole point of a proforma in the first place.
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