The free invoice and estimate generators

The free tools on the WorkBench website make a professional invoice or estimate in your browser. Download it as a PDF, or email it to the client straight from the page and see when they open it. There is no account to open and no watermark, and you can make as many PDFs as you like. The PDF is rendered by the same engine that prints real WorkBench invoices and quotes, so it looks exactly like one. Every trade has a template page with its usual line items already filled in (open Templates by trade on the tools page); the prices on those are starting points for you to edit, not ours.

1. Open workbenchfsm.com/tools and pick the invoice generator or the estimate generator, or a trade template.
2. Your business: name (the only required field), contact details, Add your logo (a PNG or JPG) and a Color for the header rule and total.
3. Bill to / Prepared for: the client's name and address.
4. Details: the document number, the date, and the due date (invoice) or the valid-through date (estimate).
5. Line items: what you did, quantity and price, with an optional description under each. On an estimate, tick Optional for the client on anything they can leave off.
6. Tax, discount and message: sales tax as a percent, a discount as a percent or an amount, a deposit on an estimate, and the note printed at the bottom.
7. Press Download PDF. The preview on the right is what you get. Or press Email it to send it to the client from the page — see below.

Emailing it to the client

Email it sends the document to your client from the page, with a View button that opens it in their browser and a PDF link under it. The email comes from your business name via WorkBench, and when the client replies, the reply lands in your inbox. The first time, the page checks that the email address is really yours — we send a six-digit code, you type it in, and that browser remembers you for a month.

1. Fill in the document (your business name and one priced line are the minimum) and press Email it.
2. Your email: the address the client will reply to. Press Send me a code, open the code email, and type the six digits. You do this once per browser, not per invoice.
3. To: the client's address (filled in from Bill to when you typed one there). Add another address sends it to a second person; Send a copy to me puts you on the email too.
4. Press Send the invoice. The page confirms who it went to, and See what they see opens the client's copy.

Under the buttons, Emailed from here lists every document you sent from that browser with a Viewed stamp once the client opens it (and Not opened yet until then). The client's copy stays online for 60 days; the PDF is always on it.

• The free tool sends up to five documents a day, to up to two addresses each. The email itself is a fixed letter — your name, the total, the View button — so the only thing you write is the document.
• Every client copy carries a small Report it link. A client who says they never asked for the document stops that email address from sending through the free tool, so send only to people who expect it.
• A WorkBench account has no sending limit, and its emails carry a Pay button and automatic reminders — that is what Get paid online sets up, with the document and the client already in the account.

Bringing it into WorkBench

Beside the download is Get paid online (on an estimate, Send it for e-signature). It opens the sign-up form with your business name, email and phone already filled in, and the document comes with you: the moment the account opens, the invoice is in Invoices as a draft (an estimate is in Quotes — WorkBench calls estimates quotes), the client is saved under Clients, your logo is the company logo, and the tax rate you used is the default sales tax. A new account goes through the payment-setup screen first — see Turn on online payments — and the invoice is waiting when you land in the app.

• Open the invoice and press Send to client to email or text a pay link, or open the quote and send it for approval and signature — see Send an invoice and Create and send a quote.
• The document gets your account's next number, not the number typed on the website, so your numbering stays in one sequence. Everything else — lines, prices, discount, tax, deposit, message — comes across as typed.
• The link that carries the document in works for two weeks and once. If it expires, make the PDF again and press the button again.