Marking an invoice as paid
You paid the contractor — through your bank app, a transfer, a QR scan, whatever. Marking the invoice paid in Hemma is the one bookkeeping step left. It takes a tap, and once it is done the contractor's outstanding total drops, the Files filters update, and the paid date is on the record.
01Where to find it
Open the invoice from Files or from the contractor view. On the right of the detail page, the Payment card holds everything related to paying:
- The amount, IBAN, and structured reference, all editable in place if the AI got something wrong.
- A QR code for scanning (see paying an invoice with the QR code).
- A Mark as paid button at the bottom.
02How to mark paid
Tap Mark as paid. A small confirmation dialog opens — that one extra step is on purpose, so a stray tap in a list view does not flip the state without you noticing. Confirm, and three things happen in sequence:
- The card flips to a green Paid on <date> state.
- Hemma records the payment internally — the paid date, the method you last interacted with (QR, copy, share, or manual), and the amount.
- The contractor's outstanding total recalculates immediately. See tracking what's still owed per contractor for where that shows up.
That paid date is not the moment you tap. Hemma takes what the invoice says: a paid date printed on it, else the due date, else the invoice date. The due date is the last day the invoice was still on time, so it is the safest guess. Mark an invoice paid in 2026 that fell due on 16/02/2023 and the record reads 16/02/2023, not today. If you actually paid later, put it right with Change the date on the paid card.
The "method" is recorded automatically based on what you did just before. If you tapped the QR open, it is recorded as qr. If you copied the IBAN to your clipboard, copy. If you used the browser share sheet, share. If you did none of those — for instance, you paid days ago in your bank app and are catching up — it stays manual. You do not have to pick; Hemma watches.
03A whole archive at once
If you start with Hemma and bring last year's invoices with you, they arrive with due dates long past. Hemma asks once, at the top of your home screen: these fell due before your project existed here, were they already paid?
You get the full list with amounts and due dates, all ticked. Untick anything still open, and the button shows exactly how many invoices and what total you are about to settle. One tap moves them all, through the same route a single invoice takes. Afterwards a single message appears with an Undo button that reverses the whole set.
Not ready to deal with it? Choose Later. Hemma will not ask again.
Hemma never guesses here. An old invoice is not paid because it is old; it is paid because you say so.
And until you have said so, Hemma does not count it as debt either. An invoice from before you started here does not appear in your outstanding total and raises no alarm, until you say what happened to it. I cannot tell from an invoice whether it has been paid, so I do not pretend otherwise.
04Undoing
If you marked something paid by mistake, the Mark as unpaid button appears on the paid card. Tap it and the state reverses — the payment record is removed, the date clears, the outstanding total recomputes. There is no time limit.
05Credit notes
Credit notes are not "paid" — the money flows the other way. When Hemma recognises a document as a credit note, the Payment card shows a credit-note panel instead of a Mark-as-paid button, with the negative amount and a short note. There is nothing to do; it counts against the contractor's balance automatically.
06Common questions
Can I record a partial payment? Not in this version. Each invoice is either paid or unpaid. If you paid half now and half later, mark it paid when the second instalment lands. If you need a paper trail of two payments, leave a note on the invoice.
Where does Hemma get the IBAN, amount, and reference from? From the invoice itself — the AI extracts them when the document arrives. If something was extracted wrong, the inline pencil icons on the Payment card let you correct it before paying. See reviewing and correcting what the AI extracted.
Does marking paid update my budget? No — the Invoiced column on the budget reflects what was linked, not what was paid. Paying changes the contractor's outstanding total, not the budget total. See linking an invoice or quote to a budget line for the budget flow.
Who can mark paid? Anyone on the project. The action is logged so the rest of the team can see who confirmed it.
Can I change the paid date later? Yes. The paid card has Change the date; pick the right day and save. You never have to: the date Hemma derives is right in most cases.
07What if it goes wrong
- The button does not respond? You probably have an unpaid edit on a field (an open IBAN or amount input). Press Enter or click outside to commit the edit, then try Mark as paid again.
- The contractor's outstanding total did not drop after marking paid? Refresh the contractor view. If it is still wrong, the issue is usually that the invoice is not linked to the contractor — open the invoice and check the contractor field.
- The QR code is missing? You need a valid IBAN on the invoice. See paying an invoice with the QR code.