Instantly bill your clients in Ignition — without creating a proposal. Whether you need to send a quick one-time invoice or set up a recurring service, Ignition gives you flexible billing options while keeping all revenue in one platform.

We’ve split the former Instant Bill into two purpose-built features that match how you work:

Let’s walk through both options.

Create Invoice is perfect for quick, one-time invoices with no proposal required.

It’s the most straightforward invoicing experience in Ignition. It's ideal for those moments when you need to send an invoice and move on with your day.

You can create a one-time invoice from any page in Ignition by clicking the Create new → Invoice.

Next, select a client. Click + Add service to view and search your full library of services. Select the service you would like to add. Here you can customize attributes such as the service description, quantity, price or add a discount.

Enable Payment collection to automatically collect payment using a saved payment method, or include a request for a payment method when sending the invoice

You can send your client an email and set up automatic reminders to follow up for you.

When you are ready to confirm the invoice, click Create & send. The invoice will be added to your client's list of invoices under their client file.

The Additional Service feature allows you to instantly add a new active service to a client — without requiring proposal signature.

Unlike Invoice, this creates an ongoing or structured service that can be billed one-time or recurring.

Additional service is a feature in Ignition where you can instantly add a service to a client without the need for your client to sign a proposal. You can choose to notify your client of the newly added service, attach an existing payment method and service billed for effect immediately or arrange the payment method manually.

Attributes that can be edited on the Additional Services are:

You can bill for an additional service from any page in Ignition by clicking the Create new → Additional Service and finding the client for whom you would like to add a service for.

Click + Add service to view and search your full library of services. Select the service you would like to add. Here you can customize attributes such as the details, price and billing.

Need to add a brand-new service? Start typing the new Service Name that you would like to create and add to your service library and the Additional Service.

Use Ignition’s Price Insights* when billing for Additional Services. It benchmarks your pricing against similar businesses and recommends an optimal price point — backed by clear, data-driven reasoning.

* 🇦🇺🇺🇸 Available to accounting and bookkeeping firms and digital agencies in Australia and the United States only.

You can choose to bill either one-time or on a recurring schedule and you can start billing from today or any future date.

Simply select "Recurring" after you have added your service to the Additional Service, and adjust start dates as necessary.

Need to add another service? Click + Add service to browse your entire library of services and select as many as you need. To remove a service, click the three dots → select Remove service.

Here you can edit the default values of the service if you wish. (e.g. change the price, billing, recurrence...etc). When you are done, click Next.

In the final screen, review the service details in the Summary and Schedule sections and then review the Payment Method and the optional Email message to your client. If you want, you can also add an internal note for reference.

When you are ready to confirm the bill, click Create. The additional service will be added to your client's list of active services and will be billed according to the set billing schedule and your payment collection terms.

If you have XPM connected to Ignition, you will also be able to change the billing grouping (i.e. invoice references) in the Invoice allocation section.

Select your preferred billing grouping either by Proposal or by Client.

This will appear in the ‘reference’ field of Xero invoices. If you’re importing invoices into XPM and managing WIP we recommend reading this article to understand how this works.

Once you have added additional services bill, you'll be able to click into a service in a client's specific service → Activity tab and view:

Give clients greater clarity and confidence by notifying them of a newly added service to their client file without the hassle of signing a whole new proposal.

As part of the additional service workflow, you can decide if you would like to send your client an email notification from Ignition about the new service added. The email notification is fully customizable to allow you to provide clarity and transparency about the additional services being added.

To add a customized email, enable the Email client toggle and type in your message.

On the Pro, Scale & Pro+ plan, your emails will include your logo and branding colour. Your client will receive an email that looks like this:

On the Starter & Core plan, your emails will use the Ignition branded template. Your client will receive an email that looks like this:

To identify these services in a client's file, they are marked as Instant bill in the Services, Billing Schedule and Invoices tabs.

They are denoted by the prefix INST-XXXX (e.g. INST-1234).

Instant bill services are active and will show on the client's Services list up until the day following its final bill date and then will become inactive.

Click into the service from the Services tab to review the Schedule, Activity, edit or end the service.

The instant bill feature will utilize your Payment Collection Schedule. For example, if your automatic billing collection terms are set for 3 days and the instant bill has an automatic billing mode and bill date of today, the payment will be collected in 3 days.

To review your Payment Settings, navigate to Settings → Payments.

For new clients or clients who do not have a payment method yet, we strongly recommend using our Review + Pay process. This process allows your clients to add a payment method and pay their invoice online.

To set up Review + Pay in your Ignition account, please follow the steps in this article.

To summarize, you'll need to:

Once you have confirmed the above settings, you can proceed to bill additional services to your client.

If you choose to email your client about the additional services, your client will receive a notification email as usual.

If you have chosen to bill a service billed immediately, your clients will also receive an invoice that will have the Pay Invoice button attached where they can start the Review + Pay process.

Your clients can then add a payment method and pay the invoice.

Once your client has added their payment details, it will remain on file and can be re-used in the future. This speeds up the payment of the next invoice and makes it easy to accept any proposals in the future.

For existing clients that already have a payment method saved in Ignition, Ignition will use this payment method to collect payment on the additional services added.

If you client has multiple payment methods, you can also select the specific payment method to be used.

Click here to learn more about adding, changing and deleting client payment methods.

If you want your existing clients to review the invoice before collecting payment on additional services, simply select Arrange Manually under the Payment Method section.

When doing this, we strongly recommend you email your client advising that they need to click the Pay Invoice button when they receive the invoice to ensure your payment is collected.

In the Options section (at the bottom), enable the Email client toggle and enter a message advising your client to click the Pay Invoice button.

When you are done with the customized message for your client.

This will trigger your client's Review + Pay process where you can send an invoice email for them to review. This email also contains a Pay Invoice button they can click through and pay the invoice.

Does there have to be a signed engagement already on file to bill for Additional Service?

No. You can use Additional Services when there is no proposal associated with the client.

Will Additional Services still create invoices in my ledger (QBO/Xero)?

Yes, invoices will be created in your ledger as normal if you have enabled your ledger connection and the create invoices setting from Ignition.

Can I nominate a payment method for Additional Services?

If you have a client payment method on file, we’ll nominate this method for the Additional Service and provide the option to change this when creating the service. We recommend reviewing your client engagement letters to include an ‘ad hoc work’ component so you are authorized to charge for additional services easily.

What happens if I don’t have a payment method on file?

If no payment method is selected, the item will be invoiced and payments will need to be arranged by the client.

We recommend turning on invoice emails and Review & Pay (allow for online payment) so that when you bill for Additional Services without a payment method we will email your client the invoice and provide a link for them to pay online.

Can my client approve Additional Services?

You can choose to notify your clients of Additional Services, however if you want your client to initiate payment themselves, we recommend choosing to arrange payment manually and allow for Review & Pay on your client invoice emails.

Will this impact my Active Client count?

Clients will stay active as long as they have active services. Ignition reviews your max client count over the previous period to calculate overages.

With Xero, what reference will Additional Services have?

If you have XPM connected to Ignition, you will be able to select your reference number in the Invoice allocation section.
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This will appear in the ‘reference’ field of Xero invoices. If you’re importing invoices into XPM and managing WIP we recommend reading this article to understand how this works.

You can edit the Xero reference number accordingly once the invoice is generated to allocate the invoice to the correct XPM job.