Open Invoice
An invoice that has been sent to a client but not yet fully paid, whether it's current or overdue.
Definition
An open invoice is any invoice you've issued that still has a balance owing. The moment you send an invoice it becomes open, and it stays open until the client pays it in full—at which point it closes (becomes "paid"). Open status says nothing about lateness by itself: an invoice sent yesterday on Net 30 terms and an invoice 80 days overdue are both open. The overdue one is simply an open invoice that's also past due.
Partially paid invoices remain open for their outstanding balance—a $6,000 invoice with $3,000 received is open for $3,000. The sum of all your open invoices is your accounts receivable, and your invoicing software's open-invoice list is the working view of it: every dollar you've earned and billed but not yet banked, sortable by client, age, and amount.
Why It Matters
Your open invoice list is the most actionable report in your business—it's literally a list of money owed to you, with names attached. Reviewing it weekly tells you what's about to arrive, what needs a reminder, and what needs a phone call. Businesses that never look at it get surprised by cash crunches that were visible weeks in advance.
The total matters strategically too. If you have $25,000 in open invoices against $8,000 in monthly expenses, you can see exactly how much runway is "in the mail" versus in the bank—and decide whether you have a collections problem or just a timing one. Keep the list honest: close invoices promptly when payments land, record partial payments against the right invoice, and void dead ones, or the report stops telling you the truth.
Examples
- 1
A freelancer's Monday review shows four open invoices totaling $9,800: two current, one due Friday, and one 12 days past due that gets a reminder that morning.
- 2
A client pays $2,000 of a $5,000 milestone invoice up front; the invoice stays open for the remaining $3,000 until the project ships.
- 3
Before a slow season, a studio works its open invoice list of $32,000, offering a 2% early-payment discount that pulls $14,000 of it in three weeks early.
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