More ways, easier to send invoices — and 11 reasons why it’s awesome

You’ve always been able to send a Wave invoice by email: Just click the Send button on your invoice screen, and Wave sends the invoice and your message elegantly on your behalf.

But in the past, if you wanted to send an invoice from your own email account, you had to attach the invoice to an email as a PDF. No more! We’ve made it easy and fast to send your invoices from whatever email program you want, like Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook/Hotmail.

Why is this a great thing? Because PDFs (though still a very good tool) don’t allow your client to interact with you, and they can’t send information back to you, like when an invoice has been viewed.

When you send using Wave, or send using your own email account, your client gets a link to a unique Web view of the invoice, and that gives you more insight into and control over your business. And that’s a great thing.

Here are our top 11 reasons why we love this new feature:

1. Know when your clients have viewed your invoices. Now you know when you’re one step closer to getting paid. When your clients click the link and see the Web view of the invoice (whether they’re on their computer, their tablet or their phone), the status of the invoice will update to “Viewed” in Wave. Want to make it even better? Download the Invoice by Wave app for iOS and receive a notification the moment it happens.
2. Accept credit card payments. You can’t offer to accept a credit card payment right from a PDF. But with the unique link and the web view of the invoice, you can using Payments by Wave! Our customers who accept credit card payments get paid an average of 12 days faster than those who don’t.
3. See when you’ve been paid. When a client pays you by credit card, you’ll see that information in Wave instantly. .
4. Keep the email trail. If you go back-and-forth with your clients, you’ll have the full email trail, including when you sent the invoice, all in one place.
5. Customize your message. You get more control over the message you send your customers, including your standard email signature.
6. Web view looks great. Whether your client uses a Mac or a PC, a tablet, an iPhone, an Android or anything else, the Web view of your invoice always looks professional.
7. Mobile payments, too! It’s not just your invoice that looks great on a mobile device. Your customers can pay right from their phones. That means money in your pocket faster than ever.
8. Attachments. Add any attachments, collateral or other files when you send your invoices.
9. CC whoever you want. Sometimes you need to copy multiple people on the invoices you send. Easy-peasy.
10. Always upto date. Your client will see the most up-to-date version of your invoices any time they click the link for the Web view. That means if you make changes on an invoice, including things like partial payments, you don’t need to re-send a new PDF.
11. It’s easy! Nothing to download. Nothing to attach to your emails. Do it all right from Wave, with a click.

Speaking of easy, let me show you how this all works.

From your invoice in Wave, click the same Send button as before. You can still let Wave send the invoice for you, as simply as ever before. But now you’ll also see options to send using any of the Big Three email services. Click the one you want and a window will open for you to compose an email, including a unique link to the invoice you’re sending. It’s as simple as that.

Maybe you’re not using one of the Big Three email programs. No problem. Under the Send button you’ll also find a Share URL link. Copy this, then go to whatever email service you use and send the link to your client.

Just remember: To keep your Wave records up to date, make sure to mark the invoice as Sent when you’re done. You’ll find the “Mark as sent” option under the Send button, too.