Freelancers lose a surprising amount of time producing the same invoice with different numbers. This flow takes a form submission (client, items, amounts), fills a Google Docs template, exports it as a PDF into a Drive folder and emails it to you, all without opening a document.
What you need
A Google Form (or any form tool Make supports) with the fields you invoice, a Google Docs invoice template with placeholders such as {{client}}, {{total}} and {{date}}, a Drive folder, and a free Make account.
The five steps
- Build the template in Google Docs and write each variable as {{name}} exactly where it should appear.
- In Make, start with the Google Forms Watch Responses module, or a webhook if your form tool posts to one.
- Add Google Docs Create a Document from a Template. Pick the template and map every placeholder to a form answer. Compute the total with a simple formula in the mapping field.
- Add Google Drive Download a File with the export format set to PDF, then Google Drive Upload a File into your Invoices folder.
- Add an Email Send an Email module with the PDF attached, to yourself or to the client, and turn the scenario on.
Useful extras
Add an invoice number by reading and incrementing a counter in a Google Sheet. Add a filter so the PDF is only produced when the form's Approved field is yes.
What this does not do
It is not accounting software. It does not know your tax rules, and it will happily produce a PDF with a wrong number if the form contains one. Check the first few invoices, then trust it.
Cost
About six operations per invoice. Fifty invoices a month stays inside the free plan.
Everything above runs on the free Make plan.
Build it tonight; the first run is the test.
Set this up on the free Make plan
AFFILIATE LINK. THE PRICE IS THE SAME FOR YOU.