Invoice descriptions help add valuable information to your vWork invoice explaining the reason for the invoice and providing context to invoice line items.

By default vWork invoice descriptions won’t show on draft invoices in Xero. If you want these to show on your Xero invoices please email support@vworkapp.com and ask for Xero Invoice Descriptions to be activated in your account. There is no additional charge for this.

View invoice descriptions in vWork and Xero

Once we have activated Xero Invoice Descriptions in your account you can view vWork invoice descriptions on all Xero invoices generated from vWork jobs.

We will use an example to show how an invoice description flows through a job in vWork and into Xero. Our example is a freight delivery job. 

The invoice description in vWork

When you create a job with an invoice in vWork, the dispatcher or mobile worker can add a description to the invoice at any time before the job is completed. This is added in the Invoicing tab in the Job Editor or in the Invoicing screen on the vWork mobile app.

In this example, we added the invoice description when we created the job. 

Note: This example uses Description Tokens to make it dynamic. You can learn more about Dynamic Invoice Descriptions in the article Add a Dynamic Invoice Description to vWork invoices.

After the job is completed in vWork, all automated invoice information, such as mileage, worker hours, and any dynamic information in the description is added to the invoice. The invoice can still be amended by both the dispatcher and mobile worker (as long as the job remains in the mobile app) if it hasn’t yet been uploaded to Xero or is in Draft in Xero. 

❗Caution: Invoice amendments in vWork don’t pass through to Xero once the invoice is approved in Xero.

In this example, we are satisfied that this is the final version of the invoice, including the final invoice description. It is ready to upload to Xero.

Upload to Xero

The settings that determine when an invoice is uploaded to Xero are found in vWork under Settings  > Integrations > Integrations. The last step on the job must be completed before you can upload an invoice to Xero.

You can choose to manually upload your stubs (invoices) to Xero, or have them automatically upload when a specified period of time has passed after the last step for a job is completed. This gives you time to amend the invoice before it is uploaded.

In this example, our invoices are automatically uploaded after 15 minutes. We have chosen to override the automatic upload and manually upload this invoice to vWork. To do this we clicked . 

The green banner shows that the upload was successful. 

The invoice description in Xero

Once the job is completed and the invoice is uploaded to Xero, the invoice description shows in draft invoice in the first line in the description field.

Note: You can double-click on the description if you want to amend it for the Xero invoice, but any changes you make in Xero won’t be reflected in the original job invoice information in vWork.

When the invoice is approved the invoice description also shows on the final invoice. Here is the invoice for the example job shown in PDF format.