Templates and brand

A template decides how a document type looks and which blocks it starts with; your brand settings decide the logo, colors and watermark that appear on all of them. Together they mean a new invoice looks like your invoices before you have typed a word.

The built-in library#

The Templates Library ships at least one template for every document type. Each belongs to a style family that sets its accent color, typeface, table rules and header treatment: modern, professional, minimal, corporate, elegant and logistics. Some templates also pin a layout that faces the customer's address and yours across the page. Classic grid quotation adds Letter paper, a serif typeface, a blue full grid and side band, separate title and logo placement, a reference strip, price-before-quantity columns, boxed totals and a closing band. It works without AI and remains editable.

Templates for the less common types also set up what that kind of document needs:

• Estimates and proforma invoices show a Valid Until date instead of a due date. A proforma's note states that it is not a tax invoice, and the Export Proforma Invoice adds HS Code and Origin columns and a caption for the delivery terms.
• Sales orders turn on the sign-off block as Order Accepted By, so the customer can confirm the order.
• Credit notes and debit notes caption the subject as the reason for the adjustment. A credit note leaves out payment instructions, because it asks for no money.
• The Statement of Account lists entries by details and amount, and totals them into the balance. Enter each entry with a quantity of 1, invoices as positive amounts and payments or credits as negative ones.
• Packing lists add package number, weight and dimensions columns, and a Goods Received By signature. They never show prices.

These templates never set your terms, payment instructions or currency. Your organization's own settings for those always apply.

Using and changing templates#

Every document type has a standard layout of its own — its accent color, typeface and header, and the wording and columns that type is expected to carry — so a receipt never looks like an invoice. Set a template as the default for a document type and every new document of that type starts from it instead. Open a template to start a document from it directly. In the editor, the Style tab changes the accent color, the typeface, and whether the table is ruled or clean and the header standard, banded or centered; save the result as a new template, rename it, duplicate it or delete it from the library. Templates can be exported and imported as .billflow-template.json files to move them between organizations.

Company profile#

Under Settings › Organization you set the name, address and contact details printed in every document's letterhead, and the country the business is registered in. The country decides what your registration numbers are called: a Nigerian business enters a Tax Identification Number (TIN) and a CAC Business Number (BN); a United States business enters an Employer Identification Number (EIN) and, optionally, its state registration number; a UK business enters a VAT number and its Companies House number. The same two lines appear on your documents under whichever names your country uses. Leave either blank to keep it off your documents.

Brand#

Under Settings › Brand you upload your organization's logo and set its colors and an optional watermark. These are not part of any template: they apply to every document, its preview, its PDF and its print-out, whichever template it uses.

Watermark#

The Watermark setting puts a faint mark behind the content of every page: None, Text (diagonal words such as COPY or ORIGINAL) or Logo (your uploaded logo, centred). Choose its size and opacity, and for a logo whether it prints in monochrome. The live preview beside the form uses the same drawing as your documents, and the mark appears in the editor, on the shared link and on every page of the PDF.

Create a template with AI#

Owners and admins can choose Templates Library › Create with AI when the assistant is enabled. There are two ways to start.

Describe it. Choose the document type and write how it should look — the colours, the header, the items table and the overall feel — in a sentence or two, or start from one of the ideas (Minimal, Bold header, Classic grid, Compact) and change it. Choose Create design. Your words are sent to OpenRouter and its model provider, whose policies may allow retention or training, so describe the look only: leave out customer, payment and account details.

From a sample. Choose a PDF, PNG, JPEG, WebP or Word .docx under 10 MB, select the document type and optionally describe your design direction. Acknowledge AI processing, then choose Analyze design.

PDFs use the first two pages. Images are resized for analysis; Word files contribute structure and style information rather than an exact visual rendering. The original remains in your browser. Normalized page images or extracted Word structure are sent to OpenRouter and its model provider, whose policies may allow retention or training. Use a redacted sample without confidential customer or payment details.

Review the editable interpretation, its approximation notes, font and accent colour. The preview uses fictional data. Source customer details, amounts, bank instructions, logos and signatures are not copied into your template. Choose Save and open editor to add it to your organization's library and adjust blocks, columns and brand assets in the full template editor. Analysis alone saves no template or document.

If the shared OpenRouter daily allowance is exhausted, the page shows when it resets in your local time. Your selected file stays in this browser, and the app checks quota before sending a sample to an AI model. After an administrator adds credits, choose Check availability to continue. When the free AI models are busy, the app moves on to another one by itself and, if they are all busy for a moment, waits briefly; if they stay busy, the page says so and counts down on Try again until one has room. You can also choose Continue in template editor to design a template manually while AI is unavailable.

For a grid-based sample, the AI can propose paper size, margins, header placement, references, grid lines, column order and aligned totals. Review uses fictional company, customer, item and charge data through the same document renderer as downloaded PDFs. Source text and assets never become preview content.

Before saving, expand Edit design to adjust paper, grid lines, row spacing and column order, or choose Use Classic grid design. Save and open editor saves the reusable configuration and opens the full designer for placement, widths, labels and your own brand assets. The library's full preview also shows the actual sheet with fictional values.

Review notes identify unsupported details, substituted fonts, omitted artwork or uncertain source features. A supported full grid can be recreated directly; rotated content, irregular shapes and merged item cells may need a simpler arrangement. Your entered reference values belong to documents and are excluded from saved templates and template transfers.