How Business Profile Defaults Fill In New Invoices
In this article
The business profile is where you store the details that would otherwise be retyped on every invoice: your address, currency, tax rate, payment terms, and how the invoice looks. Its effect is simple but specific, and knowing exactly when it applies explains why changing a default sometimes seems to do nothing.
What the Profile Holds
A workspace's business profile stores three kinds of settings:
- Your details and money defaults: company name, logo, your From address block, default payment terms, a tax rate between 0 and 100 percent, and your currency.
- Design defaults: theme, accent color, font (Outfit, Inter, serif, or mono), logo position and size, table style (lines, cards, or minimal), and whether to show the accent bar and a background behind your logo.
- Automation settings: invoice-number prefix, padding, and next number; automatic payment reminders; and late-fee rules (percentage or flat amount, with grace days).
A workspace that has never saved a profile still gets reasonable defaults: US dollars, a 0% tax rate, the classic theme with a red accent, the Outfit font, a left-aligned medium logo, and the prefix "INV-" with four-digit numbers. Automatic numbering is on. Reminders and late fees are off until you turn them on.
It Fills In Blank Invoices Only
When the editor opens, it loads your workspace's profile and applies it, but only if the invoice's From field is empty. In practice that means only a new, blank invoice. An invoice you've already started, a saved one you're editing, or a duplicate of an earlier one already has a From field, so the profile is left alone.
This is deliberate. If profile changes applied to existing invoices, changing your tax rate or address today would silently change invoices you've already sent. An invoice is a record of what you billed at the time, so defaults only affect invoices you haven't created yet. If you update the profile and want an existing draft to match, change that draft by hand.
Only Admins Can Edit It
Everyone in a workspace can read the profile, including admins, members, and accountants, because everyone who creates invoices needs the defaults. Only admins can save changes. That keeps settings such as the tax rate, the next invoice number, and late-fee rules under the control of whoever runs the workspace, while members still get the same defaults on every new invoice.
Saving a profile also checks your input. The accent color must be a six-digit hex code, number padding must be between 1 and 10 digits, and the next invoice number must be at least 1. The next number only changes if you actually edit it. Saving other settings leaves the counter where it is, so changing your font won't reset your numbering.
Logos Are Stored as Image Data
If you set your profile logo by pasting an image URL, the server downloads the image when you save and stores it as embedded image data, rather than keeping a link to the original. If the image can't be downloaded, because the URL is unreachable, isn't an image, or is over 2MB, the save is refused with a message asking you to upload the file or use a different URL. This means your logo keeps working even if the original image is later moved or deleted.
Guests Have a Browser-Only Profile
If you're not signed in, the editor uses a profile saved in your browser's local storage instead, with the same behavior: it fills in blank invoices only. Like other guest data, it stays on that browser and isn't copied to an account when you sign up. If the server profile can't be loaded for a signed-in user, for example during a brief network problem, the editor uses the local profile instead of opening an empty invoice.
Practical Tip
Set up your profile before you create your first batch of invoices, not after. Every blank invoice from then on starts with the right details, currency, tax rate, and design, and the invoices you've already issued stay exactly as you sent them.
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