Invoices and purchase orders as PDFs, tracked in a database

Quick answer: Go to Agents, find the Procurement pack under Starter packs, click Install, and switch on Approvals to invoices. From then on, about two minutes after a client finishes approving items, MONA writes a branded invoice PDF for that project, files it in your Library, adds a row to the Invoices database, puts a payment link on it if you use MONA Payments, and drafts the client email in your mailbox. Switch on Paid to purchase orders and the supplier purchase orders are written the moment that invoice is paid.

Invoices and purchase orders in MONA are deliberately simple. MONA creates a PDF and a row in a database to track it. That is the whole model. Nothing posts to a ledger, nothing is sent to anyone without you, and every document is a file you can download, forward, or print.

The work happens when the thing happens. You are not waiting for tomorrow's agent run.

What the Procurement pack does

The pack is three agents. Two of them react to events, and one runs daily.

Approvals become an invoice, within about two minutes. With Approvals to invoices switched on, a client finishing their approvals on a shared schedule or on a bound client site is what triggers the invoice. MONA renders one branded invoice PDF per project from the approved lines, files it in the Library, adds the Invoices row, mints a payment link if your studio has connected MONA Payments, drafts the client email with the PDF attached, and notifies you.

Payment becomes purchase orders, immediately. With Paid to purchase orders switched on, the moment the payment link is paid, MONA groups the invoiced lines by supplier, renders one purchase order PDF per supplier, adds the Purchase Orders rows, and writes those purchase order numbers back onto the invoice row so the two sides stay tied together. Telling MONA an invoice was paid by check or Zelle does the same thing.

Orders get tracked to the door. The Order tracker agent is the one that still runs daily. It reads the order confirmations and shipping notices in your connected or shared mailbox, matches them to open purchase orders, and stamps the order number, carrier, tracking number, and status onto each row. Once there is a tracking number it checks the carrier live, so a row says in transit or delivered without anyone retyping it.

You can also ignore all of it and just ask. "Create an invoice for the approved living room items on the Harper project" produces the same PDF and the same database row, right now, in chat.

What happens when your client finishes approving

1. Your client approves. They tap through items on a schedule you shared or a client site bound to the project.
2. MONA waits for them to stop. Twenty approvals in one sitting make one invoice, not twenty.
3. MONA writes one invoice PDF per project, branded with your logo and your numbers, from the approved lines.
4. The PDF lands in your Library, filed to that project, and a row lands in the Invoices database.
5. A payment link is added if your studio has connected MONA Payments.
6. The client email is drafted in your connected mailbox with the PDF attached. It stays a draft.
7. You get a notification naming the invoice and listing anything MONA could not bill.

Total time from the last approval tap to the notification is about two minutes.

What happens when the invoice is paid

If Paid to purchase orders is switched on, payment is the trigger. That means either the client paying the MONA Payments link, or you telling MONA the invoice was paid by check or Zelle, or marking the invoice row paid by hand. All three count.

MONA then groups that invoice's lines by supplier, renders one purchase order PDF per supplier, files them in the Library, adds the Purchase Orders rows, and writes the purchase order numbers back on the invoice row. Vendor emails are drafted in your mailbox for you to send.

What MONA will not guess

MONA will not invent a number to keep a document moving. Four things stop a line or a document, and each one is reported rather than papered over:

• a line with no price
• a line with no supplier
• a line with no cost
• a project with no client email

These are listed as exceptions in the notification you get. The invoice or purchase order is still created for everything that was complete, and the exceptions are named so you can see exactly what is missing.

The two event-driven agents also still run on a daily schedule, and that daily run is now an exception sweep. It fills in what it can from the schedule, tells you what is still missing, and reacts when someone marks an invoice paid by hand. It is no longer where invoices and purchase orders come from.

How to install it

1. Open Agents from the left sidebar, or go to monaverse.com/agents.
2. Find Starter packs at the top of the page. The Procurement pack lists its three agents.
3. Click Install. Only the workspace owner and admins can install a pack. If you are a member, the button is disabled and the pack tells you to ask your workspace owner.
4. Turn on each agent you want. The three agents appear in your agent list below, switched off. Flip the switch on the ones you want.

Everything installs switched off on purpose. MONA never turns an agent on for you. Installing the pack twice is safe: agents you already have are left exactly as they are, including any edits you made.

Turning it off

Switch the agent off on its card in Agents. An agent that is off runs no automation.

Switch off Approvals to invoices and client approvals stop producing invoices. Switch off Paid to purchase orders and a paid invoice stops producing purchase orders. Switch off Order tracker and rows stop being stamped with tracking. Nothing already created is removed, and you can still ask MONA for any of these documents in chat.

Where everything lands

PDFs go to your Library, filed to the project they belong to. They are ordinary files: download them, share them, attach them anywhere.

Records go to two databases, Invoices and Purchase Orders, created the first time the pack needs them. They live with your other documents, and you can open them from the sidebar or just ask MONA to show you the Purchase Orders database. Both are normal MONA databases, so you can sort them, filter them, add a column, or ask MONA questions like "which orders are still unacknowledged after ten days".

Emails are drafted, never sent. Client invoice emails and vendor purchase order emails are written into your connected mailbox as drafts, with the PDF attached. MONA does not send mail on your behalf, here or anywhere else in the product.

What needs MONA Payments and what does not

You need MONA Payments for one thing: a payment link on an invoice. With it connected, the invoice PDF carries a link the client can pay by card or bank transfer, and the payment itself is what starts the purchase orders.

Without MONA Payments you still get invoice PDFs, purchase order PDFs, both databases, drafted client and vendor emails, and full order tracking. You collect payment however you collect it today, then tell MONA the invoice was paid, or mark the row paid. The purchase orders follow from that the same way. Connect MONA Payments in Settings when you want the link.

How order tracking reads your mailbox

Order tracking runs on email you already receive. Connect a mailbox in Settings, then Integrations (Gmail or Outlook), and the Order tracker agent reads vendor confirmations and carrier notices daily, matches them to a purchase order by order number, supplier, or amount, and writes what it found onto the row.

If your studio receives vendor mail at a shared address such as orders@ or admin@, connect that shared mailbox and set it to Shared with studio. Shared mailboxes connect through your own login, so no new password is needed. This is the common case: confirmations rarely land in one person's inbox, and tracking the whole studio's orders means reading the whole studio's mail.

MONA reads that mail to update rows. It does not reply to it.

This is not the Billing or Finance invoice screen

MONA has older invoice screens under Billing and Finance that belong to the accounting path, with a ledger, retainers, and books behind them. The Procurement pack does not use them and does not write to them. It makes a document and tracks the document.

If you are already running invoices through Billing and Finance, keep doing that. The Procurement pack is for studios that want the simple version: a PDF, a row, a payment link, and a status that keeps itself current.

Frequently asked questions

How fast is the invoice generated after approval? About two minutes after your client stops approving. The invoice is written from the approval event itself, not on a daily schedule, so there is no agent run to wait for. MONA holds briefly on purpose so a client who approves twenty items gets one invoice rather than twenty.

What if a line has no price or the project has no client email? MONA does not guess. A line with no client price is left off the invoice. A line with no supplier or no cost is left off the purchase orders. Each one is listed as an exception in the notification, and a project with no client email gets its PDF and its row with no drafted email. The two daily agents pick those exceptions up, fill what they can from the schedule, and tell you what is still missing.

Does MONA send anything to my client or vendor? No. MONA writes the client invoice email and the vendor purchase order email as drafts in your connected mailbox, with the PDF attached, and leaves them there. You review and press send. That is true everywhere in this pack.

What if the client pays by check or Zelle? Tell MONA the invoice was paid, or mark the invoice row paid yourself. That counts the same as a paid payment link: the purchase orders are generated from it straight away if the Paid to purchase orders agent is on.

Can I turn it off? Yes. Switch the agent off on its card in Agents. An agent that is off runs no automation, so switching off Approvals to invoices stops invoices being generated from approvals, and switching off Paid to purchase orders stops purchase orders being generated from payments.

Do I need MONA Payments? Only for payment links. Without it you still get invoice PDFs, purchase order PDFs, both databases, drafted emails, and order tracking. With it the invoice carries a card or bank transfer link, and a payment on that link starts the purchase orders on its own.

What happens when the invoice is paid? If the Paid to purchase orders agent is on, MONA groups the invoiced lines by supplier the moment the invoice is paid, renders one purchase order PDF per supplier, adds the Purchase Orders rows, and writes the purchase order numbers back on the invoice row.

Where do the PDFs and the records go? Every PDF lands in your Library, filed to the project it belongs to. Every document also gets a row in one of two databases, Invoices and Purchase Orders, which live with your other documents and open from the sidebar or from chat.

How does order tracking know where an order is? The Order tracker agent runs daily, reads the shipping and confirmation email in your connected or shared mailbox, matches it to a purchase order, and stamps the order number, carrier, tracking number, and status on the row. It checks carriers live once it has a tracking number.

Can the order tracker read our shared orders@ mailbox? Yes. Connect the shared mailbox in Settings, then Integrations, and choose Shared with studio. Vendor confirmations usually land in a shared address rather than one person inbox, which is exactly the case this is for.

Is this the same as the Billing and Finance invoice screens? No. This flow is deliberately separate. The Procurement pack creates a PDF and a database row to track it, and it writes nothing to your ledger or your books. The Billing and Finance invoice screens are the accounting path and are untouched by this pack.

Who can install a starter pack? The workspace owner and admins. Other members see the pack and the agents it contains, with the Install button disabled, so they know what to ask for.