Frequently asked questions

Umikflow is a billing and invoicing workspace. You add a customer, create tax invoices with products or services and taxes you configure, record payments as they arrive, and read the outstanding balance from the agreed fee minus those payments. You can print or download an invoice PDF, or open a pre-filled payment reminder in WhatsApp. Tax invoices and outstanding follow-ups are related but separate. It is not accounting software and it does not process payments.

Yes, Umikflow supports custom global taxes including US Sales Tax, VAT, and GST. Instead of restricting you to a single country’s tax code, Umikflow allows you to define your own tax label (like "Sales Tax", "VAT", or "GST") and set a custom percentage rate. This makes the invoice generator compliant for freelancers and businesses globally, whether you are billing in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, or India.

Umikflow suits small businesses and independent professionals who bill clients directly: freelancers, consultants, designers, developers, small agencies, studios and professional practices. The common thread is a manageable number of clients, fees agreed per piece of work rather than per unit, and payments that often arrive in instalments. If you are currently tracking this in a spreadsheet or a notes app, Umikflow is built for the same job with the arithmetic and the follow-up message handled for you.

Yes. Each payment is recorded against a client with an amount, a date and an optional note — "advance on signing", "milestone 2", whatever is useful to you. The entries stay on the client file as a running history, so you can see not just the total but when each instalment arrived. Partial payments are the normal case rather than an exception. A payment recorded by mistake can be removed, and the balance recalculates immediately.

Yes, and it is the main thing the workspace does. The outstanding balance for a client is the agreed fee minus the sum of their recorded payments. Each client is labelled Fully Paid, Partially Paid or No Payments based on that figure, and you can filter the client list by those states. The dashboard adds up the agreed, collected and outstanding totals across every client, so the number you most often want — the total still to be collected — is on screen without any work.

No. Umikflow is a billing and invoicing workspace: customers, tax-aware invoices, payments, outstanding balances, and WhatsApp reminders you send yourself. It does not provide double-entry accounting, a general ledger, journals, expense books, bank reconciliation, profit and loss statements, balance sheets, accounts payable, a chart of accounts, inventory management, or tax return filing. If you need those, you need accounting or inventory software for that part of the job.

Yes. Open Create invoice, pick a customer, add line items, apply tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive pricing if you use GST, and preview the A4 page. Invoice look is chosen on your business profile — the design changes layout, not taxes. Print it or download a PDF. Invoice numbers come from your workspace. Tax invoices do not change dashboard outstanding — that figure still comes from the agreed fee minus recorded payments. A payment reminder is a different document: a WhatsApp message about the outstanding balance.

Yes. Each line is its own item. Saved names can be reused on later invoices. This is different from the client ledger, which tracks one agreed fee per engagement rather than a product catalogue.

Yes. Taxes can also be switched off, which hides tax columns. You set the rate on your profile or on the invoice. Inclusive pricing splits tax out of the amount you typed; exclusive pricing adds tax on top. Examples at 10% GST: $1,200 exclusive becomes $1,320 payable; $1,200 inclusive stays $1,200 with about $1,090.91 taxable and $109.09 tax. Umikflow does not file GST returns.

Yes. Preview the page, print it, or download a PDF. Extra items continue onto a second A4 sheet. The look you saved on your profile is the layout that prints. You can attach the file in WhatsApp or email if you want — that sending step is yours. Payment reminders remain a separate WhatsApp flow for outstanding balances.

Yes. Umikflow currently includes 100 invoice looks — professional layouts you pick in invoice appearance settings on your profile. A look changes header, table and frame styling. The same invoice engine still handles line items, totals, tax settings, print and PDF. Available designs may change as the catalog is updated. These are not downloadable Word, Excel or Canva stationery, and they are not WhatsApp message templates.

Yes. Invoice appearance lives on your profile, not as a separate public gallery. Choose a look and an accent colour, save, then create an invoice. Taxes on/off, rate and inclusive or exclusive mode stay tax settings — switching from a “Modern” look to a “Creative” look does not change the tax arithmetic. Issued invoices keep the template stored on that document.

No. Catalog categories such as “Modern” or “Retail” describe visual style, not a different tax engine. You turn taxes on or off, set the rate, and choose inclusive or exclusive pricing. Umikflow calculates from that configuration. It does not treat any look as a legally approved tax format, and it does not file GST returns.

No. They share the word “template” and nothing else. Invoice looks belong to tax invoices you print or download. WhatsApp reminder templates belong to outstanding-balance follow-ups you review and send. A design does not write a chat message, and a reminder does not choose an invoice layout.

No. There is no warehouse, SKU stock count, or purchase order flow. You can name products and services on an invoice and reuse saved item names. Inventory and ERP are out of scope.

You can prepare them in one step, and you always send them yourself. Choose a client, pick English, Hindi or Gujarati, and Umikflow composes a reminder containing the client name, the reference for the work, the agreed fee, the amount paid and the outstanding balance. WhatsApp then opens with that message already written in the chat with that client. Nothing leaves your hands until you press send: Umikflow is not connected to the WhatsApp Business API, does not send messages on a schedule, and cannot message anyone on your behalf.

No. There is no payment gateway, no card processing, no payment links and no money movement of any kind in Umikflow. Your clients continue to pay you exactly as they do now — bank transfer, card, cash, or however they already pay — and you record the amount and date in the workspace once it arrives. This is a deliberate boundary: Umikflow tells you the state of your receivables, and the money itself never passes through it.

No, and there is nothing for them to create. Clients have no login, no portal and no view into your workspace. You hold the records; what your client sees is whatever you choose to send them — a WhatsApp reminder you reviewed before sending, or an invoice PDF you downloaded and shared. All they need is the phone number you stored for them to be correct.

Yes. Every client and payment row belongs to the account that created it, and access is enforced by Row Level Security policies in the Postgres database — not just by what the interface chooses to display. That distinction matters: even a request that skipped the user interface entirely would still be refused the rows, because the check runs inside the database on every query. Administrators moderate accounts and see platform-level counts; they do not have a route into any merchant's client or payment ledger.

Authentication runs on Supabase Auth: you sign up with an email address and password, confirm the address from a link, and reset a forgotten password through a one-time emailed link rather than through anything Umikflow stores. The application in your browser is configured with the public anon key only — the service-role key that bypasses access rules is never sent to the browser and is not present in the client bundle. Role and account status cannot be edited from the browser at all; the database grants only permit a merchant to update their own name, address and contact details. You can read the detail on the security page.

Use the contact page. The form checks what you have written and then sends it to support@umikflow.com. If you would rather skip the form, that same address is shown on the page and you can write to it from anywhere.