How to Create an Invoice on Cohart

Overview

An invoice is a bill you build for a buyer — combining line items, a fulfillment method, and sales tax into one payable document — so you can charge for artwork and related items without sending the buyer through the standard marketplace listing flow. Sending one is how you send a payment request to a collector.

• Who it’s for — artists and galleries selling on the platform.
• Where to find it — Sales in the seller dashboard.
• What it updates — your Invoices list, where each entry is a card with its number, items, totals, recipient, order status, and send history; paid invoices later surface in your sales and transaction records.
• What sending does — emails the buyer a secure link to a checkout page that mirrors the live Preview panel, including the order summary and any certificate note.
• What you end up with — an invoice that is saved, and optionally sent or taken to buyer checkout.

Fulfillment affects more than delivery. Invoice-only orders opt out of the platform’s shipping, insurance, and refund cover.

Before you start

• A seller account with the artist or gallery role. Invoicing lives under Sales in the seller dashboard.
• Room under your plan’s Invoice creations limit. The counter (for example 0/2) caps how many invoices you can create before an upgrade. The monthly allowance is Free 2, Pro 5, Growth and Premier unlimited.
• A connected financial account. Save, Collect Payment, and Send stay disabled — with a “Connect a financial account to accept payments” note — until you complete setup on the Financial Accounts page (see How to Manage Financial Accounts).
• The buyer’s full name and email address. Both are required by the form for Save, Collect Payment, and Send; an optional message to the buyer is also available.
• Your line items ready. Each is either a typed custom item with a price, or an artwork pulled with Add item from inventory — only single-quantity artworks listed as For Sale or Inquire to Purchase appear in the Select Artwork dialog.
• A fulfillment method decided in advance. INVOICE ONLY, SHIP BY COHART, or PICK UP / SHIP BY SELLER — invoice-only opts out of the platform refund policy and platform-arranged shipping and insurance.
• A tax plan. A ZIP code for automatic US sales-tax lookup, or the self-managed-tax box checked if you handle tax yourself.
• Awareness of the effects. Save, Collect Payment, and Send all create a live payable invoice counted against your Invoice creations limit; also note the page’s per-sale fee disclosure and factor it into your pricing.

Steps

1. Sign in to Cohart

Sign in with your email address and password, or use Google or Apple.

2. Find the Sales section

After signing in, you land on the Inventory page. The left sidebar is your artist dashboard menu:

• Home, Profile, Messages, Link in bio, AI Gallery, Custom Website, Events, Inventory, Artist Management, Contact Management, Marketing Email, Private Views, Promotions, Refer & earn, Artwork Views, Manage Plan, and Financial Accounts.

3. Open the Sales menu

Click Sales in the sidebar. The menu expands with Invoices, Sales Record, Shipping, Transactions, and Testimonials.

4. Open the Invoices page

Click Invoices to open your invoice list. The page shows:

• Total sales — your sales summary.
• Invoice creations — a counter (for example 0/2) with an Upgrade plan button.
• Existing invoices as cards with View, Edit, and Send Invoice options, each showing Invoice #, Items, Created On, Total Order, Sent to, Order Status, and Last sent.

5. Start a new invoice

Click Create a new invoice to open the invoice builder. The form has four sections — Buyer Information, Items, Fulfillment, and Tax — with a live Preview panel on the right and the action buttons Cancel, Save, Collect Payment, and Send at the bottom.

6. Fill in the buyer information

In the Buyer Information section, enter the buyer’s Full name and Email address (required). The Message to buyer field is optional — it is included in the email sent to the buyer with the invoice.

7. Add your first item

In the Items section, type the name of your first line item into the title field (placeholder “Item 1”) and enter the price. The currency defaults to your account currency (shown as USD here).

8. Add an artwork from your inventory

Click Add item from inventory to open the Select Artwork dialog.

You can only select single-quantity artworks that are listed as For Sale or Inquire to Purchase.

Use the Search field to find an artwork, then click its card.

9. Confirm the artwork item

Click Done to add the artwork to the invoice. The item appears as a card showing the artwork title and the artist’s name, with its own price field — enter the sale price for the artwork.

10. Choose the fulfillment method

In the Fulfillment section, pick one of the three options:

• INVOICE ONLY (default) — for commission deposits, custom fees, non-artwork items, or items that don’t require Cohart’s shipping or insurance.
• SHIP BY COHART
• PICK UP / SHIP BY SELLER

Invoice only opts you out of Cohart’s refund policy; shipping and insurance must then be arranged directly with the seller.

11. Set the sales tax

In the Tax section, enter the ZIP code for the sale. Cohart automatically looks up the sales tax rate for US ZIP codes (in this example, ZIP 10001 produced a rate of 8.875%). To handle sales tax yourself, check “I don’t want Cohart to manage my sales tax, by clicking this box I acknowledge I will handle sale tax collection by myself”.

12. Review the preview

The Preview panel updates live as you type, showing:

• From — the seller, and To — the buyer.
• Fulfillment — the chosen method.
• Items — the line items with prices, plus the Subtotal and Total.

For invoice-only orders, a note explains that “Cohart will not arrange shipping for this order,” and that a Certificate of Authenticity is included with every artwork.

13. Save, collect payment, or send the invoice

Use the buttons at the bottom of the page to finish your invoice:

• Cancel — discard the invoice and go back to the invoice list.
• Save — create the invoice without emailing it. It is still a live, payable invoice.
• Collect Payment — create the invoice and open the checkout page in your browser, so you can enter the buyer’s payment details in person or over the phone. The buyer is not redirected or emailed.
• Send — create the invoice and email the buyer a link to the checkout page.

These actions require a connected financial account. Without one, the form shows “Connect a financial account to accept payments.” and the buttons stay disabled — click Connect one now and finish the setup on the Financial Accounts page before closing an invoice.

Tips

• Cohart auto-detects the US sales tax rate from the ZIP code (for example 8.875% for ZIP 10001). Rates change by location, and you can manage tax yourself via the checkbox.
• A small-order surcharge can appear below the payment minimum. When the order total is below the payment provider’s per-currency minimum charge (USD 0.50), the preview adds a Small order surcharge amount that tops the total up to that minimum — for example, a USD 0.30 order adds USD 0.20.
• The Invoice creations counter caps how many invoices you can make (for example “0/2”). The allowance is monthly — Free 2, Pro 5, Growth and Premier unlimited — and on a paid yearly subscription it is granted as 12× the monthly figure for the year. If you hit your plan limit, use Upgrade plan or View all plans to raise it.
• The invoices page shows a banner with the current per-sale fee for new sales — factor the current rate into your pricing.

Troubleshooting

• Save, Collect Payment, and Send are disabled with “Connect a financial account to accept payments.” → no financial account is connected → click Connect one now and complete the Stripe onboarding under Settings → Financial Accounts.
• A validation message asks for the buyer’s email address → the form requires it for Save, Collect Payment, and Send → enter the buyer’s Email address in Buyer Information.
• Artwork does not appear in the Select Artwork dialog → it is not an eligible work → the dialog only lists single-quantity artworks that are For Sale or Inquire to Purchase.