# AI Assistant > Ask for it in words — PineBill does the work and waits for your approval before anything lands. PineBill Assistant works inside your dashboard by text or by voice. Ask it to find an invoice, summarize where revenue came from, or create a customer, an estimate or a task — and it will. What it never does is act on its own: every create, update, delete or send stops on an approval card you read first. It is built for PineBill work, not for open-ended conversation. PineBill Assistant is an AI invoice creator and AI billing assistant built into the dashboard rather than bolted onto it. If you have been looking for a way to create an invoice with AI — an AI invoice generator you can simply chat to create an invoice with — this is that, with one difference: conversational invoicing here ends on an approval card, not on a sent email. It is built for the people who actually send the invoices, as an AI assistant for freelancers and an AI assistant for small business teams. ## What PineBill Assistant is - **Ask instead of clicking** — Find and summarize records without navigating there — then ask follow-up questions against the same result. - **Create by asking** — Invoices, estimates, customers, products, payment methods, projects, tasks, expenses and employees — created from one chat. - **Speak instead of typing** — Dictate with the microphone, auto-send when dictation ends, and use hands-free mode to keep going between replies. - **Nothing happens without you** — Every create, update, delete and send shows an approval card first. Read what will happen, then approve or cancel. ## What it can actually do Not a chat box bolted onto a dashboard — it reaches your real records, and stops for your approval before it changes any of them. The same assistant doubles as AI customer management, an AI estimate generator and an AI task management assistant. Every record type below is reachable from one conversation, and every change to one of them stops for your approval. ### It reaches the records you already keep Nine record types, each with the full range — list and search, fetch the details, create, update, and delete once you approve it. - Invoices and estimates: search, create, update, send the email, or delete - Customers, products and payment methods: add, find, update and remove - Projects and tasks: create projects, update task status, set due dates, hourly rates and assignees - Expenses and employees: record, search, update details, deactivate - Attach images, PDF, TXT, CSV or Markdown files up to 3 MB to any message ### It prepares the change. You approve it. Creating an invoice, updating a customer, deleting a task, sending an email — each one pauses on a card showing exactly what is about to happen. - Creates, updates, deletes and sends all wait on an approval card - The card spells out the action before it happens — approve or cancel - Cancelling changes nothing at all - The same gate applies in voice mode, hands-free included - Questions and searches aren't gated, so reading never interrupts you ## Say it instead of typing it Dictate a request while your hands are busy — then read it back before it sends, or don't. This is where PineBill works as voice invoicing software. Dictate an invoice while your hands are busy and the voice to invoice path runs end to end — speak, read the transcript back, approve the draft. As an AI voice assistant for invoicing it listens and transcribes; it does not speak back to you. Click the microphone and speak. Your words land in the message box as text, so you can check a price or an invoice number before sending. Turn on auto-send and it goes the moment you stop; turn on hands-free and PineBill starts listening again after each reply, so a multi-step job keeps moving. - The microphone starts voice input whenever the message box is empty - Stopping keeps the dictated text in the box for you to read and edit - Auto-send after dictation is a toggle in chat settings — leave it off when you're dictating names, prices or email addresses - Hands-free mode restarts listening after every assistant reply - Approval cards still apply — hands-free doesn't mean unattended ## Ask your numbers a question Revenue, invoices, customers, expenses — answered in the chat panel, with follow-ups against the same result. Used this way the assistant works as an AI accounting assistant or AI bookkeeping assistant: you ask, it reports. It does not file taxes, run payroll or reconcile bank feeds — it answers questions about the records PineBill already holds. Ask how revenue moved over the last 90 days, which invoices are still unpaid, or where your customers came from this quarter. The answer comes back in the chat, and you can keep narrowing it down by asking again. - Every plan: dashboard overview, revenue trends, invoice analytics and customer growth - Pro and above: invoice aging, expense analytics and product analytics - Enterprise: advanced metrics, employee performance and customer lifetime value - Follow-up questions run against the result you're already looking at ## AI outside the chat panel The assistant isn't the only place PineBill uses AI — receipts get read too. This is PineBill's AI receipt scanner. As an AI expense scanner and AI expense tracker it reads the document and fills the expense form; you review the fields and save. On the Expenses page, Extract from Receipt reads an image or a PDF and pre-fills the expense form — title, amount, currency, date, category, vendor and payment method. It's a head start, not a black box: every field stays editable before you save. - Reads receipt images and PDFs up to 5MB — separate from the 3 MB chat attachment limit - Shows the detected document type and a confidence score per field - Costs 2.5 AI credits per scan, from the same balance as the assistant - Runs on the Expenses page rather than in the chat panel ## What it costs to use AI runs on credits. Here's exactly what each action spends and what your plan includes. Every plan includes a monthly credit allowance that resets each billing period. Credits are tracked for the whole organization, and your balance, usage history and any active top-ups are on the subscription page. - A text message costs 2 credits, a voice session 4, a receipt scan 2.5 - Monthly allowance: 70 on Trial, 500 on Solo, 3,000 on Pro, 10,000 on Enterprise - A low balance shows a warning in the chat panel before it becomes a problem - Out of credits, the assistant pauses new requests until you top up or upgrade - Organization owners can buy top-up packs; top-up credits last 12 months ## However you'd rather work, ask for it Five ways teams use PineBill Assistant — and the capability each one leans on. ### Freelancer — Voice input Dictate the invoice on the walk back from the client meeting instead of opening the builder later — then approve it when you're at your desk. Example: “Invoice Acme for 5 hours consulting at $120” ### Agency — Approval cards Let the team ask the assistant to draft estimates and log expenses, with every change surfacing on a card someone reviews before it lands. Example: Draft prepared → reviewed → approved ### Consultant — Analytics Q&A Ask where the quarter's revenue actually came from, then keep narrowing with follow-ups, instead of assembling the report by hand. Example: “Revenue trends for the last 90 days” ### E-commerce Business — Record search Find the invoice, expense or customer behind a number without navigating through four pages to get to it. Example: “Which invoices are still overdue?” ### Studio / Small Team — File attachments Drop a PDF or a CSV into the chat and ask the assistant to work from what's in it, up to 3 MB per file. Example: CSV attached → “summarize these costs” ## Frequently asked questions ### Can the assistant create records for me? Yes. It can create invoices, estimates, customers, products, payment methods, projects, tasks, expenses and employees, and it can update or delete them too. Every one of those actions shows you an approval card first — the record isn't created, changed or removed until you approve it. ### Will it change or send anything without asking me? No. Creating, updating, deleting and sending all pause on an approval card that spells out what's about to happen. You approve or cancel, and cancelling changes nothing. The same gate applies when you're using voice, hands-free mode included. Only reads — searches, summaries, analytics questions — run without a prompt, because nothing is at stake. ### Can I use voice instead of typing? Yes. Click the microphone and speak; your words arrive in the message box as text you can read and edit before sending. Turn on auto-send in chat settings to send as soon as dictation ends, or hands-free mode to have PineBill start listening again after each reply. It's dictation — the assistant replies in the chat panel rather than speaking back. ### Is this a general-purpose chatbot? No, and deliberately so. PineBill Assistant is focused on PineBill work — your invoices, estimates, customers, products, projects, tasks, expenses, employees and analytics. It isn't built to draft your blog posts or answer trivia, which is what lets it be genuinely good at reaching your actual records. ### Can I attach files to a message? Yes — images, PDF, TXT, CSV or Markdown files up to 3 MB each. That's separate from the receipt scanner on the Expenses page, which takes receipt images and PDFs up to 5MB and pre-fills the expense form for you. ### What does using the assistant cost? It runs on AI credits: 2 credits for a text message, 4 for a voice session, and 2.5 for a receipt scan. Every plan includes a monthly allowance that resets each billing period — 70 credits on Trial, 500 on Solo, 3,000 on Pro and 10,000 on Enterprise. Credits are tracked for the whole organization, with the balance and usage history on your subscription page. ### What happens if I run out of credits? The assistant stops processing new requests until you top up or upgrade your plan — nothing else in PineBill is affected. You'll see a warning in the chat panel before the balance runs out. Organization owners can buy top-up packs from the subscription page, and top-up credits stay valid for 12 months after purchase. ### Which analytics can the assistant answer questions about? It depends on your plan. Every plan covers the dashboard overview, revenue trends, invoice analytics and customer growth. Pro and above adds invoice aging, expense analytics and product analytics. Enterprise adds advanced metrics, employee performance and customer lifetime value. ## Links - [AI Assistant](https://www.pinebill.app/features/ai-assistant): this page. - [Expense Tracking](https://www.pinebill.app/features/expenses): AI receipt scanning in full. - [Voice Mode](https://www.pinebill.app/docs/ai-assistant/voice-mode): dictation, auto-send and hands-free. - [Documentation](https://www.pinebill.app/docs/ai-assistant): full AI Assistant documentation. - [Pricing](https://www.pinebill.app/pricing): plans and pricing. - [Sign up](https://www.pinebill.app/auth/signup): start a 7-day free trial, no credit card required.