Community Synthesis
We read the threads so you don't have to. Below is a synthesis of what MSP owners on r/msp and r/ConnectWise actually say about invoice templates, Report Writer, and the workarounds they've tried.
Last updated April 2026. All quotes are linked to their source threads.
Report Writer is almost universally disliked. The complaints are consistent across years of threads: steep learning curve, slow feedback loop, crude output, no preview.
Most MSPs settle. The default template "works," so invoices look unprofessional for years because nobody has the time to fight Report Writer.
Custom invoices are 5–10× slower than defaults. One MSP measured 20–40 seconds per custom invoice vs. 3–4 seconds for the default template — and that's on the cloud-hosted ConnectWise instance.
Hiring a consultant is the most common "solution." The same small handful of names appear across years of threads — there isn't a thriving market for this work, just a few specialists who've made a business out of it.
Theme 1 · August 2025
The default ConnectWise invoice "works" — but it's confusing enough that clients comment on it. This is the post that triggers most MSPs to start hunting for a customization path in the first place. Worth noting: this MSP has been on Manage for 20 years and is still trying to solve it.
"We are a small MSP who has been using Manage for ~20 years. Our clients regularly inform us they find our invoices confusing and difficult to read. No doubt we have room to improve on how we set up our invoice formats, but I admit the invoices can be confusing to read and that's a formatting problem, not an 'us' problem."
That last line — "a formatting problem, not an 'us' problem" — is the consensus. The invoices aren't broken, they're just hard to read, and the path to fixing the formatting is what most MSPs can't justify the time on.
Theme 2
The custom-invoice performance penalty is real and quantified. Switching from a system template to a Report Writer template makes generation 5 to 10 times slower — even on an almost-empty test report. This MSP recreated the problem with a four-field template and still hit the wall.
"Generating/printing any invoices using ANY custom report, takes about 20-40 seconds! …Locate an invoice, change the Invoice Template field to the new custom template, save, and try to print the invoice. It takes 20-40 seconds. Change the Invoice Template field to a system template, save, and try to print the invoice. It takes 3-4 seconds."
It gets worse: a ConnectWise reporting consultant confirmed in the same thread that cloud-hosted partners see their invoice generation slow down even more in evening hours, suggesting the rendering happens on a shared server that gets saturated by other partners' batch jobs.
Theme 3 · December 2024
When MSPs give up on Report Writer themselves, the next stop is a consultancy. The same names show up across years of threads — but the quoted prices put template work out of reach for smaller shops. This MSP is an 8-person operation that inherited a ConnectWise instance and has been trying to bring the invoices in line with their brand.
"The invoice and report customization has been the hardest part. With very little information available online, I have struggled to get this part done… I have reached out to some consulting agencies to look at getting some help, but the prices are very steep from what I am seeing and the meetings I have had."
Note the side-detail: this same poster mentioned the ConnectWise Marketplace download for invoice templates is broken — so even the free starting point that used to exist isn't reliably available anymore.
Theme 4
Even when MSPs do learn the HTML and CSS, Report Writer silently strips CSS properties it doesn't recognize — with no documented list of what's allowed. The result: a working preview, an empty save, and no explanation.
"I have been working on an invoice template and I wanted to rotate the text 45 degrees… on the screen it looked perfect, however when I went to save it ConnectWise scrubbed [it] as '1 unsafe style(s) transform:rotate(-45deg) were scrubbed.' Is there a list of 'safe' styles for ConnectWise?"
The same CSS that renders fine on screen gets silently stripped at save time, with no documented list of which properties are allowed. You learn by trial, error, and grepping forum threads.
Theme 5 · November 2025
This thread is from late 2025 and tells you nothing about the asker has changed in the seven years since the first one we found from 2018. MSPs still want to see what other people's invoices look like, still want a template they can import, and still don't know where to find them.
"What do your invoices literally look like? Are there any templates out there that can be imported? Not liking the way ours currently look and looking for ideas/options."
Same question, different decade. The pattern is the inertia — the problem is well-known, the workarounds are well-known, and yet new MSPs hit the same wall every few months because nothing inside ConnectWise has materially changed.
Theme 6 · June 2025
The most damning quote in the entire research process — from a thread where someone asked for help building a Report Writer report. The recommended answer wasn't "here's how to do it" but "stop doing it."
"We gave up on figuring out how to use the Report Writer. Your time is of better use. Learning how to use the CW Report Writer has no other benefit to your business. Learning how to use APIs and PowerBi does."
The framing is a career argument: any time you spend in Report Writer is time not spent on transferable skills. Every other technology in your stack — PowerShell, the ConnectWise API, Power BI, even SQL — pays dividends across multiple tools. Report Writer pays dividends inside Report Writer.
Theme 7 · December 2024
This is the actual workflow Report Writer forces on you to build a custom invoice. Even the friendly help-back replies acknowledge the architecture is unintuitive and that breakage is part of the learning loop.
"You will find some custom invoice templates already in Report Writer. My advice is to edit these and MAKE A COPY to play with. Then when it goes wrong (it always goes wrong the first time) you can delete them and start the process again. You will also need to get your head around sub-reports (reports inside reports, like Inception but more boring), since this is how some of the customer invoices work."
Translation: invoice templates aren't single artifacts. They're trees of nested sub-reports — one main report with a header, a different sub-report for time entries, another for products, another for agreement items — each with its own data source, filters, and HTML. To customize one section, you have to find the right sub-report, edit it, and hope your edits don't break the parent.
Theme 8 · August 2025
Report Writer is the most-discussed pain point, but it isn't the only one. Several threads point out that the broader invoicing pipeline — generating invoices in Manage, syncing them to QuickBooks, getting payments back through Wise-Pay or ConnectBooster — is a chain of weak links, and the template is just the most visible one.
"The entire invoicing process in Manage is excruciating. From invoicing, dealing with Report Writer, the middleware requirement to get to QBO and Wise-Pay or Connectbooster."
This is why the "alternatives" threads aren't just looking for a new template tool — they're looking for relief from a multi-step pipeline where every connection is brittle. Better Invoice can't fix the QBO sync, but it can replace the worst-rated link in the chain.
This is the question that keeps coming up. Report Writer is built on Izenda, a third-party reporting engine that ConnectWise licensed and embedded years ago. The version Manage runs on is multiple major releases behind the current Izenda product. So is an upgrade coming?
"I've talked to their consulting team several times about this over the years. It's never been a hard no but I get the impression that they will never pay for the new version and will eventually steer folks to Power BI or another solution."
"Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahaha. Probably not. Try getting support for it too. 'Oh, that's custom work, it'll cost you.'"
The pattern across threads is consistent: ConnectWise hasn't publicly committed to upgrading Report Writer, the consulting community doesn't think they will, and the unofficial roadmap appears to be "use Power BI for reporting and figure out invoices yourself."
That's a problem because Power BI doesn't render invoices. It's a dashboarding tool. The "use Power BI" answer covers reporting, but it leaves invoice templates with no native modernization path.
We pulled threads from 2018 through 2025. The wording barely changes. Compare:
December 2018
"I keep hearing negative feedback from clients about our invoices being confusing. Every other ConnectWise shop I've come across has the same invoices."
— u/BostonMSP, r/msp
August 2025
"Our clients regularly inform us they find our invoices confusing and difficult to read… that's a formatting problem, not an 'us' problem."
— u/bleslie18, r/ConnectWise
Seven years between these two posts. Same MSP archetype, same client feedback, same root cause, same lack of a built-in fix. The product hasn't moved.
Across the threads, the workarounds Reddit suggests cluster into six approaches, roughly in order of how often they come up:
Setting our pitch aside for a moment — if you're staying inside ConnectWise and want to make your existing invoices less painful right now, here's the most useful guidance we found in the Reddit threads:
In the agreement, uncheck "show covered items on standard invoice" if you don't need to show covered time. Make sure "show extended amount even if covered" is on so the subtotal reads as hours × rate. Sort time detail by charge-to date so it's scannable. These are free changes that fix most "confusing invoice" complaints.
Multiple replies mention Invoice Groups as a built-in lever for cleaning up multi-line invoices. Underused, free, no Report Writer.
The advice that came up most often: never edit a default template directly. Make a copy in Report Writer, edit the copy, and when (not if) it breaks you can throw it away and start over without losing your default.
There's a built-in example invoice in Report Writer's Finance folder that demonstrates how main reports and sub-reports fit together. Several consultants point to it as the closest thing to "starter code." Nothing replaces the documentation, but it's a working artifact you can reverse-engineer.
An MSP in the "safe styles" thread noted that ChatGPT is great for general HTML/CSS and SQL syntax help, but useless for ConnectWise's specific data sources or Report Writer's quirks. Don't expect AI to know that transform: rotate gets stripped on save.
The Dec 2024 thread is a cautionary tale — the OP got "very steep" quotes after meetings, with no sense of scope. Before any consultant work starts, get a fixed quote tied to a specific deliverable (one invoice template, X line items, Y conditional rules), and a separate hourly rate for changes.
Report Writer was built as a reporting engine (using Izenda BI under the hood), not a template editor. Building a custom invoice requires HTML, CSS, SQL-style data sources, and ConnectWise's repeater syntax — none of which are documented end-to-end. Reddit threads consistently describe spending days on it or hiring consultants to get a working result.
An r/ConnectWise post measured 20–40 seconds per invoice with a Report Writer custom template, vs. 3–4 seconds for the default. That ratio held even on a near-empty test report on cloud-hosted ConnectWise. A consultant in the same thread noted the slowdown gets worse during evening hours when shared servers are saturated.
Partially. It's useful for general HTML, CSS, and SQL syntax. It's not useful for ConnectWise's specific data sources, Izenda quirks, or the undocumented list of CSS properties Report Writer silently strips on save. Reddit consensus: use AI for the generic 80%, expect to grind through the ConnectWise-specific 20% manually.
No public roadmap commitment. The consulting community's read, based on conversations with ConnectWise's team over years, is that ConnectWise won't pay for a new Izenda license and will instead steer customers toward Power BI for reporting. Power BI doesn't solve invoice templates, so the long-term native path for invoice customization is unclear.
Four real options come up in the threads: (1) tune the native template using built-in settings, (2) hire a ConnectWise reporting consultant, (3) sync to QuickBooks Online and send invoices from there (with QBO's own formatting limitations), or (4) use a purpose-built ConnectWise invoice template service. Better Invoice is in the fourth category. Full comparison here.
According to a December 2024 r/ConnectWise post, no — the in-app Marketplace download for invoice templates was reported as broken. We haven't verified this independently, but if you can't pull templates from inside Manage, that's a known issue.
Honest take: for general ConnectWise reporting — pipeline dashboards, agreement audits, utilization reports — yes, Report Writer is a useful skill. It's the native reporting engine and nothing replaces it.
For invoice templates specifically, no. The tool wasn't designed for presentation design, and every hour you spend hand-writing HTML in a textarea is an hour not spent on billable work. If invoice templates are your only use case for Report Writer, skip it.
Why Report Writer is the wrong tool for ConnectWise invoices covers the specific technical reasons in more detail.
Better Invoice exists because the Reddit consensus has been the same for a decade: Report Writer is painful, consultants are expensive, and the default template is ugly. We built the tool we wish the average MSP had.
No Report Writer, no HTML, no SQL. Visual settings with instant live preview.
No consultant engagement. You own your template and change it yourself whenever you need to.
Free tier with 150 settings. Pro tier unlocks full branding and external data sources.
Threads referenced in this synthesis. Reddit can change thread visibility over time; if a link breaks, the title should be searchable.