When you upload an invoice, Billtobox gets to work straight away: reading, processing, and preparing it for review. But sometimes an invoice appears greyed out or seems stuck without moving forward. This article explains why that happens and what you can do to get things moving again.
Why is my invoice stuck / greyed out?
There are two common reasons an invoice may appear inactive or unresponsive:
OCR is still processing
When you upload a PDF or scanned invoice, Billtobox automatically reads it using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to extract key data like amounts, dates, and supplier details. This usually takes a few minutes, but complex or low-quality scans can take longer. While this is happening, the invoice will appear greyed out and won't be editable yet. That's normal.
Processing queue backlog
During busy periods, the system may experience a short delay in processing newly uploaded documents. Your invoice is in the queue and will be processed shortly, no action is needed right away.
What you can do
If your invoice is greyed out, try these steps before contacting support:
Wait an hour. Most processing issues resolve on their own. Give the system time to complete the OCR or work through the queue.
Refresh the page. After waiting, reload your invoice list. The status may have already updated without the page reflecting it.
Try re-uploading. If the invoice is still greyed out after 30 minutes and you don't see a duplicate, upload it again. Make sure the file is a clear, high-quality PDF.
If you don’t have the document on your computer, you can go to Received files > click on the eye icon to save the document to your computer > upload the document again.
When to contact support
If your invoice has been stuck for more than 2 hours and none of the steps above have helped, it's time to reach out to the Billtobox support team.
When you contact support, please include a screenshot of the stuck document. This helps the team investigate quickly and get your invoice unblocked without unnecessary back-and-forth.
FAQ
Can I delete a stuck invoice?
No. To delete an invoice, you have to reach out to support and ask for a human agent to delete the invoice. Please include your client number (you'll find it in the top left of your Billtobox account, right under your business name), and a screenshot of the relevant document.