How to View and Download Documents

To access documents on an order, open the order and click Notes & Files on the left side menu.

Files

This is the file storage for that specific order. Any files generated by the system (invoices, receipts) and any files you upload are stored here.

To view a document, click the grey text under the category name. The document will open in your browser.

Click the three dots on the right side of the file to download or delete it.

Uploading files

You can upload any file to an order. When you upload, you'll be asked to categorize it:

• Drawing: design proofs for the customer to review.

• Financial Document: receipts, invoices, and contracts.

• Permit: cemetery permits and admin paperwork.

• Instructions: internal production guidance and shop tickets.

• Reference: internal reference photos and files.

MonuDesk accepts most common file types: images (PNG, JPG, etc), PDFs, Word and Excel files, and email message files (.eml) so you can attach customer email threads. Each upload slot also accepts multiple files at once, shown as chips you can remove individually.

Internal vs. External visibility

Each document has an Internal and External toggle. Documents set to External are visible to your customer on the Customer Portal. Documents set to Internal are only visible to your team.

New uploads always default to Internal, in every category. This is intentional, so a new file never becomes customer-visible by accident. When you're ready to share a file (such as a drawing for the family to approve), flip it to External yourself.

Instructions documents are the exception: they have no toggle. Instead they show a non-interactive Internal status, with the tooltip "Instructions are always internal only and never shown in the Customer Portal." This is enforced on the backend, so the shop ticket and anything else categorized as Instructions can never be exposed to the customer.

Learn more: How the Customer Portal Works

Drawing approval status

Drawings get a visible approval status in the Files section so your team can see at a glance which ones the family has signed off on, without opening the portal.

Approved drawings show a green checkmark next to the file. Hover over the checkmark to see who approved it and when, for example "Approved by customer on May 8, 2026" for a portal approval, or "Approved by [team member name] on [date]" for a manual one.

Approving manually from the three-dots menu: if the family approves the design in person, you don't need to send them through the portal. Click the three dots on any file in the Drawing category and select Approve Drawing. The drawing immediately gets the green checkmark, logged with your name and the timestamp. To reverse it, click the three dots again and select Un-approve.

The system keeps a record of every approve and un-approve event with the team member's name and timestamp, even after un-approval. The audit isn't surfaced in the UI yet, but the data is stored for future reference.

Learn more: How the Customer Portal Works

Important: upload files before generating

Foundation Order and Purchase Order are the two documents with a generation popup; every other document (quote, invoice, receipt, contract, shop ticket) generates immediately in one click. Both popups let you attach files that already exist on the order. For a file to be selectable, it must already be uploaded to Notes & Files with the right category. The selector reads from your existing files; it does not let you upload new ones from inside the generation popup.

The matching rules:

• Drawings selector in Foundation Order and Purchase Order popups → only shows files saved under the Drawing category.

• Files saved under Instructions, Financial Document, Permit, Reference, or any other category will not appear in the drawings selector even if they are images or PDFs.

Workflow: upload the file first to Notes & Files, set the category to Drawing, save, then click Document Generation and the file will be available to attach. This applies to every file you want to attach during any document generation flow.

Automatically generated documents

When MonuDesk generates a document, it files and categorizes it for you automatically:

• Invoice, Receipt, Quote, and Contract PDFs → Financial Document, customer-visible (External) by default.

• Shop Ticket PDF → Instructions, Internal only. It's stored as an Instructions document with the static Internal status (no toggle), so it never appears in the Customer Portal.

• Purchase Order PDF and Foundation Order PDF → Financial Document, customer-visible (External) by default. If you don't want the customer to see them, flip them to Internal.

• Sketches built in the Sketch & Inscription step → Drawing, Internal by default. The sketch renders on the Contract and Shop Ticket PDFs alongside any drawings you uploaded manually.

When you replace an order's monument thumbnail, MonuDesk automatically saves that image to Notes & Files as a Drawing so it flows onto the shop ticket's drawing page. If that automatic save fails, you'll see a toast letting you know, so you can add the image manually under Notes & Files and it still appears on the shop ticket.

Learn more: What's on the Invoice PDF, What's on the Receipt PDF, What's on the Contract PDF, What's on the Shop Ticket PDF

For internal notes on the order, see How Internal Notes Work.

Related articles:

• How to Open an Order

• What the Order Overview Shows

• How to Log a Payment

• How Internal Notes Work