How to View and Download Documents

Find your invoices, receipts, uploads, and internal notes on an order.

Written By Dennis Rodin

Last updated 16 days ago

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 — production notes and shop tickets.

  • Reference — internal reference photos and files.

Note: Categorize your files correctly. If you've set up a role that cannot see finances, team members with that role will also not see any documents in the Financial Document category. This keeps sensitive pricing documents hidden from shop and field staff.

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.

Each document also 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.

Default visibility per category:

  • Drawing → External (customer needs to see and approve the design)

  • Financial Document → External (customer needs invoices, receipts, contracts)

  • Permit → Internal (cemetery and admin paperwork)

  • Instructions → Internal (production notes and shop tickets)

  • Reference → Internal (internal reference photos)

    You can always override the default by clicking the toggle on an individual document.

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

Most document generation popups (Foundation Order, Purchase Order, and others) 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

Auto-generated documents are categorized automatically:

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

  • Shop Ticket PDF, Purchase Order PDF, and Foundation Order PDF → Instructions (Internal by default)

  • Sketches built in the Sketch & Inscription step → Drawing (Internal by default). The sketch is saved as a drawing file and renders on the Contract and Shop Ticket PDFs alongside any drawings you uploaded manually.

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 to View Internal Notes.

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