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Your First Bulk Invoice Run, Step by Step

September 12, 2026 · BulkyGen Team

Upload, mapping, validation, generation, download — a full walkthrough of your first batch run, screen by screen.

A bulk run in BulkyGen is five screens: upload your file, confirm the column mapping, review validation results, generate, then download. This walks through all five using a real spreadsheet, from opening the Bulk Invoices screen to a folder of finished PDFs.

Before you start

Have a spreadsheet ready with one row per line item grouped by invoice number — see preparing a spreadsheet for bulk invoicing if you haven't built one yet. BulkyGen accepts .xlsx and .csv files.

Step 1: Upload

Open the Bulk Invoices screen. If you don't have a file yet, the Download Excel Template button gives you a worked example to start from. Otherwise, click Choose File to Upload and select your spreadsheet.

Step 2: Confirm the column mapping

BulkyGen proposes a mapping from your spreadsheet's column headers to invoice fields automatically. Check it over — if a column was matched to the wrong field, or a required field wasn't matched at all, correct it here. If you've uploaded a file with this same set of headers before, BulkyGen applies the mapping you used last time automatically. Click Continue once the mapping looks right.

Step 3: Review validation

This screen lists every invoice group that was parsed — invoice number, client, issue date, item count, total, and status — plus an Issues list underneath, each entry showing the specific row number and what's wrong. Errors block that one invoice from generating; warnings don't, but are worth a glance. If several rows need fixing, it's usually faster to go back to Change mapping or fix the spreadsheet and re-upload than to work around it here. See fixing failed rows for what specific messages mean.

When you're ready, click Generate [N] ready invoices — the button shows exactly how many groups are currently error-free and will generate; invoices with a blocking error are skipped, not silently guessed at.

Step 4: Generation

BulkyGen renders each invoice to PDF one at a time, showing progress and an estimated time remaining. This runs entirely locally — nothing is uploaded anywhere during this step. You can cancel partway through if needed; anything already generated up to that point is kept.

Step 5: Results and download

The results screen lists every invoice with its status — success or failed, with a reason if it failed. From here you can preview or download any single invoice, or select several (Select All / Select None) and use Download Selected as ZIP to get them all in one file.

If something failed

A failed invoice doesn't affect the others in the batch — everything that generated successfully is still there to download. Check the failure reason, fix the underlying spreadsheet row, and either re-run the whole batch or just handle that one invoice separately.

Next: make it yours

Every invoice in this run used whatever template and branding was already set up. If you haven't set your logo, business details, or picked a template yet, see branding your invoice template — it only needs doing once.