Invoice template
An invoice that gets paid
Line items, VAT and payment terms, with the totals worked out for you. Fill in the fields and send it.
- Free to use
- VAT calculated
- Your colors and fonts
INVOICE
INV-0148
| Brand sprint, stage 2 | £2,100 |
| Packaging artwork, 3 SKUs | £1,500 |
Payment
30 days. Bank details below.
An example, with your branding applied
An invoice is a request for payment that has to survive somebody else’s accounts process. Most of what makes one get paid late is a missing detail that sends it back to you rather than into their system.
What must an invoice include?
Some of it is legally required, some of it is what stops the invoice being queried. Both matter, and the second is why invoices sit unpaid.
- The word "Invoice", and a unique invoice number.
- Your business name, address, and company number if you have one.
- Their business name and billing address, exactly as they need it.
- The date issued and the date payment is due.
- A line for each item, with what it is and what it costs.
- The subtotal, any VAT or sales tax with its rate, and the total due.
- How to pay: bank details, reference, or a payment link.
If you are VAT registered, your VAT number is legally required on the invoice and its absence can stop the client reclaiming the VAT, which is a very reliable way to have an invoice bounced back.
The detail most often missing is a purchase order number. Where a client uses them, an invoice without one does not enter the payment run at all. Ask before invoicing, not after chasing.
What payment terms should you set?
Fourteen or thirty days, stated as a date rather than a duration.
"Net 30" requires the reader to work out when that is, from a date they have to find. "Due 2 September 2026" does not. The second version is measurably more likely to be paid on time for a reason that is entirely about how little effort it takes to act on.
Shorter terms are worth asking for and are often accepted, particularly from smaller clients without a fixed payment run. Larger organizations tend to have a cycle you cannot change, and finding out what it is beats setting terms they will ignore.
Late payment interest is worth stating even if you never charge it. In the UK, statutory interest applies whether or not the invoice mentions it, but a line saying so changes the conversation when you chase.
How should you describe the work?
Specifically enough that somebody who was not involved can approve it.
The person paying your invoice is frequently not the person who commissioned the work. "Consultancy, August" tells them nothing they can check against anything. "Brand sprint, stage 2: identity and logo system, as per proposal dated 14 August" can be matched to a purchase order and approved without a phone call.
Matching your line items to the deliverables in the proposal is the single most effective thing you can do here. It makes the invoice self-evidently correct, and it means partial invoicing at a milestone is obvious rather than something you have to explain.
When should you send it?
The day the work is delivered, or the day a milestone is reached. Not at month end.
Invoicing in a monthly batch feels tidy and adds up to two weeks to your average payment time for no benefit. Work finished on the 2nd, invoiced on the 30th, on thirty-day terms, is paid two months after it was done.
Sending immediately also catches problems while everyone remembers the work. A query about an invoice sent the same week is answered in a message; the same query six weeks later needs both of you to reconstruct what happened.
What you fill in
- Invoice number
- Unique and sequential. Gaps make an accountant nervous.
- Client and billing address
- Their legal entity, not their trading name.
- Issue and due dates
- Both, as actual dates.
- Line items
- One per deliverable, matching the proposal where you can.
- VAT rate
- Your rate. The tax and total are calculated.
- Payment terms
- How to pay, the reference to use, and what happens if it is late.
What happens after you fill it in
Your branding, applied
Set colors and fonts once. Every document you generate uses them, including ones you made months ago.
Sent for signature
Request a signature from the same place. The signed copy comes back with a record of who signed and when.
Every version kept
Each save keeps the one before it. Restoring an earlier version does not lose the newer ones.
Questions
- Do I need to be VAT registered to invoice?
- No. If you are not registered, do not charge VAT and do not show a VAT line.
- What invoice number should I start at?
- Anything, as long as it is sequential afterwards. Many people avoid starting at 1 for reasons that are entirely presentational.
- Can I invoice in another currency?
- Set the currency symbol on the invoice. If the client pays in a different currency, agree who covers the conversion beforehand.
- Should I invoice before or after the work?
- Both is common: a deposit up front and the balance on delivery. For a new client, some payment in advance is reasonable.
- Can the client pay from the PDF?
- Include a payment link in the terms field and it becomes clickable in the finished document.
Use this template
Free to start. One project, no card needed.