How to write a contractor invoice

What goes on a contractor invoice

Six things, in the order they belong on the page. The invoice generator opens a general contractor document with the lines already in place, so most of this is checking rather than typing.

1. Bill against the stage, not the calendar. Name the stage completed. A monthly invoice with no stage attached is a request rather than a claim.
2. List variations separately. Changes to the priced scope go on as their own lines with their own references, never absorbed into the original figure.
3. Show labor and materials apart. Days at a rate, materials at cost or at your stated margin.
4. Show retention if it applies. The percentage held and the amount, on the document, so nobody is surprised by a short payment.
5. Reference the contract and site. Contract number, site address, and the period covered.
6. Name subcontracted work. Where you are passing on a trade, say so, so the client can see what they are approving.

The lines a contractor invoice usually carries

These are the lines the generator opens with when you pick General contractor. The figures are a starting point to type over rather than a going rate: this site runs no pricing survey, and the number on your invoice should be the one you charge.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $3,430 before tax.

A worked contractor invoice, filled in

This is the same job as the table above, written out the way it would leave your phone. Every figure on it is a starting point rather than a going rate, and the tax line is shown at ten per cent purely so the arithmetic is visible: set your own rate, or none, per line.

Subtotal $3,430, tax $343, total $3,773. The parts worth copying are the structure rather than the numbers: the job reference next to the client, every line separately priced with its count showing, the tax on its own line, and terms that name a number of days instead of saying on receipt.

Progress billing, and claiming for a stage rather than a month

A contractor who invoices monthly for "work done" gets paid at the client convenience. A contractor who invoices against completed stages gets paid against something the client can verify.

Set the stages at the point of quoting: enabling works, rough-in, trim-out, completion. Then each invoice references a stage, and approving it is a matter of checking whether the stage is done rather than judging how much work felt like it happened.

The cost estimator is for building the job into those costed stages before the quote goes out, so the invoice lines are the same lines the client already agreed to.

Variations, which is where the money actually goes

Almost no contract finishes as priced. The client changes something, a wall comes down and reveals a problem, a specification moves. Variations are normal, and unrecorded variations are how a profitable job ends up flat.

Every variation gets its own reference, its own price and its own line, agreed before the work happens wherever that is possible. On the invoice it appears as a named extra rather than an increase in the original figure.

The discipline that matters is writing it down at the time. A variation described in an email three weeks later is a negotiation; a variation numbered and priced on the day is an instruction.

Retention, and the money you have already earned

Retention is a percentage of every payment held back until completion, and often half of that held again until the end of a defects period. It is normal in construction and brutal for cash flow if you have not planned for it.

Show it on the invoice: the gross value, the retention percentage, the amount held and the net payable. That way nobody treats a short payment as a dispute, and you have a running record of what is owed to you later.

Diary the release dates. Retention is the money most often forgotten by the person owed it, and an invoice for a release is far easier to raise when you have the original figures on the earlier documents.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how contractors price the work

Contracting is not priced, it is valued. The question is not hourly against fixed, it is how the contract sum is broken up and when each piece becomes payable. Get the stages wrong and a profitable job still starves you of cash halfway through.

Whatever the model, the invoice is a claim against a stage rather than a bill for work done, and it should read that way: the stage, the percentage complete, the variations approved with their references, the retention held and the balance remaining on the contract.

Working out what to charge

This guide is about what goes on the document, not what the number should be, and nobody should hand you a rate for your own market. What the site can do is the arithmetic: the freelance rate calculator works back from what you need to earn, the service price calculator prices a service against your costs, and the profit margin calculator checks what is left once the job is done.

Writing it on your phone, in five steps

Most contractors write the invoice standing next to the work rather than at a desk a week later, and the week later version is the one that gets details wrong. The generator is built for the first case.

1. Open it with your trade already chosen. The general contractor invoice loads with site preparation and set-up and the rest of the lines already on the page.
2. Put the client and the job reference in first. It is the part you will not remember accurately in three days, and on agent, landlord or contractor work it is the reason the invoice gets paid at all.
3. Edit the lines rather than starting from empty. Change the quantities and the rates, delete what you did not do, add what you did. Keeping the descriptions means the wording stays consistent from one job to the next.
4. Set the terms to 30 days and add a payment link. A due date that is an actual date gets chased. A link and a QR code means it can be settled before you have packed up.
5. Send it before you leave. The clock on your terms starts when the invoice arrives, not when the work finished, so every day it sits unsent is a day added to getting paid.

Getting paid once it is sent

Put a due date and your terms on the document, because an invoice without them is hard to chase. Add a payment link and a QR so settling up is a tap rather than a transfer somebody has to set up. When part of it lands, the receipt maker records it as a part payment and prints the balance still due. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your own terms allow and writes the chasing letter to go with it.

Five dates decide whether a contractor gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost contractors money

• Invoicing by month rather than by stage. You get paid at the client convenience instead of against something verifiable.
• Variations absorbed into the main figure. The single most common way a priced job loses its margin.
• Retention not shown. A short payment gets treated as a dispute instead of the agreement working normally.
• No contract or site reference. On a multi-project client it will simply wait.
• Retention release never chased. It is the money most often forgotten by the person owed it.

General contractor invoice questions

Free contractor invoice template

The free contractor invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 200 designs, and exports a print-ready PDF with no signup and nothing saved to a server. If you would rather edit a file offline, there are 72 Word templates, 72 Excel templates with the totals already calculating, and 72 fillable PDFs.

Invoicing guides for related trades

The same billing questions come up next door. These four guides cover the trades closest to contractors, and each one sits alongside its own free template.

Every trade has one: see all 46 invoicing guides, or go straight to the 46 free invoice templates they describe.

Everything on this site, set up for contractors

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to contractors rather than in general. The five marked links open with general contractor already selected.

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