How to write a moving company invoice

What goes on a moving company invoice

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

1. Quote by volume and distance, or by crew and hours, and say which. Both are normal. Mixing them is what causes the argument.
2. State the crew size and the vehicle. Two men and a Luton is a price. A removal is not.
3. Price packing materials separately. Boxes, tape, paper and covers are goods, and they are often most of the surprise.
4. Bill waiting time and failed access explicitly. Keys not ready and blocked parking cost you a crew standing still.
5. Show storage as its own recurring charge. It is a different service with a different billing cycle.
6. State the liability and insurance position on the document. It is the one thing customers only read when something is broken.

The lines a moving company invoice usually carries

These are the lines the generator opens with when you pick Moving and hauling. 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 $955 before tax.

A worked moving company 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 $955, tax $95.50, total $1,050.50. 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.

Fixed price against hourly crews, and choosing before the day

The two ways of pricing a move suit different jobs. A fixed price on a surveyed move gives the customer certainty and rewards you for working fast. An hourly crew rate suits small, unpredictable or access-limited moves.

What causes disputes is a fixed quote given without a survey that then meets twice the volume described. Protect it with a stated basis: the quote covers the inventory listed, and material additions are chargeable at your stated rate with agreement on the day.

On hourly work, state the start point and the minimum. Crews are usually charged from depot to depot rather than from door to door, and a customer who learns that at the end of the day feels misled even though it is standard practice.

Access, waiting time and the costs a survey cannot see

Almost every removal that loses money loses it standing still: keys not released, a lift out of service, no parking, a completion that runs late.

Put waiting time on your rate card as a per hour crew charge and state it on the quote. It is entirely reasonable, it is standard in the industry, and it is only contentious when it appears for the first time on the invoice.

Access charges belong in the same place: long carries, stairs above a stated floor, and parking distance. Naming them on the quote also prompts the customer to warn you about them, which is worth more than the charge itself.

Packing, storage and the invoice after the move

Packing materials are a genuine cost and a genuine surprise. List them with quantities: boxes by size, tape, paper, mattress covers, wardrobe cartons. A customer reading a materials list accepts it, where the same amount inside a total looks like padding.

Storage is a separate service and a separate invoice cycle. Show it as a recurring monthly charge with the volume stored, the period covered and the handling in and out charged separately, because those are one-off costs at each end.

Finally, put your liability position on the invoice and not only in the terms nobody read. Whether goods are covered, at what level, and what is excluded, stated plainly. It is the single clause that gets litigated in this trade.

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

Moving is priced by volume and distance for a surveyed move, or by crew and hours for a small one. The choice matters more here than in most trades because the job happens once, on a fixed date, with the customer watching the clock.

Whatever the model, waiting time needs to be on the rate card. Late completions and keys that are not released are the most common way a removal loses money, and the charge is entirely reasonable right up until the first time the customer sees it on an invoice.

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 moving 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 moving and hauling invoice loads with removal van and two movers (per hour) 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 7 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 moving contractor gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost moving contractors money

• Fixed quote with no inventory basis. Twice the volume arrives and there is nothing to point at.
• Waiting time never mentioned. A late completion is paid for out of your day.
• Packing materials inside the total. The one figure customers query most, made unexplainable.
• Depot to depot charging not disclosed. Standard practice that feels like a trick when it appears at the end.
• Insurance position buried. The one clause that matters, in the one place nobody reads.

Moving and hauling invoice questions

Free moving company invoice template

The free moving company 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 moving 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 moving contractors

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

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