How to write a painting contractor invoice

What goes on a painting contractor invoice

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

1. Price by room or by square foot, and say which. Both are normal. What causes arguments is quoting one and invoicing the other.
2. Put preparation on its own line. Filling, sanding, stripping and masking is most of the labor and none of what the customer sees.
3. State the number of coats. Two coats over a primer is a different job from one coat over an existing color, and the invoice should say which was done.
4. Show paint separately from labor. Name the brand and finish so the customer can buy the same tin for a touch-up in two years.
5. Bill making good as a variation. Cracked plaster found under wallpaper was not in the quote, and it should not be absorbed into it.
6. Set a punch list window in your terms. Decorating attracts small callbacks. A stated window converts an open liability into a defined one.

The lines a painting contractor invoice usually carries

These are the lines the generator opens with when you pick Painting 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 $1,730 before tax.

A worked painting 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 $1,730, tax $173, total $1,903. 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.

Preparation is the job, and the invoice has to show it

A customer looking at a finished room sees paint. They do not see the two days of filling, caulking, sanding and masking that made the paint look like that, and if the invoice does not name it they never will.

Break preparation out as its own line with its own hours. It changes the conversation from why is painting this room so expensive to why the preparation on this particular room took as long as it did, which is a question you can answer with the state of the walls.

It also protects you on comparison. A cheaper quote almost always contains less preparation, and a customer cannot see that difference unless one of the two documents states it.

Coats, color changes and the paint the customer bought

Coverage is the single most common cause of a decorating dispute. A strong color over white, or white over a strong color, needs coats that a straight repaint does not.

Say on the quote how many coats the price includes, and if the color choice arrives later and needs more, that is a variation with its own line rather than an argument at the end.

Where a customer supplies their own paint, note it on the invoice and state that coverage and finish are not guaranteed on customer-supplied materials. Cheap trade white is where this problem usually starts, and the line above is what stops a third coat being free.

Domestic against commercial, and the invoice each one needs

A homeowner wants to know what a room cost. A managing agent or a shopfitter wants a document they can process against a purchase order without reading it.

For commercial work, put the site address, the order number and the areas or unit numbers on the invoice, keep the descriptions consistent between visits, and use terms in days.

For domestic work the opposite is true: fewer lines, plain words, and the room names the customer uses. The same job can need two different documents and it is worth writing each one for its reader.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how painters and decorators price the work

Decorating is priced by room, by square foot or by the day, and the right one depends almost entirely on how bad the walls are. The area is easy to measure and the preparation is not, which is why the same room can be two very different jobs.

Whichever you use, price preparation as its own line. It is the majority of the labor, it is invisible in the finished room, and it is the only thing that explains why your quote is higher than the one that skipped it.

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 painters and decorators 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 painting contractor invoice loads with surface preparation and filling 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 14 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 painting contractor gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost painters and decorators money

• One price per room. Nobody can see the preparation, so the whole figure looks like paint.
• Coats unstated. A color change turns into a free third coat.
• Paint not named. No way to touch up later without matching by eye.
• Making good absorbed. Cracked plaster under wallpaper becomes free labor.
• No punch list window. Callbacks stay open forever.

Painting contractor invoice questions

Free painting contractor invoice template

The free painting 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 painters and decorators, 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 painters and decorators

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

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