How to write a tutor invoice

What goes on a tutor invoice

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

1. Name the student and the period. Put the student, the subject and the weeks the invoice covers at the top. A parent paying monthly for two children needs to see which invoice is which without opening both.
2. Itemize the sessions, not the month. List the hours with the quantity showing. Eight hours at your rate reads as eight hours. One line saying "October tuition" reads as a number to be taken on trust.
3. Put materials on their own line. Workbooks, past papers and printing sit apart from your time. When a paper pack costs more this term, that is a rate edit rather than a conversation about what your hour is worth.
4. Say what was covered. A short note of the topics on the invoice the parent keeps is what makes the fee feel earned. It is also the record you want if anyone asks in March what happened in October.
5. State the cancellation terms. Put the notice period and what a late cancellation is charged at on the document itself, in advance. Terms that only appear after a missed lesson read as a penalty invented on the spot.
6. Send it with a way to pay. Add a payment link and the parent settles from the message rather than at the door. Mentioning money at handover is the part most tutors would rather skip.

The lines a tutor invoice usually carries

These are the lines the generator opens with when you pick Tutor / teacher. 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 $680 before tax.

A worked tutor 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 $680, tax $68, total $748. 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.

Billing a block of sessions without losing track

Blocks are how most tutoring is sold and how most tutoring invoices go wrong. Ten sessions are agreed and paid for up front, then drawn down one week at a time, and three months later nobody is certain how many are left.

Put the drawdown on the document. Bill the block as one line at the agreed rate, then number each session against it on the receipt as it is used: session 4 of 10. The parent can see the balance without asking and you are not reconstructing it from a calendar.

If the block is paid in installments rather than up front, invoice the installment and show the sessions it covers. The receipt maker records a part payment and prints the balance still due, which is the number both of you actually care about.

Missed lessons, late cancellations and the awkward conversation

A no-show costs you the hour whether or not the student arrives, and a tutor who has not written the terms down usually eats it. Write them down.

The workable shape is a notice period and two prices: canceled with notice, rescheduled at no charge; canceled inside the notice period or not attended, charged at the session rate. Put that on every invoice, not in a message from six months ago.

Then bill it as its own line when it happens, with the date. A line reading "Late cancellation, 14 October" is a fact. A quietly larger total for the month is an argument.

Invoicing a school, an agency or a parent who needs a purchase order

Billing a school is not billing a parent. Schools pay on their own cycle, usually against a purchase order number, and an invoice without that number sits in a queue nobody is chasing.

Ask for the PO number before the first session and put it on the invoice. Add your payment terms in days rather than "on receipt", because a finance office works to a date. If they need a W-9 or the local equivalent on file, send it once at the start rather than after your first invoice is held.

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

Tutoring is priced per hour and sold in blocks, and the block is what turns an unpredictable diary into a business. Parents and students both prefer a known total to an open meter, and blocks price that preference honestly.

Show hours bought, hours taken and hours remaining on every invoice. It is the single change that removes the standard tutoring argument, and it prompts the next block at exactly the moment the current one is running out.

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 tutors 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 tutor / teacher invoice loads with tuition (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 tutor gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost tutors money

• One line for the whole month. It hides the count, which is the one thing a parent wants to check. Itemize the hours.
• No cancellation terms until a cancellation. Terms that appear after the event read as a penalty. They belong on every invoice from the first one.
• Materials folded into the hourly rate. Then a term with heavy printing looks like you quietly raised your price.
• No subject or period on the invoice. Two children, two subjects, one household, and the parent cannot tell the invoices apart.
• Chasing by text. A payment link on the document gets it paid without either of you raising it at the door.

Tutor / teacher invoice questions

Free tutor invoice template

The free tutor 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 tutors, 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 tutors

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to tutors rather than in general. The five marked links open with tutor / teacher already selected.

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