How to write an architect invoice

What goes on an architect invoice

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

1. Invoice against a named work stage. Concept design complete, developed design complete. The stage is the deliverable.
2. Show the fee basis on every invoice. A percentage of construction cost, a fixed stage fee, or hourly, restated each time.
3. List what the stage produced. Drawings, schedules, the planning submission. It is the evidence behind the claim.
4. Charge additional services separately. Anything outside the agreed scope is not inside the percentage.
5. Show disbursements at cost with the item named. Planning fees, printing, surveys and searches are not your fee.
6. State the fee remaining and the stages ahead. It makes a staged fee feel like a plan rather than a series of demands.

The lines an architect invoice usually carries

The generator opens with these lines when you pick Architect. The figures are placeholders to type over, not a going rate.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $6,480 before tax.

How to write an architect invoice, step by step

1. Name the stage that is complete. Open the architect invoice and invoice the stage in your appointment, such as concept design or permit drawings, rather than a month's time.
2. Restate the fee basis. Fixed fee per stage, or a percentage of the construction cost with the cost figure used. Restated every time, it cannot drift.
3. List what the stage produced. The drawings, the specification and the application submitted. The client should be able to hold up each thing the invoice names.
4. Add site visits and extra services apart. Site visits at a per visit rate with the count, and any additional services from a changed brief on their own line.
5. Show the fee remaining, then send. State what has been invoiced so far and what remains for later stages. Set 30 days and send it when the stage is signed off.

Architect invoice example, filled in

A house extension part way through construction: the design, permit drawings and technical package invoiced, plus four site visits. Each stage is named and the fee position is in the note, so the client always knows what is left to pay.

Subtotal $6,480, tax $648, total $7,128. The site visits line shows four visits at $220, separate from the fixed stage fees, so a client who wants more visits can see what each costs. The fee position note turns this invoice into a running account of the whole appointment.

Percentage fees, fixed fees and restating the basis every time

A percentage fee is agreed once and then invoiced five or six times over a year or more, by which point the client frequently no longer remembers how it was calculated.

Restate the basis on every invoice: the total fee, the percentage or fixed sum it derives from, the stage being claimed, the amount claimed and the balance remaining. It costs three lines and removes almost every fee query.

Where the fee is a percentage of construction cost and that cost has moved, address it on the invoice at the time rather than at the end. A client who sees the recalculation once at final account will treat it as a surprise, and they are right to.

Scope, additional services and the client who keeps changing their mind

Design changes after a stage is signed off are the defining commercial problem in architectural practice, because the work is real, the client rarely perceives it as new, and it is invisible in a percentage fee.

Handle it the way the profession does: define additional services in the appointment, then invoice them as their own lines with the instruction that caused them named and dated. Redesign following client instruction to relocate the stair, with the date, is a fact. Extra design work is an opinion.

The same applies to reworking after a planning refusal or a change in the brief. Neither is inside a stage fee, and both need to be raised as an additional service before the work rather than as a line on an invoice afterwards.

Disbursements, expenses and the money that is not your fee

Planning application fees, building control charges, printing, surveys, structural input and travel are pass-through costs, and clients resent them when they arrive folded into a fee.

Show them at cost, itemized, with the payee named where it is a statutory fee. If you apply a handling charge on disbursements, state it as a separate percentage line rather than marking the item up quietly.

Keep them on the invoice they belong to rather than accumulating them for the final claim. A planning fee appearing eight months after submission is a query that costs you more time than the fee is worth.

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

Architectural fees are a percentage of construction cost, a fixed fee per stage, or hourly for additional services, and most appointments use all three at once. The invoice is a claim that a stage is complete rather than a bill for hours.

Restate the fee basis on every invoice: the total, the stage claimed, what it produced, and the balance remaining. An appointment signed a year ago is a document nobody rereads, and three lines on the invoice remove almost every fee query.

Working out what to charge

Architectural fees depend on the project, the procurement route and your experience, so a figure from a web page means nothing. The billable hours calculator shows how many hours each stage can carry, and the percentage calculator checks a percentage fee against the construction cost.

Getting paid once it is sent

Take the first stage fee on appointment and invoice each stage when it is signed off, so no more than one stage of design work is ever unpaid. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your terms allow and the due date calculator sets the new date.

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

Mistakes that cost architects money

• Invoicing without naming the stage. The client cannot tell what they are being asked to pay for.
• Fee basis stated only in the appointment. Nobody rereads an appointment letter twelve months in.
• Additional services never invoiced. A common cause of an unprofitable project in practice.
• Disbursements marked up silently. A small margin that costs a large amount of trust.
• No balance remaining shown. Each invoice feels like a new demand rather than part of a plan.

Architect invoice questions

Free architect invoice template

The free architect invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 30 designs made for the trade, and exports a print-ready PDF with nothing saved to a server. Opening a design needs a free account.

Invoicing guides for related trades

Everything on this site, set up for architects

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to architects rather than in general. The four marked links open with architect already selected.