How to Write an Invoice

What to include on your invoices

Your company name and logo

This one may seem obvious, but it’s easily forgotten when you’re focused on getting the monetary amounts correct later on. Include your company’s name and logo on your invoice to make sure these documents are fully personalised and look suitably professional.

Contact details for you and your customer

This includes the company’s name, business address, and the phone and/or email of the person for whom the invoice is intended. Don’t forget to write your own number and email on your invoice too, just in case your customer needs to get in touch with a query.

If you’re a limited company and you put the names of your directors on the invoice, you must include all directors’ names.

An invoice number

To help you keep track of the invoices you send out, having a numbering system is essential. If a dispute of any kind crops up, you should be able to easily identify what invoice has been sent and to where thanks to your invoice numbers. There is no set ‘right’ way to create a numbering system – it can be any string of letters and numbers that you like, as long as you know what sequence you’re following.

You could go sequentially with a code such as INV0001, INV0002 etc. or create a specific customer code that changes per customer, e.g. TOUCH0001, SFPGR0001.

To really keep it simple, you can just use the date: 01-2020-0001 for the first invoice you sent in January 2020, for example. In this vein, 02-2020-0003 would be the third you sent in February 2020 and so on. It really is up to you how you do it, but you’ll need to be consistent and also make sure your system has been communicated to the rest of your team so there’s no room for error.

Dates

This is another super important element that needs to be on every invoice, without fail. As well as dating your invoice on the day you’re issuing, you’ve also got to include the date the payment is due by. It’s a good idea to make the due date as prominent and readable as possible, perhaps by placing it in bold.

Payment terms

As well as including the payment date as above, it’s also useful to include information on how the payment ought to be made when it comes due. Whether you would prefer payment via a BACS transfer, credit card payment, or even a cheque, add this in writing so there’s no confusion.

Breakdown of job and costs

This will make up the bulk of your invoice body. Detail the job or service you’ve provided, how much each aspect cost, and collate every item into a sub total. If necessary, write on extra costs or any discounts as applicable.

Ensure the description of the work is as detailed as possible so that there isn’t any confusion or dispute down the line from your customer as to what they’re paying for. This includes filling in the quantities and individual totals.