Anatomy of an Invoice

Eventually, if you want to get paid, you will have to write an invoice. As I mentioned in a previous post, I use FreshBooks for invoicing. But regardless of how you do it, all invoices are made up of the same basic elements. I’ve created an imaginary invoice to use as a reference when going over each item. Let’s start at the top and work our way down.

1. Title – Clearly have INVOICE at the top to avoid confusion with similar looking documents such as quotes.

2. Business Info – Your business’s name and address.

3. Client Info – The client’s business’s name, their name, and address.

4. Invoice # – Give each invoice a unique number, this makes it easy to reference specific invoices both on your end as well as on your client’s.

5. Date – This should be the day the invoice is sent out.

6. Job Line – This is where you put exactly what for and how you’re charging your client. Depending on your agreement, this might be hourly (first row), per unit (second row), or both. There should always be a description of the job performed. For hourly jobs include a per hour rate, number of hours worked, and a line total. For per unit jobs have a unit cost, number of units, and a line total.

7. Subtotal – Add up all your line totals to get a subtotal.

8. Tax Info – If you’re charging taxes, this is where you include your HST number, the tax percentage, and the tax amount.

9. Total – Add together the subtotal and the taxes to get your total. This is how much your client owes you.

10. Payable To – This line clearly specifies the name to whom your client needs to write a cheque (usually your name).

11. Terms – Everyone has a different idea about what terms get clients to pay the fastest, however, 20 -30 days is fairly normal.

If you have any questions about putting together an invoice please ask us in the comments or send us an email.

Happy invoicing!

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