How invoice templates by industry differ
The layout of a good invoice barely changes from one trade to the next. What changes is the line items, the unit you bill in and the notes a customer expects. A tiler bills per square meter, a lawyer bills time entries and outlays, and a hotel bills room nights from a folio.
Each industry page starts from those habits, so the example already looks like something you would send. Change the names and prices, keep the structure, and you are done. If you want the general rules first, read what to include on an invoice.
What every industry page gives you
Every industry page follows the same plan, so you can move between them quickly. You get a filled example invoice for that trade, a table of typical line items with example prices, the details that trade usually needs on an invoice and the mistakes that most often delay payment.
- A preview made by the same engine that makes your PDF, so what you see is what you get.
- Word, Excel and PDF files, sent to your inbox when you ask for them.
- A button that opens the free generator with the sample lines already filled in.
- Links to the closest related trades, so you can compare how they bill.
Billing by the hour, the job or the unit
Most businesses price work in one of three ways: by time, by a fixed price for the job, or by the unit, such as per item, per square meter or per visit. The right template makes that unit obvious on every line so the customer can check the sums.
- By time: consulting, legal, IT support and virtual assistants. See the hourly invoice template.
- By the job: photography, web design and event planning, often with a deposit first.
- By the unit: flooring, tiling, printing and window cleaning, with the quantity and unit shown under each line.
Materials, deposits and stage payments
Trades that buy materials for a job, such as plumbers, electricians and roofers, usually show labour and materials as separate lines. That makes the price easier to accept and any tax treatment easier to apply line by line.
Larger jobs are often billed in stages. A deposit before work starts, progress invoices as stages finish and a final invoice for the balance keep cash moving. The deposit invoice template and the progress billing template cover both.
Recurring work and retainers
Cleaners, gardeners, bookkeepers and marketing agencies often bill the same customer every week or month. A steady layout with the same line wording each cycle makes those invoices quick to approve and easy to match to payments.
If you bill a fixed monthly fee, the retainer invoice template shows how to list the hours included and any overage. For a schedule of repeat invoices, see recurring invoices explained.
When your trade is not listed
If your exact trade is missing, pick the closest one by how you bill rather than by name. A mobile dog walker bills like a cleaner, per visit. A drone surveyor bills like a photographer, per job with usage terms. The layout and the sums work the same way.
You can also start from the simple invoice template and type your own lines. Every template opens in the free generator, which adds the tax for your country and makes a PDF in your browser.
Whichever template you start from, keep the essentials: your business name and tax number if you have one, the customer, a unique invoice number, the dates, clear lines with quantities and prices, the tax, the total and how to pay.
Tax rules that change with the trade
Some trades are treated differently for tax. In several countries, certain health services, education and exported goods are taxed at a reduced rate, at zero or not at all, while most other services pay the standard rate. Where that applies, the industry page says so and points to the official source.
The free generator lets you set a tax rate on each line or mark a line as exempt, so one invoice can mix taxed and untaxed work. For the rules in each country, see invoicing rules by country or open the template for your country from the invoice template library.
Fill it in on screen and download or email a real PDF. No sign up.