Getting paid
What to include on an invoice (so you get paid faster)
A clear invoice gets paid faster than a vague one. Clients pay quickly when there's nothing to question and it's obvious how to pay. Here's the complete checklist.
The essentials
- Your business name and contact details, so the client knows exactly who to pay and how to reach you.
- The client's name and address, addressed to the right person or department.
- A unique invoice number, for easy reference on both sides.
- The invoice date, plus the due date, so the deadline is unmistakable.
- Itemized list of goods or services, each with a description, quantity, and price.
- Subtotal, tax, and total due, clearly separated, with the final amount easy to spot.
- Payment terms and methods: when it's due and how to pay (bank transfer, card, etc.).
Small touches that speed up payment
Make the total obvious. Put the amount due in bold near the bottom. A busy client should see what they owe in one glance.
Keep terms short. Net 14 gets you paid roughly two weeks sooner than Net 30, and most clients don't mind.
Include your payment details on the invoice itself. If a client has to email you to ask how to pay, that's a delay you created. List your bank details or a payment link right there.
Add a gentle late-fee note. "A 2% monthly fee applies to overdue balances" nudges people to prioritise your invoice without being aggressive.
Make it look professional
A clean, consistent layout signals that you're organized and serious, which subtly encourages prompt payment. Our free invoice generator includes every item on this checklist by default and exports a tidy PDF in seconds.
Requirements that vary by country
Beyond the universal essentials, most countries add their own requirements, and they are worth checking once rather than guessing. If you are registered for VAT, GST, or sales tax, you will typically need to show your registration number, the tax rate applied, and the tax amount as a separate line. Some jurisdictions require the words "Tax Invoice" to appear on the document itself. Businesses operating as a limited company are often required to show the registered company name, company number, and registered office address.
Trades are a common exception too. Electricians, plumbers, and building contractors frequently have to display a license or registration number on invoices. None of this is difficult once you know it applies to you, but an invoice missing a legally required field can be rejected by a client's finance team, which delays payment for reasons that have nothing to do with your work.
Give the payment instructions their own space
The single most common reason an otherwise good invoice sits unpaid is that the client could not immediately see how to pay it. Put your payment details in their own clearly labelled block rather than burying them in a paragraph of terms. Include the account name, account number and sort code or IBAN as relevant, and a reference to quote, which should be the invoice number.
If you accept more than one payment method, list them in the order you prefer to be paid. Card and payment-link options cost you a percentage but often get you paid substantially faster, which is usually a trade worth making on smaller invoices.
Write descriptions your client can approve without asking questions
Line descriptions do more work than people expect. The person approving your invoice is frequently not the person who hired you, and they can only approve what they understand. "Design work" gives them nothing. "Homepage and three interior page designs, delivered 12 June, per quote Q-0044" gives them everything they need.
Reference the agreed quote or purchase order where one exists, include dates for work delivered over a period, and split anything that was priced separately into separate lines. The extra thirty seconds of typing removes an entire round of email.
Set a real due date
Write an actual calendar date, not just "Net 14". Both is better: "Payment terms: Net 14. Due 3 August 2026." Terms are a convention that finance teams understand, but a date is what people act on, and it eliminates any argument about when the clock started.
Mistakes that cost you money
- Reusing invoice numbers. It creates duplicates in your client's system, which can mean your invoice is treated as already paid.
- Rounding inconsistently. If your line items do not add up to your total, the whole invoice gets queried.
- Forgetting the tax line. If you are registered, tax must be shown separately, not folded into the price.
- Omitting your own contact details. Clients with a question who cannot reach you simply put the invoice aside.
- Sending an editable file. Send a PDF. Documents that can be altered after sending invite disputes about what was agreed.
A quick pre-send check
Before every invoice goes out, confirm five things: the client name and address are correct, the invoice number has not been used before, the line items add up to the stated total, the due date is present and correct, and your payment details are on the document. That check takes under a minute and prevents most of the delays described above.