Builders
What belongs on a building invoice
Four things that decide whether a building invoice gets paid or gets a phone call. The generator further down opens with the lines already in it.
Stage payments, and put the stage on the invoice. “Second fix complete” is a fact both sides can check; “interim payment 2” is a number that invites a phone call.
Variations are the whole game. Every change from the original quote needs its own line with its own description, and ideally its own date. A build that ends in dispute nearly always ends in dispute about variations that were agreed verbally.
Retention, where a customer holds one, should appear on the invoice as a stated deduction rather than as a smaller total. Money you are owed and have not been paid is worth showing.
Subcontractor work you are passing on should be described as what it is. A customer who can see the plasterer’s day rate does not wonder what your margin on it was.
Date every variation on the line itself. A build that goes to dispute goes to dispute about who agreed what and when, and an invoice carrying ’per site agreement 12 Aug’ is contemporaneous evidence in a way an email thread with forty replies is not.
Where the programme slipped, say by how long and why, on the invoice for the stage that slipped. A build that finishes late finishes in an argument about which side caused it, and a contemporaneous line saying ’delayed 6 days awaiting client decision on kitchen’ costs nothing to write and settles it.
The lines below are real work at plausible quantities, and deliberately carry no prices. A price is a local fact about a local market, and a made-up one would be worse than none.