Roofers
What belongs on a roofing invoice
Four things that decide whether a roofing invoice gets paid or gets a phone call. The generator further down opens with the lines already in it.
Access is a cost and it belongs on the invoice. Scaffolding and tower hire are frequently more than the repair, and a customer who sees the repair alone will believe they were overcharged for it.
Repairs found once you were up there need their own lines and, ideally, a photograph. This is the trade where “while I was up there” is most true and least believed, and a picture attached to the job is what settles it.
Distinguish a repair from a guaranteed repair. A patch that will last a winter and a section rebuilt with a ten-year guarantee are different products at different prices, and the invoice is where that distinction is recorded.
Emergency call-outs in weather should say the weather. “Storm call-out, tarpaulin fitted” explains the hour and the price in three words.
Say whose ladder and whose insurance. Working at height is the part of this trade a customer’s own insurer cares about, and an invoice from someone with public liability cover, stated once, is worth more to a homeowner than a cheaper one without it.
Photograph and describe what you found, not only what you did. Roofing is inspected from the ground by everyone who pays for it, and ’three cracked tiles above the valley’ turns an invisible repair into a specific one. Where you advised further work and the customer declined, write that down too.
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.