When running a business, it’s good to know how to create an invoice for different industries, and let’s specifically take a look at how to create an invoice for services rendered.
Service invoices and business types
A service invoice is most often used with professional and nonprofessional services, legal, medical, accounting, freelance work, consulting, cleaning, babysitting, gardening, pet care, and any other similar service. A service invoice works best for this type of work, and the format for a service invoice is often quite simple, and if you run a small business that does require creating many invoices, you won’t necessarily need any special kind of software to complete and send these invoices. However, using a software like Yes Invoice could make invoicing more efficient and reliable.
Formatting and adding contents to a service invoice
Formatting for a service invoice starts at the top of the document, where you should place the name, address, phone number, email address, and fax number for the client. If you are sending the invoice via email or electronically in another form and do not have the client’s physical street address, it is okay to simply put the email address and phone number, or whatever information you do have.
The header is also where you should put your business name, or your own name if you’re working for yourself, in a large professional font. This way, the client will know exactly who the invoice is from. This is also where the billing date and the unique invoice number is placed. If you want to, you can put the billing period here (if that is how you operate your business).
At the bottom of a service invoice is usually a comments box, where the service provider can enter payment terms, any additional notes, and there is also a place for the service provider to sign and write the date at the bottom of the document.
List of services and totals
The bulk of a service invoice is the middle portion of the document, which will be the itemized list of services that were completed. This is the area of the invoice where it is important to be specific and use the space to describe, in detail, the work that was completed, so there are no questions about this portion of the document.
Each area of service should have its own line, and each line item should have the date it was completed, along with the hours it took and the amount of money that is owed for each line item. If the service is calculated by the hour, put the service, then the number of hours it took to complete, the hourly rate, and then calculate the rate and the hours to get the amount owed for that line item.
At the bottom of the itemized list, calculate the subtotal amount owed from the line items. Then, add a line for any other fees, or taxes, and calculate a final total amount owed. If you want, you can highlight or bold the complete total, so it stands out from the rest of the numbers.
A few important things to remember when creating your service invoice is that you want the layout and formatting to be completely clear and understandable for the client to read and complete. Be sure to go back and double check all of the numbers in your invoice. With service invoices, it’s very easy for people to think they’ve been overcharged, so be sure all of the math is correct and makes sense.