Should I invoice at the end or in stages?

In stages, on anything longer than a few days. Waiting until the end means funding somebody else's bathroom out of your own account for a fortnight, and it puts the whole price in front of them at the moment the house is at its most disrupted. Bill each stage in the words you quoted it in.

How do I invoice the extras a strip-out uncovered?

Each one as its own dated line, raised the week you found it rather than saved for the end. A bathroom hides rot, undersized joists and pipework somebody bodged in 1994, and the customer will accept every one of them while the floor is still open and they can see it. Present the same list at handover and it reads as a bill that grew.

Do my invoice numbers have to be sequential?

They should be unique and consistent. 001, 002, 003 is the easy convention, and it's what makes 'invoice 032' unambiguous on the phone and at tax time. Don't reuse or duplicate numbers; gaps are fine.

When should I send the invoice?

The day the job finishes, from the van ideally. An invoice sent three weeks late quietly tells the customer that paying it late is fine too, and it's the single most fixable cause of slow payment.

Free bathroom fitter invoice template

A free invoice template for bathroom fitters, visible in full below, downloadable as a PDF, no signup asked. It bills a fortnight's work the way it was quoted: stage by stage, in the same words and the same order, with the suite and brassware shown as goods you paid the merchant for before day one.

Free PDF · fills in by hand or in any PDF app · no signup

Tired of retyping templates? SoloDesks builds and sends invoices from your phone on the free plan, in about 60 seconds per invoice.

INVOICE

Your Business Name

Phone · Email

Address

Invoice no.

Date

Due date

Description	Qty	Price
Strip out & dispose of existing suite
First fix: plumbing & waste
Supply & fit suite: bath, basin, WC
Wall & floor tiling, 18m²
Second fix, seal & making good
Add your own lines…

Subtotal

VAT (if registered)

TOTAL

Payment details & terms

What a bathroom fitter's invoice must include

Your business name and contact details (and logo, if you have one)
A unique invoice number, where sequential is fine, gaps are fine, duplicates are not
Invoice date and payment due date
The client's name and the job address
Itemised lines: each piece of work and each material, with its price
The total, and whether VAT (or your local sales tax) is included
How to pay: bank details or a payment link
Payment terms, because "due within 7 days" is a term; silence is a suggestion
Which stage this invoice covers, in the same words and order the quote used
Variations as their own lines, with the date each one was agreed

Tips from the trade

On a fortnight's work, invoice in stages rather than at the end. You shouldn't be funding someone else's bathroom out of your own account for two weeks.
Invoice each stage using the words you quoted it in, in the same order. Then the customer is reading a receipt rather than a fresh negotiation.
Bill the suite and brassware as supplied goods, separate from fitting. You paid the merchant before day one and the invoice should show it.
Put variations on as their own lines, with the date they were agreed. A moved soil pipe is real work, and it's the work most likely to be remembered as included.

Common questions

Should I invoice at the end or in stages?: In stages, on anything longer than a few days. Waiting until the end means funding somebody else's bathroom out of your own account for a fortnight, and it puts the whole price in front of them at the moment the house is at its most disrupted. Bill each stage in the words you quoted it in.
How do I invoice the extras a strip-out uncovered?: Each one as its own dated line, raised the week you found it rather than saved for the end. A bathroom hides rot, undersized joists and pipework somebody bodged in 1994, and the customer will accept every one of them while the floor is still open and they can see it. Present the same list at handover and it reads as a bill that grew.
Do my invoice numbers have to be sequential?: They should be unique and consistent. 001, 002, 003 is the easy convention, and it's what makes 'invoice 032' unambiguous on the phone and at tax time. Don't reuse or duplicate numbers; gaps are fine.
When should I send the invoice?: The day the job finishes, from the van ideally. An invoice sent three weeks late quietly tells the customer that paying it late is fine too, and it's the single most fixable cause of slow payment.

Quoting the job before you bill it? Bathroom Fitter's quote template is the other half of the same paperwork, written for the same trade. Not a bathroom fitter? The blank UK invoice template works for any trade, in Word, Excel, PDF or Google Docs.

The same invoice for other trades

Or never fill in a template again

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