When I hear the word “invoice,” my gut reaction is anxiety. The bold, usually all-caps document title means I’m about to have to pay someone for something that already happened. It feels kind of like getting hustled by a time traveler.
But for those who are on the fruitful end of the billing table, an invoice is how you get paid for your products or work. To the uninitiated, it can sound like a complicated, legally binding contract, but in reality, it’s an easily customizable, simple document that clearly outlines what your client or customer needs to pay you, what they’re paying for, and when you need to be paid.
Below is a step-by-step guide on how to make an invoice. I’ll also share tips on when to send invoices, how to make them easier to write, and, to cover all your bases, we’ve designed a dozen simple invoice templates you can download and edit to fit your exact billing needs.
How to create an invoice
There are three main ways you can go about creating an invoice:
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Start from scratch: Open a blank Google Doc (or Word doc, if you prefer), and use simple tables, lines, and sections to create your very own invoice layout. Doing this yourself means you have total control over the design and format.
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Use an editable template: If you’re not quite ready to wrestle with margins and line spacing, or if you just want to save time, grab one of our free invoice templates below. Once you open it, you can easily swap in your details and add your branding.
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Leverage invoice software: If you’re looking for an even faster, more automated option, invoicing software can handle it all.
Whether you start from scratch, lean on a pre-made design, or let an app do the work, the nuts and bolts of invoicing remain the same—and that’s what we’ll cover next.
1. Set up formatting
The first step in making any invoice is to set up how it will look:
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Set margins and orientation. Generally, it’s best to keep at least a 1-inch margin all around.
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Choose a simple, easy-to-read font—something like Helvetica, Arial, or Times New Roman. If you have a distinctive brand font, use that, but only if it’s legible.
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Use a simple color palette that matches your business’s look. You can also include a logo if you want, but it’s not necessary.
Set up your invoice so that by the time you’re filling out the details, you’re not left fussing with spacing and alignment. The easier your layout, the quicker you’ll be able to send future invoices.
2. Add your business information
Make sure your invoice includes your full business name—or your name if you’re a contractor. Add your contact information, including your address, email address, and phone number. Include these details for your and your client’s accounting and legal documentation.
Don’t forget that if you’re in a region that requires special info—like a tax ID number (in the U.S.), a VAT ID (in Europe), or a GST/HST number (in Canada)—you’ll want to include that here as well.
3. Enter your client’s information
Enter your client’s name and contact information here. Include as much contact information as you have, and don’t be afraid to ask your client if you need more details. If you’re billing a specific person at a company, you can list the business name, then the person’s name.
4. Add an invoice number and date
Each of your invoices should include the date and a unique identifying number for easier tracking.
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Invoice number: This doesn’t have to be anything profound if you have a simple billing system. For example, you might use the date of the invoice bill and the order of the invoices you send that day. The first invoice sent on 9/6/2025 would have the number “09062501,” and the second would have “09062502.” Find a numbering system that works for you.
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Invoice date: This is the date that you send the invoice. (Keep this in mind especially when you create invoices in advance.)
This helps you track your invoices and makes you look organized, even if your filing cabinet is just a dusty shoebox under your desk.
5. Specify a payment due date
Here’s where you list when your client’s payment is due. Payment terms vary among industries, but here are some common ones:
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Net 30: Payment due 30 days from the invoice date
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Net 60: Payment due 60 days from invoice date
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EOM: End of month, meaning payment is due by the last day of the invoice’s month
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On receipt: Buyer should pay the invoice as soon as they receive it (that Top Ramen isn’t going to buy itself)
If you aren’t sure what payment terms to use for your invoice, ask a fellow freelancer or business owner in your industry. Still building connections? Join an online community for your profession and ask around.
6. List products and services provided (line items)
In this section, you describe and quantify the products and services you’re billing for. If you deal in services, there’s some leeway in how you create line items. You could make one for each project, project component, or add-on service.
Each line item on the template includes these sections:
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Item: A quick description of the product or service you’re billing for
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Quantity: The number of that item you provided (or hours, if it’s time-based)
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Price per unit: The price per individual item
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Amount: The total amount per item, calculated by multiplying price per unit by quantity
7. Calculate the total amount due
Here’s where you add up all your line items, taxes, and any discounts or additional fees. Here’s a typical structure:
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Subtotal: This is the total of all line items before taxes, discounts, or fees.
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Taxes: If applicable, add sales tax, VAT, GST, or any other relevant taxes. Indicate the tax rate (for example, 10%, 7.5%, etc.) and the exact dollar amount.
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Discounts: If you offered a discount, note it here and subtract that amount.
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Additional fees: If there’s a shipping fee or any other surcharge, add it here.
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Grand total: This is the final amount your client owes.
It sounds like a lot, but if you set up a small table, you can easily keep track. Be sure to double-check your math—nothing undermines your professionalism quite like asking for $10,000 when you meant $1,000.
8. Outline your terms and conditions
This is your chance to set expectations and cover your bases, legally speaking. Examples of terms and conditions include:
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Payment terms, including net 30/60/90, EOM, payment on receipt, and payment in advance
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Terms of sale, such as who covers taxes and duties
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Warranty terms
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Return policy
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Late payment fees
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Discounts for early payment
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Accepted payment methods
When do you need to send an invoice?
You might think the answer is “whenever I want money,” but it’s slightly more complicated than that. Generally, you should send an invoice:
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After completing a billable project (which comes after completing a sales order)
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At regular intervals for ongoing work (monthly, bi-weekly, etc.)
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When your client starts avoiding eye contact in meetings
Tips for how to write invoices that work
Once you finish filling out your template, there’s more you can do to ensure a smooth invoicing process. Here’s how to do an invoice in a way that raises your chance of getting paid on time:
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Get on the same page: Outline your preferred payment terms with your client at the beginning of your working relationship. Include them in your contract or statement of work.
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Stay organized: Designate a digital or real-life folder (or the aforementioned shoebox) for invoices with sub-folders for each client. Within each folder, organize your invoices by invoice number or date.
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Decide how you’ll take payment: Talk to your client about payment methods that will work best for both of you. The easier you make it for clients to pay you, the more likely they are to actually do it. Payment services like PayPal and card payments often have extra fees for the seller. Meanwhile, electronic bank payments don’t charge the seller, but they take extra work on the client’s end.
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Use in the right format: PDF is usually the agreed-upon format for online invoicing. In Google Docs, go to File > Download > PDF Document (.pdf) to download your invoice as a PDF.
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Follow up: Don’t be afraid to follow up with a client if they don’t pay within your agreed-upon payment period. You aren’t being pushy for asking for the money you’re owed.
12 free invoice templates
Not every industry handles payments the same, so my team and I made a dozen template options you can access on Google Docs to help you set just the right foundation for requesting payment.
The first template below should work great for just about any industry and product or service type, and you’ll notice many of these templates have only slight variations on it. Remember, each of these is completely customizable, so if your use case isn’t represented below, you can pick the template that comes closest and then tailor it to your needs.
1. Standard business invoice template
This is a standard invoice for small businesses and freelancers, meaning you use it when you want to get paid for your goods and services. It works well for general invoicing, but not so much for a specialized invoice like a credit or debit invoice.
2. Proforma invoice template
A proforma invoice is an invoice for goods or services that the client needs to pay before you deliver. This is very similar to the standard invoice, but it’s important for proforma invoices to be marked as such and to include the estimated delivery date—both of which have been added here. It’s also a good idea to include estimates about timelines.
3. Hourly rate invoice template
This variation on the standard invoice is structured for charging hourly rates rather than product quantities. Hourly rate invoices can be used the same way standard invoices are, except you’ll enter hours and price per hour instead of quantity and price per unit.
4. Credit invoice template
Usually, you use an invoice to request funds from a client. But if you owe your client money for any reason, you may find yourself using an invoice to pay your customer. A credit invoice (or credit note) is a way to communicate returns to a client due to things like previous payment overages, rebates, accidental charges, or refunds.
5. Debit invoice template
You’ll need to use a debit invoice (or debit note) if you have to bump up the amount your client owes you for an existing (but otherwise unchanged) order. This allows you to maintain a paper trail of charges if the scope of the project grows, your rates increase, there was an error in your original invoice, or your estimate proves to be too low.
6. Mixed invoice template
Sometimes, updating invoiced fees isn’t as easy as adding or subtracting. When you’ve got to amend your original invoice with both positive and negative adjustments, you need a mixed invoice. Think of it like a combination of credit and debit invoices.
7. Shipping invoice template
If you deal in physical goods that need to be shipped to your customers, it’s a good idea to have a separate “ship to” section for your customers in case this address is different from their billing address.
8. Past due invoice template
Unfortunately, even perfectly executed invoices don’t always lead to on-time payments. This past due invoice is a variation on the standard invoice but includes a bold “past due” notice. To mark a specific invoice type as past due, you can combine this with any of our other templates by copying the notice text and pasting it into another template doc.
9. Timesheet invoice template
Similar to an hourly rate invoice, a timesheet invoice is used to request payment based on time rather than quantity. The difference is, timesheet invoices also document time delegation with clock-in/clock-out fields. This invoice type gives the client a greater amount of transparency to see how the work they’re paying for breaks down.
10. Freelancer/contractor invoice template
Though many of these templates will be useful for freelancers and contractors, this dedicated invoice template is ideal for those who need to request payment on multiple one-off projects within a single invoice. Rather than breaking line items into specific hourly rates or quantities, this simple invoice allows you to list individual tasks or projects as their own billable items.
11. Project-based invoice template
For some projects, it can be useful to itemize specific tasks that fall under a single project umbrella. This can be useful for adding a layer of transparency around billing for complex projects that contain multiple tasks and deadlines.
12. Commercial invoice template
In the realm of invoices, commercial invoices are completely different animals. These are used for international shipping, so they call for a lot more information than any other invoice in this article because they deal with the intricacies of customs, import taxes, and foreign currency exchange. Our template was adapted from the International Trade Administration.
How to automate invoicing
Want to make receiving client payments even easier? Just automate your invoicing process. If you find yourself creating a lot of invoices from a Google Docs invoice template (like the 12 in this article), you can use Zapier to supercharge them. Try autopopulating a Google Doc template, or use a single template to automatically create new documents.
And when it’s time to use a purpose-built invoicing app (there are free options, too), you can do even more to automate your invoicing workflows, so you spend less time on invoices and more time doing the work that gets you paid. With Zapier, you can connect your invoicing apps to all the other apps you use, so you can do things like automatically create and log invoices, add contacts to your invoicing tool, and get payday notifications.
Learn more about how to automate your invoicing, or try one of these pre-made workflows, and build a system that gives you time back for more strategic work.
Zapier is the leader in workflow automation—integrating with thousands of apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Use interfaces, data tables, and logic to build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization’s technology stack. Learn more.
Invoice creation FAQ
Here are answers to popular questions about invoices that you might be too embarrassed to type into Google.
How do I create my own invoice?
The easiest way to create an invoice is to use a template or invoicing software—unless you particularly enjoy reinventing the wheel. And if that’s the case:
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Start with a blank Google Doc or Word document.
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Enter your name or business name and contact information on the top left, then add your company logo if you have one on the top right.
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Add your buyer’s name and contact information. To the right of this, add the invoice number, invoice data, and payment due date.
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Add a table with enough rows for each line item you’re billing for, and columns labeled Item, Quantity, Price per unit, and Amount.
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Below the table justified to the right, add fields for subtotal, tax, fees, discounts, and total.
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Finally, add applicable terms and conditions below that.
How can I get a free invoice template?
You can get a free invoice template by using any of the 12 options on this very page. You’re welcome. You should also be able to access a variety of template options built into Microsoft and Google Workspace.
Does Excel have invoice templates?
Microsoft has several generic invoice templates you can load into Excel, assuming you can navigate Excel without accidentally creating a pivot table. They’re especially useful if you enjoy the satisfaction of cells automatically calculating totals (which is more thrilling than it probably should be).
How do you write a simple invoice?
The key to writing a simple invoice is to include only what’s necessary:
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Who you are
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Who they are
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What you did
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How much it costs
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When you want to be paid
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How you want to be paid
Keep it simple, clear, and professional—no need to write a novel about why they should pay you. (Save that for the follow-up email.)
Related reading:
This article was originally published in April 2022 by Melissa King. The most recent update, with contributions from Allisa Boulette, was in January 2025.