Most invoicing advice is written for people at a desk. This is written for the other situation — you finished at 4:40, you're in the truck, and the invoice is now competing with dinner. Here's how to stop losing money to that gap.
This is the whole game. An invoice sent the same day gets paid faster than an identical invoice sent nine days later, for a reason that has nothing to do with accounting: the client still remembers the work. They saw you there. The job feels current, the price feels connected to something real, and approving it takes no thought.
Wait a week and it becomes an abstract number arriving in an inbox. Now they have to reconstruct what it was for. That's when invoices get "checked later."
Same-day is also the only way to beat the real enemy, which isn't late payment — it's the invoice you never sent at all because Sunday came and you'd lost the details.
| Job type | Bill |
|---|---|
| Small job, one visit | On completion, same day |
| Multi-day job | Deposit up front, balance on completion |
| Long project | Progress invoices at agreed stages |
| Ongoing / repeat client | Fixed day each month, every month |
The thing that costs money isn't picking the wrong one. It's not picking at all, then improvising after the work is done, when you have the least leverage you will ever have.
Nearly every contractor under-bills the same handful of items, not out of generosity but because they aren't visible on the timesheet:
Take a deposit on anything with materials in it. If you're fronting $2,000 in materials, you're financing the client's project with your own money. A deposit isn't distrust, it's how the trade works — and asking for it at quote time is easy, while asking after you've bought the materials is not.
Your invoice is going to be read by a homeowner, an office manager, or a property manager who has never seen the job. They can't approve what they can't picture.
Don't write: Labour and materials — $1,240.
Write: Replaced failed sump pump, tested discharge line, sealed pit lid. Pump and fittings $410. Labour 5.5 hrs @ $150.
Same money, no phone call, no delay.
Set a due date and then act on it, because nothing teaches a client your terms are real like following them.
Almost every late payment is admin, not refusal. Being prompt and unbothered gets you paid faster than being apologetic, and much faster than being angry.
Invoice numbers should run in sequence and never repeat. If you void one, keep the record — a gap in the numbering is the kind of thing that turns a five-minute conversation with an accountant into an afternoon.
Invoice before you leave the driveway.
Stack Billing is built for the truck, not the desk. Say what you did, review the draft, send a link your client opens on their phone. No forms, no laptop. Free while we're in beta.
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