As a freelancer or small business owner, you will most likely send and receive invoices. But what does an invoice look like?

Most invoices follow a standard template. 

What Does an Invoice Look Like: The Elements You Can Customize

While most invoices follow a standard template, there’s a degree to which you can customize the look of your invoice. 

Details you can customize include:

And, of course, you should update and populate the other standard fields, which we’ll walk you through in the next section.

What Does an Invoice Look Like: Standard Fields

Below you’ll see a standard invoice layout. We’ve broken out each component so you can understand the parts. 

1. Your Own Business Information

This is your contact information. You should include:

  • Your name 
  • Your business name
  • Your business mailing address
  • Telephone number / email

If you’re expecting to get paid by check in the mail, make sure you have a complete and accurate mailing address. 

Read more about the different ways to send an invoice (and receive payment) here.

2. Optional: Your Business Logo

A business logo is not a must-have element of an invoice. But if you have one, it’s good to add it to your invoice. It helps it stand out and look more professional.

As you can see in our example above, it helps take the invoice to the next level.

3. Your Customer or Client’s Contact Information

This is who the invoice is for. Generally include:

  • A contact name
  • A business name
  • An address

Because more invoices are sent online these days, writing out the complete mailing address of your client is less and less important. A contact and business name may suffice.

4. The Invoice Date

The invoice date is generally the date on which you create the invoice — exactly the way you would date a letter.

5. The Invoice Due Date

An invoice number is a unique, sequential code that is applied to each individual invoice you send or receive. An invoice number is an essential component of every invoice you send. It helps:

  • Identify and track invoices sent
  • Log invoices that have been paid
  • Stay on top of invoices that have payment outstanding
  • Keep your business financials organized
  • Help you prepare for tax time

Learn more about what is an invoice number here.

6. An Invoice Number

An invoice number is a unique, sequential code that is applied to each individual invoice you send or receive. An invoice number is an essential component of every invoice you send. It helps:

  • Identify and track invoices sent
  • Log invoices that have been paid
  • Stay on top of invoices that have payment outstanding
  • Keep your business financials organized
  • Help you prepare for tax time

Learn more about what is an invoice number here.

7. A List of the Invoice Items

This is the details area of your invoice. Here you outline the goods and services you provided — one line for each good or service. You input:

  1. A description of the services
  2. The rate for the services
  3. The quantity you sold / provided
  4. A line total for each line
  5. Each line will add up to a sub-total
  6. Then you add taxes, if applicable, or subtract discounts or earlier payments (deposits or instalments)

8. The Invoice Amount

The invoice amount is the total dollar amount of a particular invoice. This is the amount your customer or client owes you. The invoice amount varies invoice-to-invoice.

You’ll note on our invoice it appears in two places. This is so the recipient can see at-a-glance how much is owed.

Read more about what is an invoice amount here.

H3: 9. Your Invoice Payment Terms

The payment terms let your client know:

  • WHEN that payment is due
  • HOW you want to be paid
  • If there are PENALTIES for late payments
  • Any other TERMS

For such important pieces of information, these payment terms are usually really concise. Some people just use and acronym like EOM, others a single sentence. In our case, “Net 30” means the invoice payment is due within 30 days.

Learn everything you need to know about your invoice payment terms here.

How a Professional Template Can Help

An invoice is a pretty straightforward document. However, it’s really easy to waste a lot of time building these from scratch in Word and Excel. And if you’re sending many invoices, it’s a matter of time before you make a mistake.

Even if you use invoice templates, it’s too easy for the following to happen:

  1. You save over a past invoice and lose important tax information
  2. You forget to update a field (like the invoice number) when you create a new invoice
  3. You miscalculate the invoice total or tax amount
  4. Your client notices your mistake and thinks you’re sloppy / unprofessional
  5. You end up waiting for payments because of these pesky mistakes

That’s where a professional invoicing solution can help. With these solutions, many of the fields we’ve just outlined will be automatically updated every time you create a new invoice.

You can even save your services and rates so you can easily assemble an invoice with a series of dropdown menus and options. 

Sounds handy… but is it worth a little expense? Absolutely! After all, your invoice is one of the most important documents in your business. It’s the document that gets you paid. 

Think of it this way: You wouldn’t print your own business cards, right? So why waste time and potentially money making your own invoices from scratch?