Free Invoice Generator

Consulting invoice template

A consultant's invoice usually charges days, then hours, then expenses, and each needs a word of explanation to get through a client's accounts team. Use this template to start one in the invoice generator.

Kind of job
Your invoice

The currency you invoice in. The example beside this changes with it.

Use this template

Opens the invoice generator with these lines and notes, ready to edit. The prices are left for you to fill in: the figures in the example are only an illustration.

GuideHow retainers workHow this works, and where the figures go wrong →

What goes on a consulting invoice

  • The engagement: the contract, statement of work or purchase order the work falls under. Larger clients often pay nothing without their PO number on it.
  • The time: days and hours as separate lines, with dates or a period.
  • Expenses: each on its own line, at cost, with the receipt attached.
  • The usual details: numbers, dates and how to pay, which what to put on an invoice covers.

Say what a day is

A day rate saves counting hours, until the client asks whether a day is seven hours or ten. I'd put the hours a day covers in the line, as the template does with "(8 hours)", and agree in advance what happens to a long day or a half day. If you are setting one, the freelance rate calculator works it out from what you need to earn.

Regular monthly work for one client is often easier as a retainer, which the Monthly retainer version of this template bills in advance. How retainers work covers the rest, and the retainer calculator prices it.

Expenses and VAT

Charging expenses back at cost is normal; the question in the UK is whether to add VAT to them. HMRC's VAT Notice 700, section 25, treats most expenses a consultant incurs, such as travel, as part of the consultant's own service. Its own example is blunt: "The consultant cannot treat the air fare as a disbursement for VAT purposes." So if you are VAT-registered, the rebilled fare usually carries VAT like your fee. A true disbursement, paid on the client's behalf and passed on without VAT, is narrower, and the notice says it is generally only worth it "where no VAT is chargeable on the supply by the third party, or where your client is not entitled to reclaim it as input tax".

Invoices and employment status

  • UK: sending invoices does not settle whether the off-payroll working rules (IR35) apply. That depends on how the work is actually done. GOV.UK's guide to understanding off-payroll working explains who decides and how.
  • US: a business that pays you $2,000 or more for services in a year from 2026 reports it on Form 1099-NEC, according to the IRS instructions. Expect clients to ask for a Form W-9 before your first payment.

Wording you can copy

Clauses for the Notes field or your terms. They are a starting point: change the numbers to your own terms, and keep anything with legal weight in a signed agreement.

  • What a day is

    A day is 8 hours of work, on site or remote. Half days are charged at half the day rate; time beyond 8 hours in a day is charged at the hourly rate.

  • Expenses

    Travel and accommodation agreed in advance are charged at cost, with receipts attached to the invoice.

  • Retainer hours

    Unused retainer hours do not carry over to the next month. Hours beyond the retainer are charged at the agreed hourly rate.

  • Payment reference

    Please use the invoice number as the reference when you pay, so the payment can be matched to this invoice.

Related

Other templates: translation, billed by the word, and photography. For a client in another country, the exchange rate risk calculator shows what the rate can do while you wait to be paid.

Last updated 6 October 2026