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Site & safety46 of 46

Risk assessments, method statements, SWMS and job hazard analyses, for the UK, US, Australia and Canada. Finished documents, no empty boxes left for you.

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Structure & materials35 of 35

Steel, timber, concrete, brickwork, boards, groundworks and roofs. Section data, indicative sizing, quantities and the reference tables you normally go hunting for.

All 35 ›
Home & property32 of 32

See what it would look like before you commit, then work out what it takes. Upload a photo of your own wall, drive or house and try things on it.

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Invoices & docs20 of 20

Invoices, quotes, receipts and the rest of the paperwork, generated properly. No account, no watermark, and Download is the only button.

All 20 ›
Money & tax39 of 39

Wages, mortgages, tax and the everyday sums. What you actually take home, what it actually costs, and what you actually owe.

All 39 ›
People & hours46 of 46

Rotas, rosters and schedules, holiday and PTO, timesheets and staff paperwork. The admin that eats a Sunday evening, done in ten minutes.

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Business & marketing50 of 50

Starting up, getting found and keeping the admin straight. Everything downloadable, nothing paywalled at the last step.

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PDF & documents27 of 27

Merge, split, crop, sign, number and compress. Everything runs in your browser, so the contract you open here never reaches a server.

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Image tools24 of 24

Convert, resize, compress, crop and adjust. All of it on your own machine, with no upload, no account and no watermark on anything.

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Text & dates20 of 20

Word counts, case, days between dates, working days and ages. The ten-second look-ups, with no account and nothing stored.

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Random & party27 of 27

Secret Santa, draws, brackets, sweepstakes, printables and party quantities. The bit that is just for fun, done properly.

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Training & tests21 of 21

Practice tests for the cards and licences that decide whether you can work. Every answer cites the guidance it came from, not a forum.

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20 free tools. No sign up.

Invoices & docs

Invoices, quotes, receipts and the rest of the paperwork, generated properly. No account, no watermark, and Download is the only button.

Show tools for

A tool that works anywhere counts under every country, which is why these add to more than 20. A badge on a tile means it is built for specific markets.

Billing documents

7

Invoices, receipts, credit notes, statements and remittance advice.

Invoice generatorA proper invoice, downloaded straight away. Download is the only button.Receipt generatorIssue a receipt for a payment your business has received.Purchase orderRaise a numbered PO for a supplier and send it as a PDF.Delivery noteWhat went out, when, and who signed for it.Credit noteCorrect or cancel an invoice you have already sent, properly referenced.Remittance adviceTell a supplier exactly which invoices your payment covers.Statement of accountEvery outstanding invoice on one page with the ageing.

Quotes & pricing

5

Quotes, estimates, day rates, markup and break-even.

Quote generatorA professional quote with a validity date, before you ever raise an invoice.Estimate generatorA ballpark written so it cannot be read as a fixed price.Day rate calculatorYou are not selling 261 days, you are selling about 190.Markup vs marginThe one everybody gets backwards, and what a discount really costs.Break-even calculatorFive times your overheads, not one times, and here is why.

CIS & construction

5

CIS statements and returns, reverse charge, payment notices and retention.

CIS monthly runUKEvery statement and the return figures in one go, on the right tax month.CIS deduction calculatorUKLabour, materials, plant and fuel split properly, with the two traps shown.Reverse charge invoiceUKWhether it applies, and wording that satisfies HMRC.Payment notice datesUKEvery deadline off one valuation date, and what missing one costs.Retention trackerUKWhat is held, and the second half that quietly never comes back.

Getting paid

3

Due dates, statutory late payment interest and what you are actually owed.

Late payment interestWhat you are actually owed, and why your own clause may be void.Invoice due dateNet 30 and Net 30 EOM are a month apart, and both get called thirty day terms.Number to wordsFor a cheque or a contract, in British or American usage.

Guides and explainers

2

Written answers rather than tools, for the questions the calculators above do not settle. No sign up on these either.

Read 2

Download is the only button

Every free invoice generator claims free and no signup. Go to the biggest one and you will find two buttons: Save and Send, which needs an account, sitting directly above Download, which does not. Most people press the first one, hit a wall, and reasonably conclude they were lied to.

The claim was technically true and practically false, and the entire difference was which button came first. Everything in this section has one button. It says Download and it produces the PDF.

The reverse charge, which is where construction invoices go wrong

This one is British, and there is no equivalent anywhere else on this list, which is worth saying before you read four paragraphs that may not apply to you. If you are a subcontractor doing construction work for a VAT registered contractor who is not the end user, you almost certainly should not be charging VAT at all. Under the domestic reverse charge that came in during March 2021, the customer accounts for the VAT instead of you, and your invoice has to say so.

Getting it wrong costs you either way. Charge VAT you should not have and the customer’s accountant bounces the invoice and you wait another month. Leave the wording off and it comes back for the same reason.

It is not a judgement call, it is a checklist. It applies when every line on the left is true, and it does not apply the moment any line on the right is:

Reverse charge applies when all of these holdIt does not apply if any of these do
The work is within CIS scopeThe customer is an end user and has told you so in writing
Both of you are VAT registeredThe customer is not VAT registered
The payment is reported under CISThe supply is zero rated, new build housing being the common one
The rate is standard or reducedYou are an employment business supplying staff rather than construction services

The end user declaration is the one to keep. It is the customer’s job to tell you they are the end user, in writing, and if they have not then the default is that the reverse charge applies. Filing that statement is what defends the decision later.

Tick the reverse charge option and the VAT line is removed, the net becomes the amount due, and the wording HMRC requires is added for you. You cannot forget it because you never type it.

Every document around the invoice, not just the invoice

Seven documents, and each one does a different job:

  • A quote comes before the work.
  • An estimate is not a quote, and should never be worded like one.
  • A purchase order goes to your supplier.
  • A delivery note gets signed at the tailgate.
  • A credit note fixes what you already sent.
  • A remittance advice tells a supplier what your payment covers.
  • A statement chases everything outstanding on one page.

They are all the same document underneath, so they all behave the same way and they all carry your branding. An estimate here is worded so it cannot be read as a fixed price, which is one of the most common ways small firms lose money on paperwork.

Four markets, four ways to make somebody pay you

Late payment interest applies to any commercial invoice. Construction gets a second regime on top, and all four of these markets have built one. They were legislated separately, decades apart, and they have arrived at nearly the same shape: you claim, they respond, somebody who is not a judge decides quickly, and you get to stop work. What differs is the machinery, and it differs enough that experience of one is actively misleading in another.

The mechanism, market by market:

WhereWhat you useHow fastThe leverage
United KingdomAdjudication under Part II of the Construction Act 1996Decision within 28 days of referralRight to suspend performance
AustraliaA payment claim, answered by a payment schedule, under the state Security of Payment ActsAdjudicator decides in 10 business daysSuspend, and recover the amount as a debt
CanadaFederal Prompt Payment for Construction Work Act, plus provincial regimes28 days to pay a proper invoice, then 7 days down each tierSuspend, and file the determination in court
United StatesNo adjudication. A mechanics lien against the property itselfFiling windows are set state by stateThe owner cannot sell or refinance cleanly

Canada designates provinces once their own regime is fully in force: Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta are designated. Australia legislates state by state, so the deadlines move when you cross a border.

The American row is the one that surprises people from the other three. There is no fast tribunal to go to, so the pressure is not applied to the person who owes you at all: it is attached to the building, and it is the owner who discovers the problem when they try to sell or borrow against it. That makes the American timetable a filing deadline rather than a claim deadline, and missing it removes the only real leverage there is.

Getting paid, not just invoiced

Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts legislation you can charge statutory interest at eight per cent above base on a commercial invoice paid late, plus a fixed compensation sum depending on the size of the debt. It applies whether or not it is in your terms, because it is statutory. Almost nobody claims it, and simply mentioning it in your terms changes how quickly you get paid.

Commonly asked questions & answers

What has to be on an invoice?

Four different answers, and they are not variations on one rule. Britain has a defined VAT invoice with a set list, and a non-registered business issues a plainer document with no VAT on it at all. Australia wants a tax invoice carrying seven specific details, and more of them once the sale passes $1,000. Canada changes what is required at two thresholds, so a small sale, a middling one and a large one need different amounts of information. America has no federal invoice requirement at all. So an invoice that is perfectly correct in one market can be unusable to the person receiving it in another.

Sources: Invoicing and taking payment, gov.ukTax invoices, ATOInput tax credits, CRA

Do I have to be VAT registered to send an invoice?UK

No, and the more useful half of that answer is the reverse: if you are not registered you must not charge VAT, must not show a VAT amount, and must not put a VAT number on the document. An invoice from an unregistered business is a perfectly valid invoice, it simply has no tax line. What catches people is adding twenty per cent because it looks more professional, which is charging a tax you cannot remit and are not entitled to collect.

Source: VAT invoices, gov.uk

What makes it a tax invoice in Australia?AU

Seven things, and the ATO lists them for a taxable sale under $1,000: that the document is intended to be a tax invoice, the seller identity, the seller ABN, the date issued, a brief description including quantity and price, the GST amount, and the extent to which each sale is taxable. Where GST is exactly one eleventh of the total you can write "Total price includes GST" instead of a separate figure. Above $1,000 the buyer identity is needed too. And a rule almost nobody knows: if a customer asks for a tax invoice, you have 28 days to provide one.

Source: Tax invoices, ATO

Does America have a legal invoice format?US

No, and that surprises people arriving from a market that does. There is no federal requirement setting out what an American invoice must contain, because there is no federal sales tax to hang one on. Sales tax is set and collected by states, and it is normally charged at the point of sale to a consumer rather than itemised on a business to business invoice. So what governs an American invoice is your contract and what your customer accounts department will accept, which in practice means a purchase order number matters far more than any statutory field.

Why does Canada change the rules at $100 and $500?CA

Because the information your customer needs depends on how much they are reclaiming. Canada sets three tiers, and the CRA table names them exactly: under $100, $100 to $499.99, and $500 or more. Every tier needs the supplier name, the date and the total, plus an indication of the GST or HST. The larger ones add more, including the buyer name at the top tier. The reason is input tax credits: your invoice is the evidence your customer files, so a thin invoice on a large sale costs THEM rather than you, which is how you end up being asked to reissue it.

Source: Input tax credits, CRA

Does my invoice number have to be sequential?UK

On a VAT invoice yes: it needs a number that is unique and sequential, and that is a stated requirement rather than a convention. Sequential does not mean it has to start at one or be only digits. A prefix per customer or per year is fine as long as the sequence within it does not repeat and does not skip without explanation. Where people come unstuck is starting again at 001 every January, or deleting a cancelled invoice instead of crediting it, both of which leave a gap somebody will eventually ask about.

Source: VAT invoices, gov.uk

When does an invoice legally become overdue?UK

If you agreed terms, when those terms say. If you agreed nothing, the default is 30 days, running from the later of the work being done or the invoice arriving, and after that you are entitled to statutory interest and a fixed compensation sum on top. Two things people get wrong. You can agree longer than 30 days commercially, but terms that are grossly unfair to the supplier can be challenged. And the entitlement to interest is automatic rather than something you have to have warned about in advance, so not mentioning it on the invoice does not lose it.

Source: Late commercial payments, gov.uk

Is a receipt the same as an invoice?

No, and they point in opposite directions. An invoice requests payment and creates a debt. A receipt confirms payment and discharges one. Sending an invoice for money you have already taken is the commonest version of this mistake, and it reads to a bookkeeper as a second charge rather than a record of the first. If somebody has paid you on the spot, they want a receipt. If they are going to pay you later, they want an invoice, and they will want a receipt afterwards too if they are claiming anything back.

Can I invoice as a sole trader with no company?

Yes, and there is nothing second class about it. You invoice in your own name, or a trading name with your own name alongside it, plus an address where documents can reach you. What you do not have, and must not invent, is a company registration number: that belongs to a registered company and putting one on a document that is not from one is a misrepresentation rather than a formatting choice. The same applies to a tax registration number in every market here. If you are not registered, the field is simply absent.

How long do I have to keep a copy?

Longer than most people expect, and the period is not the same in the four markets, which is why the record retention tool on this site asks which one you are in rather than printing a single number. The thing worth knowing is that the clock usually starts at the end of the accounting period rather than at the invoice date, so an invoice raised early in a year is kept longer than its date suggests. And a digital copy counts everywhere here: nobody requires the paper, only that the copy is complete, legible and produced on request.