Augmented Trades publishes a free contractor invoice template for Excel and Google Sheets. Add your business details and line items; the sheet totals the subtotal, tax, and amount due for you, and exports to PDF. It works for plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, and landscaping work — the line items are open so you label them the way your trade actually bills.
Free download — Contractor Invoice Template (Excel + Google Sheets)
Auto-calculating line items, subtotal, tax, and total due. Add your own branding. No cost.
What every contractor invoice needs
- Your business details — name, address, phone, email, and your license number if your state requires it on billing documents.
- The customer and the job address — these are often different, and on warranty or insurance work the job address is the one that matters.
- A unique invoice number and date — sequential, never reused. This is what you and your bookkeeper reference later.
- Line items with quantity and rate — labor, materials, equipment, and fees broken out so the customer can see what they are paying for.
- Subtotal, tax, and total due — calculated, not typed. Typed math is where invoices get disputed.
- Payment terms — the due date, how to pay, and any late-fee policy.
- The job or PO number — if you are a sub billing a GC, put it at the top. Invoices without it get set aside.
How to make a contractor invoice, fast
Start from a template so the math and layout are already done. Fill in your business information once and save that file as your master. For each job, enter the customer, line items, quantities, and rates, and let the sheet total it. Set a due date and payment terms, export to PDF, and send. For the next job, open the master, bump the invoice number, and repeat.
The reason this beats typing an invoice from scratch is not speed — it is that a template makes you consistent. The same fields, in the same order, every time, which is what makes your invoices easy to approve and easy to chase.
Plumbing invoice template: what to include
Plumbing invoices usually need a service-call or diagnostic fee shown separately from parts and labor, because the customer agreed to that fee before you diagnosed anything. If you bill flat-rate rather than time-and-materials, the line item is the task, not the hours — and the invoice should say which model you are using so there is no argument about it later.
Permit fees on repipes, water-heater replacements, and sewer work belong on their own line, passed through at cost. If the job involved a fixture or water heater with a manufacturer warranty, put the model and serial number on the invoice; the homeowner will need it and you will be the one they call for it.
HVAC invoice template: what to include
HVAC invoices carry more equipment detail than most trades. Put the make, model, and serial number of anything you installed on the invoice — warranty registration depends on it, and so does the next tech who opens that unit. Refrigerant is billed by the pound and should be its own line with the type and quantity, not folded into materials.
If the customer is on a maintenance agreement, show the full price and then the agreement credit as a separate line. Customers who see the discount applied renew; customers who just see a lower number assume that is the price.
Electrical invoice template: what to include
Electricians typically itemize permit and inspection fees separately, at cost, because they are pass-through and customers question them when they are buried. Describe the work by circuit or by panel rather than generically — “install 20A dedicated circuit, kitchen island” tells the customer and the inspector what happened; “electrical work” does not.
On jobs that required an inspection, note the inspection date and result on the invoice. It closes the loop and it is the document the homeowner will look for at resale.
Roofing invoice template: what to include
Roofing bills in squares — one square is 100 square feet — so the quantity column should be squares, not sheets or bundles. Tear-off and disposal are separate from installation, and dumpster or haul-away is its own line. Underlayment, drip edge, ridge vent, and flashing are materials the customer can see on the roof, so itemizing them is worth the extra rows.
If the job is an insurance claim, put the claim number and the carrier on the invoice. The adjuster is the one approving payment, and an invoice that does not reference the claim will sit.
Landscaping invoice template: what to include
Landscaping splits into recurring maintenance and one-time installs, and they invoice differently. Recurring work bills per visit or per month, and the invoice should state which, plus the service dates covered. One-time installs bill by material quantity — mulch by the cubic yard, sod by the pallet or square foot, plants by size and count.
Seasonal work like cleanups and irrigation blowouts should reference the season or date range so the customer can match it against what they booked.
Getting paid faster
Invoice the day the work is finished, not at the end of the month. Use short terms — Net 7 to Net 14 is normal in the trades and long terms mostly train customers to pay late. Take a deposit on anything with real material cost. Make paying easy: if your customer has to find a checkbook, you are waiting an extra week.
Number your invoices sequentially and keep the file. When a customer disputes a charge four months later, the invoice is the only thing that settles it.
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
A template is the right tool while you are invoicing from your truck and your job count is small. It stops being the right tool when you are chasing payments manually, re-entering the same customer for the tenth time, or cannot tell which jobs actually made money.
At that point you are looking at field service or accounting software that handles invoicing, payments, and reporting together — Jobber and QuickBooks are the two most common first steps for small shops, and they solve different halves of the problem. We compare the options by fit and published price in our guide to billing software for contractors and accounting software for contractors.
Invoicing tells you what you charged. It does not tell you what the job cost you. If you want that, use the free job costing template alongside this invoice template — together they show you the margin on every job.
Contractor invoice template: quick answers
Is this contractor invoice template really free?
Yes. Download it above at no cost. It opens in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
Does it work for plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, or landscaping?
Yes — it is one template with open line items rather than five different files. The sections above cover what each trade should put on the invoice; the template gives you the rows to do it.
Excel or Google Sheets?
Either. Open it directly in Excel, or upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. The formulas work in both.
Do I need accounting software to send an invoice?
No. A template is enough to send professional, accurate invoices for as long as you want to keep using it. Software becomes worth paying for when you need invoicing, payment collection, and reporting in one place.
Should I bill flat-rate or time-and-materials?
Both are normal in the trades and the template handles either. What matters is that the invoice makes clear which one you used, because that is what customers dispute.
How do I get paid faster?
Invoice immediately, use short terms, take deposits on jobs with material cost, and make payment easy. Most late payment in the trades is caused by late invoicing.
Bottom line
You do not need to pay for software to send a professional invoice. Start with the free template above, use the section for your trade to decide what belongs on it, and add software when the admin — not the invoice — becomes the bottleneck.
Answer a few quick questions and our free Tool Finder builds you a custom software shortlist — with the reasoning and pricing behind each pick.
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Michael is the founder of Augmented Trades, an independent site that compares AI and software tools for trade contractors on published pricing, contracts, and real feature limits. Tools are recommended on fit for your shop — affiliate partnerships never decide coverage.