Free Business Invoice Template

Setting up a business is stressful, and one of the things that can be difficult is getting paid for your hard work.

Here at Roqqett, we understand this and want to help you get started by giving you this easy-to-use template that you can use to invoice your customers.

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What is an Invoice?

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An invoice is simply a statement of the items or services you are selling and the cost. In short, it's everything you expect your client to pay your business for. It is the start of the process for you to be paid for your services. So you must remember a few little things such as VAT or any payment terms that you have agreed on in advance.

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What is VAT?

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VAT stands for Value Added Tax. VAT is an indirect tax that imposes a certain percentage on the value of goods and services sold by businesses in the UK. The goal is to increase customers' spending power whilst financing public projects and benefits. It's only chargeable if your business makes over a certain amount of money and your business needs to register with HMRC.

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What are payment terms?

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Payment terms are when you expect to be paid. Here in the UK, most larger businesses will expect 30-day terms, in that they will pay 30 days after the invoice is issued. You must make the right call for your business when considering terms. Other options are 14 days or 7 days, or even upon completion/when the invoice is issued.

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What must an invoice legally contain?

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An invoice should contain the following:

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‍A unique number for identification purposes is often an invoice number, although it doesn't need to be.

‍The date of issue or the first time you issued the invoice and intended for payment. For example, "Invoice 1234/01/09". This will help businesses identify when they need to pay you.

All necessary information about your products or services, including descriptions, quantities sold (if relevant), prices charged for those items, any discounts taken off them and how they were calculated.

Plus, it is beneficial to tell your customers the best way for them to pay you.

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How do you receive payments?

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I wish I could tell you that all of your customers will be great at paying you, and they will all send your money straight into your business account exactly on the 1st of the following month.

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I wish I could tell you, but I cannot. It makes sense then to ensure your customers have all of your details clearly set out to them and to hand, i.e. at the bottom of their invoice. Simply putting your business account number and branch sort code onto the bottom of the invoice gives them a great start. We obviously want you to also include your Roqqett for Business payment link as well.

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How to use this free Excel template

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An invoice is also a touchpoint for your customers, so we want it to look smart and create a professional impression.

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Click on the "Free Excel Invoice template.xls" and save it to your desktop. That will keep it to hand for every time you need it. Perhaps now is a good time to rename the file to something that reflects your business. To do that, right-click and select "rename".

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Let's add your company logo now. There are two ways we can do this:

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If you like the very cute round placeholder, you can add your logo to that shape. Select the blue logo shape. You will see it in the Navigation bar in a new section called "Shape Format". Then select Shape Fill and the drop-down arrow next to it. If you click on that, you will see an option to use a picture as the fill of the shape. Select your logo file as fill colour, and it will be formatted into a round shape.

Less fun, but maybe more appropriate for your brand. Click on the blue logo placeholder, then press delete or backspace. This will remove it from the template. Then by going to the top navigation, clicking insert and selecting a photo from a file, you can add your company logo. You can then make sure it is in the right place and is the right size.

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I am not going to go through this entire Free Invoice Template, cell by cell to show you how to add your business details into the rest of the spreadsheet. Simply click on the cell where it says for example, "Your Company Name" and type in your company name.

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I do want to highlight a few things. Make up an invoice number and a client number. Number 1 is a great place to start and stops causing you confusion. Client reference will be a general term for the work you are completing or if your client has sent you a purchase order this is where to add it.

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The date will automatically take today's date and will update if you open this sheet tomorrow. The Due date is set to a 30-day payment term. If you would like to change that to something more reflecting your business terms simply click on the date underneath "Due Date". In the top function bar, you will see a really simple Excel formula. It will say "=TODAY()+30" Which means to display a date 30 days from today. You can click on that formula bar and change that 30 to any number that suits your business such as 7, 14, 60 or even 90 days.

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