Invoice & Receipt Generator

How to use

Choose invoice (a request for payment) or receipt (proof of payment), add your details and a line per item, and the totals update as you type. Tax, discount, shipping, amount already paid, logo, signature and payment terms are all optional. The PDF is built in your browser — no watermark, no sign-up, nothing uploaded — and Save draft keeps a copy in this browser for repeat clients.

What a UK invoice must include

Every UK invoice must show (GOV.UK): a unique identification number; your business name, address and contact details; your customer's name and address; a description of what you're charging for; the date the goods or services were supplied; the invoice date; the amounts charged; VAT if applicable; and the total owed. Sole traders also show their own name (and an address for legal documents if they trade under a business name); limited companies use the full registered company name.

If you and your customer are both VAT-registered you must issue a VAT invoice, which adds your VAT registration number, the time of supply (tax point), the VAT rate and the amount excluding VAT for each line, and the total VAT in sterling (VAT Notice 700, 16.3). You should normally issue it within 30 days of the tax point, and a simplified invoice is only allowed for supplies of £250 or less. Registration itself becomes compulsory once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any rolling 12-month period — not a tax year — or if you expect to pass it in the next 30 days alone.

When a business pays late. If you didn't agree a payment date, the law treats a payment as late 30 days after the customer receives the invoice or you deliver, whichever is later (GOV.UK). Between businesses you can then claim statutory interest of 8% plus the Bank of England base rate, unless your contract sets a different rate — worked out as the amount owed × that rate ÷ 365 for each day late, and billed on a new invoice (GOV.UK). Putting your payment terms on the invoice from the start avoids the argument.

How the totals are calculated

balance due = (subtotal − discount) + tax + shipping − amount paid. Each line is quantity × unit price, rounded to the cent; the discount comes off before tax; shipping is added after tax and isn't taxed. In per-line tax mode the discount is spread across lines in proportion to their amounts, so each line is taxed on what it actually cost.

Worked example

Say you bill a client for 10 hours of design at £50.00 and a one-off £120.00 hosting setup. The two lines come to £500.00 and £120.00, a subtotal of £620.00. Apply a 10% loyalty discount (−£62.00) and the taxable amount is £558.00. At a 20% VAT rate, tax is £111.60, so the total due is £669.60. If the client already paid a £200.00 deposit, enter it as the amount paid and the invoice shows a balance due of £469.60. Switch the document type to Receipt once they settle the rest, keep the same numbers, and you have a matching proof-of-payment PDF.

Tips and common mistakes

• Fill in the supply date. UK invoices need the date of supply as well as the invoice date — put it in the notes if it differs.
• Use per-line VAT for mixed supplies. A VAT invoice shows the rate for each line, so switch on per-line tax when items are standard- and zero-rated.
• Number every invoice sequentially. Gaps or duplicates cause reconciliation headaches at tax time.
• Keep the PDF. Saved drafts live in this browser only — the downloaded PDF is your permanent record.
• The total isn't what you keep. Tax on your profits comes out later— run expected billings through the salary & take-home pay calculator so the bill isn't a surprise.

Because the calculation logic is the same code that renders the PDF, the figures you see on screen always match the downloaded document — there's no separate export path to drift out of sync.