Turn finished decorating jobs into paid invoices fast
Sanding, masking, undercoat, top coat — invoicing rarely gets a look-in until the brushes are washed out. ServiceInvoice takes the job you logged and turns it into a branded, itemised invoice you can fire off from the van before the paint is even dry.
No credit card required to start.
Why painters use ServiceInvoice
Built with sole decorators and small painting crews in mind, who quote per room or per elevation and would rather be on the ladder than at a laptop.
Tins and time kept on separate lines
Trade emulsion, undercoat, fillers, and masking tape sit apart from your day rate or hours — the customer sees exactly what the tins cost versus your time, and your paint margin stays intact.
Price it room by room or start to finish
Quote one feature wall, a full interior repaint, or an exterior split into priced phases, and add an extra coat or a patch repair as a line item the moment it happens on site.
Payment status always visible
Every invoice you send carries its own number and the correct tax automatically, and a running list shows which clients still have an outstanding balance, so nothing gets missed between jobs.
Bill every kind of painting job
Some clients want a day rate, others want a fixed number agreed before you start — ServiceInvoice lays out the invoice to match whichever one you agreed.
- Interior repaints priced room by room
- Exteriors and larger jobs split into phased payments
- Small jobs, like a feature wall or a single door, quoted without a full site visit
- Recurring maintenance contracts for landlords billed after each visit
There is more to running a decorating round than the invoice itself, which is why ServiceInvoice also tracks your client list and job history together. Find out what the business software covers, or see how it compares to carpenter invoicing software.
What belongs on a painting invoice
A painting invoice gets challenged when the customer can only see a total, not why it costs what it does. Splitting the job into these lines shows the prep, the tins, and the time separately, so a room that needed three coats of stain-blocker doesn’t look like the one next door that only needed a wipe-down.
- Prep and surface condition
- Filling, sanding, and masking usually eat more of the job than the rolling itself, but they’re invisible once the topcoat’s dry — put prep on its own line so the customer sees where the time actually went.
- Paint and materials, by brand and finish
- List the paint brand, finish, and quantity used, so a customer who asked for a premium finish can see on the invoice that they got it.
- Coats beyond the original quote
- A dark-to-light colour change or a stain bleeding through often needs an extra coat the quote didn’t cover — agree it with the customer before you open the tin, then bill it as its own line.
- Labour, by room or by the job
- Show hours or a fixed room price separately from materials, so the original quote and the finished invoice always line up.
- VAT and payment terms
- Registered decorators show VAT as its own line; either way, state when payment is due and how you take it.
Log the prep, the paint, and the coats, and ServiceInvoice lays each one out as its own line automatically — the invoice is ready before the brushes are washed out. The same template covers electricians and plumbers.
Pricing traps that eat a painter’s margin
Painting is unusual among the trades because most of the labour is invisible once the job’s finished — nobody can see how much sanding a wall took after it’s been rolled. That makes prep the single easiest thing to under-quote, alongside a few other habits worth breaking.
Quoting the paint job, not the prep
Filling, sanding, and masking routinely take longer than the rolling itself. Estimate prep separately once you’ve seen the actual walls, not from a per-room average.
Absorbing an extra coat into the original price
Dark-to-light changes and stain-blocking regularly need a third coat a standard two-coat quote didn’t cover. Treat coats beyond the quote as their own line, agreed before you open the extra tin.
Using one flat day rate for interior and exterior work
Exterior jobs add access equipment, weather delays, and exterior-grade paint that interior work doesn’t. Price them separately rather than stretching an interior day rate to cover a render wall.
Leaving the paint tier off the invoice
Trade emulsion and premium brands can differ several times over in cost. State the brand and finish, so a client who paid for a premium finish can see they got it.
Starting a large exterior job without a deposit
Multiple tins of exterior-grade paint and scaffold hire are real upfront costs. Take a deposit against materials before you buy them, not after.
Sample invoice: single bedroom repaint, two coats
- Prep: filling, sanding, masking (2.5 hrs @ £25/hr)
- £62.50
- Trade emulsion, walls & ceiling (2 x 5L)
- £58.00
- Painting, 2 coats (4 hrs @ £25/hr)
- £100.00
- VAT (20%)
- £44.10
- Total due
- £264.60
Splitting prep out from painting time is what shows a customer why two similarly sized rooms cost differently — one had bare plaster to fill, the other just needed a wipe-down before the roller came out.
Log the prep hours, the tins, and the painting time against the job, and ServiceInvoice turns them into a branded invoice with the prep already broken out — no retyping once the job’s done.
From job to paid in four steps
- 1
Add the customer and log the work as you go: paint, materials, and labour as separate line items.
- 2
Mark the job complete and generate an invoice with one click.
- 3
Send the branded PDF to your customer with clear totals and payment terms.
- 4
Track unpaid invoices from your dashboard and follow up before they slip.