Property maintenance invoicing has its own rhythm: recurring rent and service-charge invoices, reactive repair jobs billed per visit, and planned works that run for weeks with deposits and stages. Generic invoicing software does the first, struggles with the third, and knows nothing about the compliance wording maintenance invoices need. This guide ranks the 2026 options for how lettings and maintenance businesses actually bill.
- Lettings billing is two jobs: recurring charges and per-job repairs.
- Planned maintenance works need deposits and stage payments.
- VAT on maintenance invoices must be handled correctly per job type.
- Agents and landlords need clean statements, not just invoices.
- Pick by billing shape: recurring, reactive, or project.
How lettings and maintenance work actually gets billed
Three billing shapes, and most software only does one well:
- Recurring charges: rent, service charges, management fees, retainer maintenance contracts. Same amount, same date, every month. Manual invoicing here is pure admin waste; recurring invoices are the fix.
- Reactive repairs: a leak, a broken boiler, an emergency call-out. One visit, one invoice, often with call-out fee plus parts plus labour itemised.
- Planned works: refurbishments, rewires, roof projects across weeks. Deposit up front, stage payments or valuations as phases complete, and materials passed through: the stage payment template shows the shape.
Maintenance firms doing planned works for landlords or agents may also meet the VAT reverse charge and CIS when subcontracting: what the reverse-charge invoice must show and which CIS rate applies to you.
What to look for
- Recurring invoices. Set once, issued automatically; non-negotiable for lettings.
- Deposit and stage invoices: for planned works, without manual workarounds.
- Automatic reminders, tenants and landlords alike pay faster when the chase is systematic: the reminder wording.
- Customer statements, agents reconciling multiple properties need a monthly statement, not forty separate invoices.
- VAT flexibility, rent and service charges, repair works and subcontracted jobs can carry different VAT treatments; the software must switch cleanly per invoice.
The 2026 shortlist
1. Sendinvo: best for maintenance firms billing deposits and stages. Built for UK trades’ payment rules: deposits, stage payments and valuations as first-class documents, automatic reminders and customer statements, payment links on every invoice, and VAT handled per invoice. The getting-paid chain is the whole product: no diary or property-portfolio features to pay for and never open.
2. Xero: best if an accountant runs your books. Full ledger, VAT returns, recurring invoicing built in. You pay accounting-platform prices for what is largely a billing problem, right call only if the books live there too. The alternatives field shows what else is out there.
3. Tradify: best for firms dispatching engineers. Job management with invoicing attached; fits maintenance businesses scheduling engineers daily. More setup and more cost than an invoicing-first tool.
4. Wave: best free option for tiny portfolios. Genuinely free invoicing at low volume; UK payment options and support are the trade-off. The full Wave assessment.
5. Spreadsheet route. Free and workable at a handful of invoices a month, but recurring billing means remembering to invoice, the failure mode built in. What a UK invoice must legally include if you go this way.
How to choose in one question
Is more than half your billing recurring? Then recurring invoices and statements are the decision, any of the paid tools handles it. If planned works are the growth side of the business, choose on deposits and stages: Sendinvo’s core loop, configured by default in nothing else on this list at this price.
FAQ
Do letting agents and maintenance firms need different invoicing software?
The billing shapes overlap: agents lean on recurring invoices and statements, maintenance firms on per-job invoices plus deposits and stages for planned works. Software handling all three shapes covers both.
Do property maintenance invoices have special legal requirements?
The standard UK invoice requirements apply: unique number, your details, the customer’s, description, date, amount, VAT breakdown if registered. Construction-specific wording (reverse charge, CIS) only enters when the job falls in scope.
Does the VAT reverse charge apply to property maintenance?
Only for construction and building work between VAT-registered businesses, general repairs and plumbing may qualify depending on the work. It never applies to rent or management fees. Check the work type per job.
Can I set up recurring invoices for rent?
Yes with any of the paid tools here. Set the amount, frequency and end date once. This is what saves the most time in lettings billing.
Should maintenance firms take deposits for planned works?
For anything with materials or multi-week duration, yes, a deposit funds materials and secures the slot. Software that issues deposit invoices as standard documents makes it routine.
What is the best free option?
Wave is genuinely free for invoicing at low volume, with trade-offs in UK payment options and support. A spreadsheet fails first on recurring billing, which lettings cannot afford.
One last thing
Lettings billing punishes manual processes twice: recurring invoices you forget to send, and project invoices you under-chase. Software that automates both (recurring on schedule, deposits and stages on trigger, reminders on due date) is the whole case for upgrading from spreadsheets.