A drive costs you money days before it earns any: the grab lorry, the MOT type 1, the edgings, and a pallet of blocks all land before the client sees a finished surface. Send a quote they accept on their phone, take a deposit before the groundwork starts, and let Sendinvo chase the balance while you are already on the next drive.
30 days of everything, free. No card needed.
Put the dig out and muck away, the sub-base, the edgings, the blocks or the resin, and the drainage on their own lines, and send it as a quote the client accepts or declines from a link. Nothing for them to sign up to. Converting the yes opens a draft invoice with the same lines and prices in it, so the drive is priced once and typed once.
Skip hire, the grab lorry, and the pallet order all want paying before you break the surface. Ask for a deposit as a percentage or a fixed amount, on its own due date, printed next to the balance the client still owes.
Adjust the draft for what actually went down, add the extras agreed on the drive, and send. Reminders switch on with the invoice and step up at 1, 7, and 14 days past due unless you change them, so the balance gets chased without a call from the van.
Kerbing and paving to plots for a main contractor is a different invoice from a homeowner’s drive. Where that contractor deducts, tick CIS on the sterling invoice and the deduction comes off the labour alone.
Paving bills awkwardly. The spend is front-loaded, the weather moves the start date, and half the extras get agreed standing on the drive while the client holds a mug of tea.
Ask for the deposit as a percentage or a fixed amount and give it its own due date. It prints on the invoice next to the balance, so the client can see what they are paying now and what falls due when the drive is finished. Sendinvo chases the deposit first, then switches to the balance once the deposit is in. See deposits and payment plans.
A carriage drive or a run of parking bays doesn’t want to sit on one due date. While the invoice is still a draft, split it into the stages the job runs to: deposit, dig out and muck away, sub-base and edgings, then laying and sealing. Each stage takes its own amount and its own due date, and they have to add up to the invoice total. Once you send it the schedule is fixed, and Sendinvo chases the stage that’s due, then re-points to the next as the money lands.
Clients change their minds once the edgings are set out and they can see the shape of it. Work that comes off the job goes back as a credit note, ticked line by line and credited at the unit price and VAT rate it carried on the invoice, so the balance nets down by exactly that. A soakaway or an extra bay that goes in instead is a new invoice, at the price you agreed on the drive.
The dug-out level, the sub-base compacted, the finished drive with the channel drain in: attach them to the invoice email, up to 10 MB across everything the message carries, the invoice PDF included. They ride with the email rather than printing on the invoice, so the document stays a clean invoice and the pictures still land in the same message. See email attachments.
A housebuilder’s payment run is not yours to fund. Reminders keep chasing on the dates you set, in your own words, and step up as the invoice runs on. If a plot invoice in sterling goes well past terms, Sendinvo works out the statutory interest a commercial debt can carry, from the Bank of England base rate you keep in your settings plus 8%, and drafts it as its own invoice for you to read first. When their buyer asks where the account stands, a client statement puts every issued invoice, its balance, and the total outstanding on one A4 page in your own branding.
Most driveway work is done for a homeowner, and that commonly sits outside the Construction Industry Scheme, so those invoices go out with nothing deducted. Kerbing and paving to plots for a main contractor can be another matter, and where that contractor deducts, tick CIS on the sterling invoice. Your rate is set once, the deduction comes off the labour alone, and the blocks, kerbs, and sub-base keep their full value. If you are both VAT registered, tick the domestic reverse charge alongside it and the wording HMRC expects prints on the document. Whether a job falls inside the scheme is for the contractor and your accountant to settle.
This is the landscapers demo, so the jobs read garden rather than drive. The invoicing underneath is the part to look at: a build billed on a stage plan, a materials deposit taken before an order went in, a credit note for work that came off, and a developer being chased past terms. Have a click around.
A live demo seeded with a landscaping business, not a paving one. Nothing you do here is saved or sent.
One is a homeowner’s drive with a deposit up front and the balance on completion. The other is plot work for a main contractor, with the CIS deduction already worked out.
One invoice, £6,400.00 of work plus £1,280.00 VAT, with the deposit printed next to the balance the client still owes. Sendinvo chases the deposit first and moves to the balance once the deposit is in. Connect Stripe and either amount can be settled by card. A balance under £10,000 can also go by instant bank payment. Sendinvo takes no cut, and Stripe’s own card fees still apply.
The other one: kerbing and block paving to six plots for a main contractor, where the deduction comes off you.
The deduction is 20% of the £5,600.00 labour, never the blocks, kerbs, and sub-base. Both firms are VAT registered, so the invoice charges no VAT and carries the wording HMRC expects, and the main contractor accounts for the £1,770.00 VAT at their end. When they pay the £7,730.00, the invoice settles in full.
Yes. Put a deposit on the invoice as a percentage or a fixed amount, with its own due date, printed next to the balance the client still owes. Sendinvo chases the deposit first, then switches to the balance once the deposit is in. On a longer drive, make that first payment the opening stage of a payment plan instead. An invoice carries a deposit or a plan, never both.
No. The quote goes out as a link they open on whatever phone they have, with the price at the top and the quote PDF underneath to scroll through, and they tap accept or decline. Accepting doesn’t raise an invoice. Converting it opens a draft with the client, the lines, and the prices already in, so you never retype a price you have already quoted.
Often it doesn’t. A drive laid for a homeowner commonly sits outside the Construction Industry Scheme, and those invoices go out with nothing deducted. Where a main contractor or a housebuilder treats plot work as a construction operation and deducts, tick the deduction on a sterling invoice. Your rate is set once and comes off the labour alone, so the blocks, kerbs, and sub-base keep their full value. Whether a particular job falls inside the scheme is for that contractor and your accountant to settle.
Yes. While the invoice is still a draft, split it into the stages the job runs to: deposit, dig out and muck away, sub-base and edgings, then laying and sealing. Each stage takes its own amount and its own due date, and they have to add up to the invoice total. Once you send it the schedule is fixed, and Sendinvo chases the stage that’s due rather than the whole drive.
Raise a credit note against that invoice and tick the lines that came out, up to the quantity you invoiced. Sendinvo credits them at the unit price and VAT rate they carried, and the invoice’s balance nets down by that amount. If that clears what is left, the invoice settles to paid and its reminders stop. Anything that goes in instead is a new invoice, priced the way you agreed it on the drive.
Reminders carry on chasing on the dates you set, in your own words, and step up as it runs on. On an overdue sterling invoice to another business, Sendinvo works out the statutory interest from the Bank of England base rate you keep in your settings plus 8%, adds the fixed compensation the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 allows, from £40 on a debt under £1,000, and drafts it as a separate invoice for you to read before it goes. The plot invoice the housebuilder already has is left exactly as it went out. This is general information, not legal advice.
30 days of everything, free. No card needed. After that it’s £20 a month for one person, plus £5 for each extra person on the account.