One scaffold, three bills: the erect, the weeks it stands, and the extension when the programme slips. Take a deposit before the wagon leaves the yard, set the erect and the hire as stages that fall due on their own dates, and invoice a main contractor with the CIS deduction taken off the erection and dismantling labour alone, so the hire charge and the fittings keep their full value.
30 days of everything, free. No card needed.
The client accepts a priced quote for the erect, the first hire period, and the weekly rate after it, and it converts to a draft invoice with those lines already in it.
Money in before the wagon is loaded: the deposit is the first stage of the payment plan, with a due date of its own.
Hand the scaffold over to the site and that stage falls due on its own date. The client settles that stage alone, by card once you connect Stripe or by bank transfer.
The weeks it stands, billed as their own stage, or on a recurring schedule that raises the hire invoice every month while a long job runs.
The extension is a further invoice: duplicate the last hire one, change the weeks, send. A slow payer is chased for you while you are on the next site.
A scaffold costs you money before the client sees a single standard go up: the kit out of the yard, the wagon, and the crew. Ask for a deposit as a percentage or a fixed amount, give it a due date of its own, and Sendinvo chases that first and only moves on to the next stage once it lands. See deposits and payment plans.
Split the draft into stages that add up to the invoice total before you send it: the deposit, erection complete and handed over, the first hire period, then dismantle and off-hire. Every stage prints on the invoice with its own amount and due date, and Sendinvo chases the one that is due rather than the whole job. Once the invoice goes out the schedule is fixed.
A scaffold up for a fortnight is one line on the erect invoice. A scaffold up for six months on a direct job is a bill every month, which is what a recurring schedule is for: build the hire invoice once, pick monthly, and it is raised and sent on the date until you end the schedule. When the programme slips and the scaffold stands for another five weeks nobody priced, duplicate the last hire invoice, change the dates and the number of weeks, and send. If a lift comes off the job instead, a credit note nets it off at the rate it was billed at.
Scaffolding you put up for a main contractor goes out as a CIS invoice. Set your rate once, 20%, 30%, or 0% for gross payment status, then tick the deduction and enter the labour figure. It comes off that figure alone, so the hire charge, the boards, and the ties stay at full value, and the contractor sees the gross total and the net they actually pay. If you are both VAT registered, tick the domestic reverse charge alongside it and the wording HMRC expects prints itself. Sendinvo deducts from the figure you give it; deciding which parts of a scaffold job are labour is your accountant’s call.
The handover certificate, the design drawing, and the weekly inspection records ride along on the invoice email, next to the invoice PDF, up to 10 MB across everything the message carries. They travel with the bill instead of printing on it, so the document the accounts team files stays a clean invoice. See email attachments.
A main contractor’s surveyor wants the account, not one invoice at a time. Download a client statement and every issued invoice for that contractor sits on one A4 page in your own branding, with its status, total, and outstanding balance, plus the total still owed across the lot.
The demo below is seeded with a building firm’s work rather than a scaffolder’s, because we haven’t built a scaffolding one yet. What it shows is the parts a scaffold job uses too: a job split into stages, a deposit taken before anything starts, a credit note against work that came off, and a subcontract invoice with the CIS deduction off the labour. Have a click around.
A live demo seeded with a building business, not a scaffolding one. Nothing you do here is saved or sent.
One is a scaffold you invoice direct, paid in stages as the job moves. The other is subcontract work for a main contractor, where the deduction comes off you.
The erect is paid for months before the scaffold comes down, and the client settles the stage that is due rather than the whole invoice. Instant bank payment needs a connected Stripe account and is capped at £10,000, so a stage this size fits inside it.
The other one: a scaffold for a main contractor on someone else’s site, with the erection and dismantling labour split out from the hire.
The deduction is 20% of the £3,800.00 of erection and dismantling labour, never of the £5,820.00 total, so the hire, the ties, and the netting keep their full value. Both firms are VAT registered, so the invoice charges no VAT, carries the wording HMRC expects, and states the £1,164.00 the contractor accounts for at their end.
Yes. Put them on their own lines of one invoice, or send the erect now and bill the hire when the period ends. On a direct job with no CIS deduction on it, a scaffold that stands for months can go on a recurring schedule instead, so the hire invoice is raised and sent on the same date each month until you end it.
Only off the figure you enter as labour. Give the erection and the dismantling their own lines, keep the hire charge, the boards, and the ties on separate ones, then enter the labour total in the CIS block. The deduction is worked out from that alone, and everything else stays at full value on the invoice. Which parts of a scaffold job count as labour is a question for you and your accountant, not for us.
Raise a further invoice for the extension. Duplicate the last hire invoice and it opens as a draft with the same client, lines, and weekly rate already in it, so you change the dates and the number of weeks and send. The invoice the main contractor is already holding is left exactly as it went out.
No. An invoice carries the CIS deduction, or it carries a deposit and stages, never both, because the deduction would have to be split across the stages to work. A scaffold for a main contractor goes out as its own CIS invoice, and deposits and stages stay with the ones you invoice a homeowner or a shopfitter direct.
Yes, as attachments on the invoice email, alongside the invoice PDF. The handover certificate, the design drawing, and the weekly inspection records are what the site manager files, and they arrive with the bill rather than in a second email you have to remember to send. The budget is 10 MB for everything the message carries, the invoice PDF included.
Reminders keep chasing it on the dates you set, and the tone steps up as it runs on. On an overdue sterling invoice to another business, Sendinvo works the statutory interest out from the Bank of England base rate in your settings, adds the fixed compensation the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 allows, and drafts a separate interest invoice in one click for you to read before it goes. This is general information, not legal advice.
30 days of everything, free. No card needed. After that, £20 a month covers you, each extra person on the account is £5, and Viewers cost nothing.