A survey, two days on a roof, then commissioning: book each visit and the client is emailed to say when you’re coming. The panels, the inverter, and the cylinder are paid for at the wholesaler weeks before the client pays you. Ask for a deposit that covers the kit and leave the balance due on commissioning, send the MCS certificate and the handover pack with the invoice email, and set the VAT rate line by line when a job doesn’t sit on one.
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The array, the inverter, the cylinder, the scaffold, and the days on the roof, priced line by line and accepted on the client’s phone with no login. Press Start job on the accepted quote and book each day of the install on the Schedule, and the client is emailed to say when you’re coming. Raise invoice turns the quote into a draft invoice carrying the same lines and prices. See how quotes work.
A deposit as a percentage or a fixed amount, with its own due date, printed on the invoice next to the balance. The wholesaler gets paid out of the client’s money and the balance stays due on commissioning day. On a bigger commercial array, split the total into stages instead. See deposits and payment plans.
The MCS certificate, the DNO paperwork, and the handover pack ride the same email as the invoice, as attachments. The client gets the bill and the documents in one message instead of asking for the pack a fortnight later, and the invoice itself prints as an A4 PDF with your logo.
Connect Stripe and a homeowner settles by card from the link before the scaffold comes down. Instant bank payment is there too, capped at £10,000. Fitting plots for a main contractor? Tick CIS and mark the materials lines, and the deduction comes off the labour alone on a CIS invoice, never the panels.
A solar and heat pump business bills three kinds of client, and each one wants a different invoice: a homeowner paying for hardware you ordered before anyone paid you, a housebuilder or main contractor who takes a deduction off you, and a managing agent whose systems need a visit every year.
A deposit that covers the panels, the inverter, and the cylinder means the wholesaler is paid out of the client’s money rather than yours. Set it as a percentage or a fixed amount with its own due date, and Sendinvo chases the deposit first, then switches to the balance once it lands. On a commercial array, split the total into stages instead: deposit on order, scaffold and mounting, then the balance on commissioning and handover.
An array and a battery on an existing home, with an EV charger priced as its own line, can land on more than one VAT rate, because a charger isn’t on HMRC’s list of energy-saving materials. Tick “Set VAT per line” on a sterling invoice and each line carries the rate you give it, with a subtotal for each band and a total that agrees to the penny. Sendinvo does the arithmetic and nothing else here: which rate a line takes is your call, or your accountant’s. Raise a credit note against a mixed-rate invoice and each line credits at the rate it was billed at, so dropping the charger from the spec doesn’t move VAT from one band to another. See VAT per line.
Retrofit work for a housing association, or systems on plots for a housebuilder, goes out as a CIS invoice when they deduct. Mark the materials lines and the deduction comes off the labour alone, so the panels, the mounting rail, and the cylinder keep their full value. HMRC zero-rates fitting solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps in a new home while it is being built and, until 31 March 2027, in existing homes too. The reverse charge doesn’t apply to zero-rated work, so you set the VAT to 0% and leave the reverse charge unticked, and the housing association or housebuilder pays the net amount. From 1 April 2027 that retrofit work goes back to 5%, and 5% work comes under the reverse charge described next.
The domestic reverse charge is for standard- or reduced-rated work, such as the warehouse roof below, done for a client who pays you under CIS and is VAT registered, unless they’ve told you in writing that they’re an end user, a business that uses the work itself rather than selling it on. A main contractor who sells the work on to their own client usually isn’t one. If your company is VAT registered, it is a tick box inside the CIS block. Tick it and the invoice carries no VAT and the wording HMRC expects, and the main contractor pays the net amount. Which treatment a job takes is for you or your accountant.
Each visit is one day, so a two-day install and a commissioning visit are three visits on one job, and the job reads Booked, In progress, then Ready to invoice as you start and finish them. Photos of the roof, the inverter, and the meter go on the job, sorted into before, during, and after. They are a record for you and your team, not printed on the invoice, so the MCS pack still goes as an attachment. With a crew, each visit is assigned to someone and the client’s email names who’s coming, with your whole team included in the one price.
An annual heat pump service, or a monitoring and cleaning visit on a commercial array, is the work that gets forgotten. Set it up as a recurring invoice and Sendinvo raises the invoice and emails it on the date without you opening the app. Your standing files go with every one, so the public liability certificate a managing agent asks for is attached each time.
A housebuilder’s 60 days is your overdraft, and the wholesaler was paid months before that. Reminders go out at 1, 7, and 14 days past due unless you change them, and they stop the moment the money lands. If a sterling invoice to another business runs over, Sendinvo works out the statutory interest from the Bank of England base rate the law fixes for the debt, plus the fixed compensation the Act allows, £40 on a debt under £1,000. One click drafts a separate invoice for you to read before it goes.
The demo below is seeded with an electrical business, not a solar one, because that is the data we have. The work in it is the shape yours is. It opens on the Schedule, with an EV charger install and a rewire’s days on site booked in. Behind it are a materials deposit taken before an EV charger was ordered, a job billed in stages, a monthly round for a letting agent as a recurring invoice, and an invoice past its date being chased.
A live demo seeded with an electrical business, not a solar one. Nothing you do here is saved or sent.
The first one puts the kit money in before you order. The second is subcontract work, with the deduction off the labour alone.
The deposit has its own due date, so it is chased on its own and the wholesaler is paid before you order. Once it lands, the chasing moves to the balance and stops when that is paid. Both parts sit under £10,000, the ceiling Stripe puts on instant bank payment. The MCS certificate and the handover pack go out with the balance invoice, attached to the email beside the PDF.
The other one: an array on a warehouse roof for a main contractor, where the deduction comes off you before the money arrives. A warehouse isn’t a home, so the work is standard-rated and the reverse charge applies.
The deduction is 20% of the £3,200.00 labour, not of the £8,600.00 total, so the panels, the inverter, and the rail keep their full value. Under the reverse charge the invoice charges no VAT and prints the wording HMRC expects, stating the VAT the contractor accounts for at their end, worked out at the rate you set on the invoice. When the £7,960.00 lands, the invoice settles in full and the deduction is booked as a non-cash settlement.
Yes. Press Start job on the accepted quote and the client, the site, and the quote come with it. Book each day on the roof as a visit on the Schedule, all day or for the morning or the afternoon, and Sendinvo emails the client to say when you’re coming, unless you untick the box. When the last visit is finished the job reads Ready to invoice, and Raise invoice fills the invoice in from the job.
Yes. On a draft invoice, ask for a deposit as a percentage or a fixed amount and give it its own due date, so the kit is paid for before you order it and the balance falls due on commissioning. The invoice prints both, so the client can see what pays for the hardware and what pays for your days on the roof. Sendinvo chases the deposit until it is paid, then moves on to the balance.
Yes, as attachments on the invoice email, alongside the invoice PDF. They don’t print on the invoice document itself. One email carries 10 MB across up to 10 files, not counting the invoice PDF, which is room for the certificate, the handover pack, and the commissioning readings.
Yes. On a sterling invoice, tick “Set VAT per line” and every line carries the rate you give it, with a subtotal for each band and a total that agrees to the penny. Sendinvo doesn’t decide which rate a line should take and it doesn’t know your VAT position. That one is for you or your accountant.
Yes. Set your rate once in company settings: 20% for a registered subcontractor, 30% if you’re not registered, or 0% for gross payment status. Tick “Apply CIS deduction” on a sterling invoice and mark the materials lines, and the deduction comes off the labour alone while the panels, the inverter, and the cylinder keep their full value. The invoice shows the gross total and the net amount the main contractor pays, and when that net amount lands the invoice settles in full.
Yes. Set the service up as a recurring invoice and Sendinvo raises next year’s invoice and emails it on the date without you opening the app. Weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, and annually are all available, and a recurring invoice can end on a date or after a set number of invoices. When your reminders are on, every invoice it sends is enrolled in them, so a managing agent who forgets is chased like anyone else.
No. Sendinvo works on the invoices you send. It works out the CIS deduction, prints the reverse-charge wording, and carries your certificate and handover pack as attachments on the email. It doesn’t register an installation with MCS, submit a DNO application, verify subcontractors, or send a CIS300. Those stay where you do them today, and the CIS return stays with your accountant.
30 days of everything, free, no card needed. After that it’s £24.99 a month, with your whole team included.