The main contractor pays what the invoice says less the deduction, and if that deduction is worked out on the wrong figure the invoice comes straight back. Sendinvo takes it off your labour and leaves your materials alone, prints the gross total and the net amount due on the same page, and adds the reverse-charge wording when the reverse charge applies. When the contractor pays the net, the invoice settles in full.
30 days of everything, free. No card needed.
Price the package as a quote the contractor’s surveyor can accept on their phone, and it converts to a draft invoice carrying the same lines and rates.
Press Start job on the accepted quote and book a visit for each day on site. Every contractor’s site sits in one Schedule, and a clash is warned about before you book it.
Day rate or priced work on one line, materials and the plant you hire in on their own. That split is what makes the deduction lower down the page correct.
Tick the CIS deduction and, when it applies, the domestic reverse charge beside it. Both print on the invoice, worked out for you.
Reminders chase the contractor’s accounts team while you are back on site. They can settle by card once you connect Stripe, or by instant bank payment on a sterling invoice up to £10,000.
When a contractor runs past the term, one click drafts a separate statutory interest invoice for you to read first. The CIS invoice they already hold is left as it went out.
A CIS invoice comes back from a contractor’s office for the same three reasons every time: the deduction has been taken off the materials as well as the labour, there is only one total on the page so nobody can see what will actually be paid, or the reverse-charge line is missing. Sendinvo does all three on the document itself.
Your rate lives in company settings, under “I’m a CIS subcontractor”, and stays there: 20%, 30%, or 0% for gross payment status. Tick “Apply CIS deduction” on a sterling invoice and Sendinvo works the figure out at the rate you set. Which rate you are on is settled between you, the main contractor, and HMRC. Sendinvo does the arithmetic. It doesn’t pick the rate for you.
Put your labour on its own line and the materials and the plant you hire in on theirs, marked as materials. The deduction is worked out on the labour alone, so a skip, a week of hire, and a van of first fix materials all reach you at full value. On a labour-only invoice, where the contractor supplies everything off the pallet, every line is labour already and the deduction is taken on the whole subtotal.
The invoice carries the full gross total, then the deduction, then the net amount due, and the headline at the top names the deduction and states the cash the contractor sends. Their accounts team can see where every figure came from without ringing you, and you have nothing to reconcile in a spreadsheet afterwards. When they pay that net amount, the invoice settles in full: Sendinvo books the deduction as a non-cash settlement, so a deducted invoice isn’t left on your list looking half paid at year end.
Tick the domestic reverse charge inside the same CIS block and the VAT row reads “Reverse charge” beside the rate, with the wording HMRC expects printed underneath and the VAT figure the contractor accounts for at their end. That figure is worked out on the full net, labour and materials together, which is a different amount from the one the deduction comes off. It covers standard- or reduced-rated work when you are both VAT registered, not zero-rated work such as building a new home, and not a client who has told you in writing that they’re an end user. Whether it applies to a particular job is your call, not ours. Where a job mixes rates, you can set VAT per line instead.
Where the contractor pays by application, each application goes out as its own CIS invoice, numbered and dated, and Sendinvo chases that one. Where you’ve agreed a price for the job, one CIS invoice can carry a deposit or stage payments instead: each payment carries its share of the deduction, and the invoice shows what the contractor pays at each stage. Raise each invoice from the job and the job adds them up, takes off any credit notes, and shows what’s left to invoice against the price you agreed.
Sign-off sheets, delivery notes, and a copy of your CIS registration letter ride out with the invoice email, up to 10 MB of them, not counting the invoice PDF. They stay attached to the email rather than printing on the invoice, so the document the contractor’s accounts team files is a clean invoice. When they ask where the account stands, download a client statement and every issued invoice for that contractor is on one branded page with the total still owed.
Photos of the work before it’s boxed in go on the job, sorted before, during, and after by when each was taken, as your record of what you did and when. They don’t print on the invoice, so attach the ones the contractor asks for to the email. See photos on jobs.
Sendinvo is the invoice, not the return. It works out the deduction, shows the net, and prints the wording, and that is where it stops. It doesn’t verify subcontractors, produce payment and deduction statements, total the deductions suffered across a tax year, or send a CIS300. Your accountant does that, from the invoices you have sent, and a CSV export hands them the lot. Your accountant can have a Viewer login of their own and read the invoices whenever they need them, and someone who raises invoices while you are on site can be a Member. Whoever is on the tools with you can be a Field person, who sees only their own visits and jobs, and no prices in the Sendinvo app. The Sendinvo app is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, and there’s no Android app yet. Your whole team is included: see Team accounts.
This is the demo seeded with a building firm that works for homeowners and commercial clients, and as a subcontractor. Its subcontract work is monthly valuations to a main contractor, with the CIS deduction on the labour and the reverse charge, and plot work for a housebuilder at 0% VAT with the deduction on the labour. It opens on the Schedule, with this week’s visits booked against each job. It is the same app and the same invoice screen, with the same CIS block you would tick on a contractor’s package. Have a click around.
A live demo seeded with a building business, not a subcontract account. Nothing you do here is saved or sent.
First fix mechanical for a main contractor fitting out an office, both firms VAT registered, so the deduction and the reverse charge land on the same invoice. Two figures, and they are worked out on two different amounts.
Halloran Mechanical Ltd
Unit 9, Kirkstall Trading Estate
Leeds LS5 3BF
Registered in England and Wales
Company number 08214760
VAT GB 214 5567 04 1
Pennine Build Group Ltd
8 Sovereign Street
Leeds LS1 4BJ
£5,080.00 due 2 October 2026, after the £830.00 CIS deduction 2
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Labour, first fix pipework and carcassing 3 | £4,150.00 |
| Materials, pipe, fittings, and insulation | £1,760.00 |
Reverse charge: customer to account for VAT to HMRC at 20% (£1,182.00). 6
The same package, and the only thing that moves is your rate.
Every rate bites on the £4,150.00 labour alone, so the £1,760.00 of materials reaches you whole whichever line you are on. Gross payment status shows the deduction row at £0.00 and leaves the amount due at the full total.
The other invoice a subcontractor sends: a month of day-rate labour, with the contractor supplying everything.
Nothing but labour here, so every line is labour and the deduction is taken on the whole subtotal. The reverse-charge VAT the contractor accounts for is £954.00 as well, because on a labour-only month both figures are 20% of the same £4,770.00. On the package above they were not, and that is the sum people get wrong.
No. The deduction is worked out on the labour alone. On a labour-plus-materials invoice you mark the materials lines and Sendinvo takes the deduction from the labour, so your materials and the plant you hire in reach you at full value. On a labour-only invoice, where the main contractor supplies everything, every line is labour already and the deduction is taken on the whole subtotal.
Yes. Your rate is a setting on your company, 20%, 30%, or 0% for gross payment status, and Sendinvo uses the one you set on every invoice you tick the deduction on. At 0% the deduction line reads £0.00 and the amount due is the full total. Which rate you are on is settled between you, the main contractor, and HMRC, not by Sendinvo.
Yes. The invoice shows the gross total, then the deduction, then the net amount due, and the line at the top of the document states that net figure and names the deduction. When the contractor pays it, the invoice settles in full, because Sendinvo books the deduction as a non-cash settlement rather than leaving the invoice looking short.
No. They are two figures on one invoice, worked out on two different amounts. The CIS deduction comes off your labour and lowers the cash the main contractor sends you. The reverse charge is worked out on the full net, labour and materials together, and moves the VAT onto the contractor to account for. Sendinvo prints both, with the wording HMRC expects.
Yes. Make a job for each package, from the accepted quote or from scratch, and book every day you’re on site as a visit, all day or for part of one. The Schedule lists every site’s days together and warns you when two clash, without refusing either. On a team, each visit is assigned to someone, and a Field person sees only their own visits and jobs, and no prices.
No. Sendinvo works out the deduction, shows the net amount due, and prints the reverse-charge wording, all on the invoice itself. It doesn’t verify subcontractors, produce payment and deduction statements, total up the deductions suffered across a tax year, or send a CIS300. Your accountant files the return, from the invoices you have sent, and you can hand those over as a CSV export.
Reminders carry on chasing on the dates you set and step up in tone as the invoice runs on. On an overdue sterling invoice to another business, Sendinvo works out the statutory interest at the Bank of England base rate 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 a separate interest invoice for you to read before it goes. The CIS invoice the contractor already holds is left exactly as it went out, deduction and all. This is general information, not legal advice.
30 days of everything, free. No card needed. After that it’s £24.99 a month, with your whole team included.