How electricians should invoice: a practical guide

Invoice from the van before you drive off, with the certificate attached. Electrical work is one of the few trades where the customer is waiting on paperwork as well as the job, and sending both together closes the whole thing in one message. Itemise labour and materials separately, put a real due date on it rather than "on receipt", and send it as a PDF the client can forward to whoever actually pays. For electricians, the detail that matters most: part-P notification and test certificates are separate from the invoice — but clients expect them in the same email, and chasing them later looks disorganised.

How to price the work

Most domestic electrical work prices as a fixed quote per job rather than an hourly rate, because the customer cannot judge whether four hours was reasonable. Hourly works for fault-finding, where the scope genuinely is unknown — say so explicitly and cap it: "first hour to diagnose, then a fixed price to fix".

What the lines should look like

For a consumer unit replacement, a line that reads well is:

Consumer unit replacement, 10-way dual RCD, including certification

Specific enough that the person approving payment — often not the person who hired you — can see what they are paying for. Here is the same job as a finished invoice line:

Consumer unit replacement, 10-way dual RCD board
Including isolation, testing of existing circuits, certification and building-control notification — £680.00

Deposits

Materials-heavy jobs — a rewire, a consumer unit, an EV charger — usually take 25–50% up front. Call-outs and small repairs take nothing.

Materials and markup

Show materials as a single line with a description, not a parts list with trade prices exposed. "Consumer unit, 10-way dual RCD, and associated materials" is right. Itemising every cable clip invites a customer to price-check you on a wholesaler's website and argue about markup.

The mistake electricians make most

Part-P notification and test certificates are separate from the invoice — but clients expect them in the same email, and chasing them later looks disorganised.

Certification. The customer expects the EICR or installation certificate as part of the job, and if it arrives three weeks after the invoice they will hold the payment until it does. Send them together or the invoice sits.

Notifiable work changes the paperwork, not the price

Anything notifiable adds a certificate, a building-control notification and sometimes a scheme-provider fee. Those are real costs. Name the fee on the quote rather than absorbing it, and put the certificate reference on the invoice so the customer can see what they are paying for — "including Part P notification, cert ref 44821" reads as thorough rather than as an add-on.

Getting paid, in this trade specifically

Domestic customers pay quickly; the delays are with landlords, letting agents and small builders who are waiting to be paid themselves. For agents, ask which property reference goes on the invoice before you start — an invoice they cannot match to a tenancy sits until someone finds time to ask.

The rest is the same for everyone: what has to be on the document, how to number it, how to chase it and how long to keep it. If you are registered for tax, the rate and the label depend on your country.

EstimateBill tracks what is unpaid, reminds you on the due date, and writes the follow-up message for you in three tones. See how the reminders work.