Four ways to show hours on an invoice
The hours are the same. How you group them decides what the client reads, and what they ask about.
An invoice for 32 hours can be one line or forty. Neither is more correct. The right level of detail depends on who reads the invoice and what they need before they approve it.
gonibabki offers four layouts. You pick one per invoice, and each client can have its own default.
By project
One line per project: "Website redesign, 20,50 h". The shortest invoice you can send.
It fits clients who agreed a scope and trust you with the details, and small projects where the name says it all. It fits less well when a project runs for months: one big line invites the question of what is inside it.
By task
One line per task: design, development, meetings. The client sees where the time went without reading every entry.
It fits agencies, clients with a budget per activity, and anyone who has ever asked how much of this was meetings. It is also a good middle ground when you don't know the client's preference yet.
By day
One line per date worked, per task: "Tue 10 Nov, Development, 6,00 h".
It fits clients who check invoices against their own planning, and work on site, where the client knows which days you were there. For a month of full-time work it gets long; task or project is easier to read.
Detailed
Every entry on its own line, with the note you wrote when you logged it.
It fits clients who approve each item, larger organisations with strict purchasing, and invoices someone will check against a ticket system. It is also the safest choice after a disagreement about hours: nothing is summarised, so nothing needs explaining.
A detailed invoice is only as good as your notes. "Work" on twelve lines helps nobody. "Fixed checkout bug on mobile Safari" does.
Choosing a layout
- Start with what the client asks for. Some clients have rules about invoice detail. Follow them, and set that layout as their default.
- Otherwise, start by task. It is short enough to read and detailed enough to trust.
- Add detail when questions come back. One question about hours is usually a sign to show more, not to explain more.
- Stay consistent per client. Switching layouts every month makes invoices hard to compare.
Whichever layout you choose, the total stays the same. Hours at different rates never share a line, so every line still reads as one rate times one number of hours.