How to turn freelance job notes into an invoice PDF

The hard part of an invoice is often not to send a PDF but to recapitate the elements of work that you agreed to charge your customer for. Typically, this work will have been captured in your job notes, source material for your invoices.

Turn the notes into line items

If you have already compiled the relevant job notes (i.e. the agreed scope, dates, rates and expenses and any relevant payment terms), then it’s straightforward to turn them into an invoice. The note above for example would translate into the following three line items for the designer’s charges for September: “Design review, three sessions” x 3 @ £200.00/hour = £1,200.00; “Design review, three sessions” x 3 @ £200.00/hour = £1,200.00; “Approved stock image” = £15.55.

Make sure that the description for each line item is clear and understandable to the client. For example, “design review, three sessions” is much better than “consulting”. You can also add a date or period to make it clear what work the line item refers to.

Check the draft before making a PDF

Use the AI Invoice Generator app’s body to review out the details of the invoice generator app’s output, such as checking the client name, the debtor name (your name) and address, the currency, quantity, rate, tax status, totals, date, and payment terms such as payment method, etc.. Also ensure that all the information was correctly included and that it makes sense to read. Often the invoice generator will leave out information such as a period or date for the work etc.. so ensure that you include this in the description of each line item.

For example, if your agreement with the customer called for three two-hour sessions, you would calculate the total hours worked as six hours and bill out at your agreed upon hourly rate. You would note the six hours on the invoice, and each line item would be listed as 2 hours of work per session (e.g. Three Design Review Sessions @ 2 hours each). You’d keep separate lines for reimbursable expenses and fees for service.

Inspect the final document

Just open and check that all lines are fully displayed and total, payment information etc. is easy to read. Save the created PDF and all your job notes for future reference.

Generating a PDF does not send the invoice or establish that it has been paid. The earlier Recurse invoice app has retired. You can browse current task examples to see how an agent builds a private Python tool, or use the checks in this guide when preparing your own invoice draft.