Invoicing for trade businesses: closing the gap between done and paid

Consider a trade business turning over $600,000 a year, about $11,500 of work a week. Suppose a finished job waits ten days on average for its invoice, and that invoice waits another 24 days for payment. That is 34 days of turnover permanently outside the bank account. Roughly $56,000, carried by the business, at the overdraft rate or simply in stress.

A first gap of one day and a second of 14 brings about $31,000 back. Admin routine alone, with not one extra job done. Invoicing for trade businesses is not paperwork. It is the cheapest working capital there is.

The gap nobody measures

The gap between done and invoiced is the one trades rarely see, because nothing reports it. A job finishes in somebody's head, the invoice waits "until I get a chance", and the gap grows between the two. Making it visible is most of the fix.

A status that means something. "Done" and "invoiced" must be separate statuses on the job. The moment they are, a screen can list every job at "done" with the days it has sat there.

One number on the home screen. Dollars done but not invoiced. The first time it is shown it is often bigger than anyone guessed, and it shrinks within weeks of being watched. The case for numbers on screens over numbers in sheets is in replace spreadsheets with a dashboard.

The evening routine. Every job finishing today gets its invoice tonight, from the job itself. The price is already there from the quote, and the variations, if the register was kept, are already lines. Ten minutes, and most nights none.

Three ages to watch

Once invoices are a list and not a sent folder, three ages run the collections side.

0 to 14 days: normal. Do nothing.

15 to 30 days: one reminder, sent without apology. Late payment at this age is usually disorganisation, not refusal, and a reminder with the invoice attached clears a good share of it.

30 days and over: a phone call, and a decision. For repeat clients, this is where knowing how long each one takes to pay matters: the builder averaging 45 days is a pricing input. For building work, payment laws in many places give claim and adjudication rights with hard deadlines. The names differ: security of payment in Australia, Construction Act adjudication in the UK, prompt payment and lien laws in the US and Canada. Knowing yours beforehand is the point.

Terms belong on the quote, not the invoice. Seven or fourteen days stated up front is a term of the deal. Stated for the first time on the invoice, it is a request.

Deposits and staged money

On project work the invoicing question moves upstream: deposit, stages, final. Two habits keep it clean. First, stages live against the job with amounts and the event that triggers each, so a claimable stage never waits on anyone's memory. Second, local rules govern deposits and claims on home building work. Your standard deposit and stages get set once, against those rules, rather than negotiated job by job. The quoting side of staged money is in quoting for trade jobs.

Setting up the routine in Diract

A matched trade starts with Invoices among its tools. Invoice a job, or an accepted quote with Create invoice, and the lines come with it. Two buttons send it: Email invoice and Text invoice. The customer pays by card from the link, into your own Stripe account. That needs Admin, then Billing, then Set up card payments under Getting paid. Money taken another way goes in through Record payment, in part or in full, and the job's status follows its invoice.

The reminders can run themselves. Under Invoice settings, Remind before due (days) emails the customer once ahead of the due date. Remind when overdue by (days) emails them once at that many days late. They stop once the invoice is paid. Two widgets on a dashboard fit the whole routine on one screen. Jobs done but not invoiced, and invoices unpaid by age. The office can own it without seeing anything you would rather keep back, with access set by role. The flow feeding the invoice, enquiries, quotes and jobs, is the subject of job tracking for a trade business.

Checklist: the cashflow admin, weekly

• Every job reaching "done" today gets its invoice tonight
• Dollars done but not invoiced is on the home screen and near zero
• Invoices at 15 to 30 days got their reminder this week
• Every invoice over 30 days carries a next action in writing
• You know how long each repeat client takes to pay

Conclusion

In the worked example, a 34 day gap was $56,000 standing outside the business. The tools that close it are a status, three ages and a ten-minute evening routine. The work already got done; this is just collecting it.

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Questions

Does Diract send the invoices?

Yes. Invoices carry your own numbering, currency and tax. The Email invoice and Text invoice buttons send them, and the link takes a card once card payments exist. Reminders go automatically once somebody enables them. The steps are in the Invoicing docs.

What should payment terms be?

Seven days for domestic service work, fourteen for larger domestic projects, and for builder or commercial work, whatever the contract says, priced accordingly. The term matters less than stating it on the quote.

Is charging interest on late invoices worth it?

Rarely on domestic work. The reminder-then-call routine collects more than an interest clause does, at no cost to the relationship. State the right to charge it in your terms if you like, and rely on the routine.

This article is general information, not legal or financial advice. Current as at 19 September 2026. The product changes often, so check the screen before relying on a detail here.