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

Take a trade business turning over $600,000 a year, about $11,500 of work a week. Suppose finished jobs wait an average of ten days to be invoiced, and invoices wait an average of 24 days to be paid. That is 34 days of turnover permanently outside the bank account: roughly $56,000, financed by the business, at the overdraft rate if there is one and in stress if there is not.

Cut the first gap to one day and the second to 14, and about $31,000 comes back, from 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. Jobs are marked done in the head, invoices are raised "when I get a chance", and the gap lives in between. 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 marked done today is invoiced tonight, from the job. 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. Look up security of payment in Australia, Construction Act adjudication in the UK, and prompt payment and lien laws in the US and Canada, and know yours before you need it.

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, deposits and claims on home building work are regulated locally, so set your standard deposit and stages once, against your own rules, rather than negotiating them job by job. The quoting side of staged money is in quoting for trade jobs.

Setting up the routine in Diract

Invoices is one of the tools a matched trade starts with. Invoice a job, or an accepted quote with Create invoice, and the lines come with it. Send it with Email invoice or Text invoice. The customer pays by card from the link, into your own Stripe account, once you click Admin, then Billing, and Set up card payments under Getting paid. Money taken another way is recorded with 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 before the due date, and Remind when overdue by (days) emails them once when it is that many days late. They stop once the invoice is paid. Add two widgets to a dashboard, jobs done but not invoiced and invoices unpaid by age, and the whole routine fits on one screen. 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 at "done" tonight is invoiced 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
• Invoices over 30 days each have a next action written down
• 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 are numbered in your own currency and tax, sent with Email invoice or Text invoice, and paid by card from the link once card payments are set up. Reminders go automatically if you turn them on. 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.