What goes on a freelancer's invoice so it actually gets paid
An invoice is not a formality; it is the document someone in accounts has to approve. Here is the field list, and what a commercial invoice is not.
Who reads it
Not the person who hired you. It goes to whoever processes payments, who has never met you and is looking for a reason to put it in the "ask them" pile. Every field below exists to take away one of those reasons.
The fields
- An invoice number that increments and never repeats. Yours, not theirs.
- Issue date, and a due date as a date, not "net 30". The reader should not have to do arithmetic.
- Your legal name and address — the entity that will receive the money, matching the bank account.
- Their legal name and address, as it appears on the contract, not the brand name.
- A purchase order or contract reference if they gave you one. This is the single most common reason an invoice sits unpaid.
- Line items with quantity and unit price, described the way the work was described in the contract.
- Tax, stated separately, even when it is zero.
- Bank details including the account name, and the SWIFT or intermediary details for a foreign client.
What it is not
A commercial invoice is a request for payment. It is not a tax invoice. In Vietnam a VAT e-invoice has to be issued through a licensed provider and registered with the tax authority, and nothing a document generator produces can be declared as one. If your client needs a hóa đơn GTGT, that is a separate document from a separate system.
Doing it in two minutes
ToolGo's invoice maker has the fields above as the form, remembers your own details between invoices and numbers them for you.
ToolGo Team
Product & Engineering
We build practical SaaS tools and write about what we learn — from product decisions to technical deep-dives.
