Garage invoice template

The VAT invoice minimum

If you are VAT registered, a full VAT invoice has a defined content list and it is short. A unique sequential invoice number, your business name and address, your VAT registration number, the invoice date, the time of supply where it differs from the invoice date, the customer name and address, a description of what was supplied, the quantity and unit price excluding VAT, the VAT rate applied to each item, the total excluding VAT, the amount of VAT and the total payable.

Sequential means no gaps you cannot explain. Numbering by hand is where gaps come from, because a spoiled invoice gets thrown away and the number goes with it. Note the cancellation rather than reusing the number.

If you are not VAT registered, you must not show VAT or a VAT number on the invoice at all. Everything else on this page still applies, and the rest of the document is what protects you in a dispute.

The exact requirements are published on GOV.UK and they change. Read them there rather than trusting a template you found, including this one, and take your accountant view on anything about your own position.

Labour and parts belong on separate lines

Show the labour as hours and a rate, not as a single figure. Two point four hours at your hourly rate is a number a customer can check and can compare. A line reading labour and one amount invites the question of what that amount was for, and it is a much harder question to answer six weeks later.

Where a job has distinct tasks, price them as distinct lines. A service, a brake job and a diagnostic on one visit are three pieces of work, and a customer who queries the brakes should not have to unpick one combined total to do it.

Put the parts underneath with their own prices. A garage that hides the parts inside a job price is making itself impossible to compare and, more practically, is making a warranty claim harder, because the invoice no longer evidences what was fitted at what price.

Diagnostic time is work and should be charged as work. Burying it in the repair means it disappears entirely on the jobs where the customer decides not to proceed, which are exactly the jobs where the time was spent.

Part numbers, and why they belong on the invoice

The part number is the difference between an invoice that supports a warranty claim and one that does not. A failed component identified only as front brake pads leaves a supplier free to ask which pads, and nobody will remember.

It also settles the grade question. A customer quoted for one brand and supplied with an equivalent has a fair question about it, and an invoice naming what was actually fitted answers it without a phone call.

Where an old unit has been exchanged, show the surcharge and show what happened to it. Surcharges that appear on an invoice with no explanation generate more queries per pound than anything else on a garage document.

The MOT test fee

The MOT test fee is treated differently from the rest of a garage invoice and it is the item most often got wrong. Broadly, where a garage passes on the test fee at no more than the statutory maximum set by the DVSA, that charge is treated as outside the scope of VAT rather than as a standard rated supply. Where a garage is not itself the test station and passes on exactly what the test station charged, the treatment is usually that of a disbursement.

Two things commonly go wrong. Charging more than the statutory maximum changes the position, because the excess is your own charge rather than the test fee. Adding a handling or administration charge on top does the same thing. Neither is prohibited, but neither is outside the scope of VAT simply because it sits next to a line that is.

Show it as its own line either way, marked so that the treatment is visible rather than buried in a total. A retest, a repair done to secure a pass and the test itself are three different things on one visit, and only one of them is the test fee.

This is the paragraph on this page to be most careful with. The rules turn on whether you are the test station, what you charged and how the charge is described, and the consequences of getting it wrong land on your VAT return rather than on a web page. Confirm your own treatment with your accountant or with HMRC rather than taking this, or any other article, as settled.

The bottom of the invoice is your marketing

Advisories belong on the invoice, not only on the health check. They are the record that the item was raised, they are the reason the customer is not surprised in six months, and they are the list you open with at the next visit.

Next service due and MOT expiry printed on the document is the cheapest retention a garage has. It costs nothing, it goes in the glovebox with the invoice and it frames your reminder three weeks before the date as a continuation rather than a sales call.

Send it before the customer leaves rather than posting it later. An invoice handed over with the keys gets paid on the spot far more often than one that arrives by email on Thursday, and a payment link on the emailed copy closes most of the rest.

Youzse produces UK VAT invoices from the job card without retyping it, with labour and parts separated, deposits applied, payment links and card payments on collection and 9 box VAT returns behind them. Card payments are 2.5% plus 35p with the platform fee inside that rate.