Free Invoice Template for Interior Designers

How interior designers usually bill

Design fees come as a flat fee per room or project, hourly, or by square footage. Procurement is handled either at cost plus a stated percentage, or at a trade discount where you keep the margin — clients increasingly ask which, and the invoice should not be evasive about it. Freight, white-glove delivery, receiving warehouse fees, and storage are pass-through. Installation and styling days are usually separate, as is project management on renovation work.

What belongs on a interior designer invoice

Beyond the obvious — your details, the client’s details, a total — these are the fields that a generic invoice template leaves out and that interior designers need:

• Project name and the specific rooms or phases this invoice covers
• Design fee as a distinct line from anything purchased
• Procurement shown at cost with the markup percentage stated, or as a trade-discount arrangement — but stated either way
• An item schedule reference so the furnishings total is checkable
• Freight, receiving warehouse, and storage as pass-through lines
• Installation and styling days billed separately from design time
• Project management hours on renovation work, separate from design
• Lead times and any deposits already paid to vendors on the client's behalf

Deposits, terms, and when to invoice

A design retainer at signing, applied against the first phases, is the standard opening. Furnishings are almost always paid in full before they are ordered — vendors require it and you should not be financing a client's sofa. Renovation project management commonly bills monthly. Because lead times stretch across months, the invoice should show what has been ordered and what is still to come, or the client will lose track of what they have already paid for.

Tax and pass-through costs

This is one of the more complicated billing situations in professional services. Design services are untaxed in many US states while the furnishings you sell are taxable in essentially all of them — and whether you are acting as a retailer or as the client's purchasing agent changes who owes what. Some designers hold a resale certificate and charge tax on the marked-up sale; others buy as the client's agent. The distinction affects your revenue, your tax registration, and your invoice format. This is worth a professional opinion rather than an assumption. General information, not tax advice.

Line items that prevent arguments

Each of these is a real dispute that a single line on the invoice makes impossible to have:

• "Your fee was more than the furniture" — separating the design fee from procurement at cost makes each number defensible on its own.
• "What's the markup?" — stating the percentage pre-empts a question that is uncomfortable only when it is dodged.
• "Where is the chair I paid for in March?" — showing ordered items and lead times keeps a nine-month project legible.