When your company performs an HVAC service, you want to get paid for your hard work. And the way you get paid is by creating an invoice and sending it to your client. But here’s the thing: how you put together your invoice – and how early you send it – affects both how soon you get paid and how simple your record-keeping process is afterward.
To help you do this right, we put together an example of an HVAC invoice to show you the key pieces of information your HVAC invoice should have. We’ll also share some places where you can generate professional-looking HVAC invoices, or download templates for them. Finally, we’ll offer some advice on how to make functional HVAC invoices that get you paid earlier and help keep your cash flow stable.
First, we’ll look at some essential elements a professional HVAC invoice should include.
HVAC invoices should be as thorough as possible. This helps to avoid filing errors, customer confusion, payment delays, and generally just making your company look unprofessional. With that in mind, we’ve provided a sample HVAC invoice that highlights some of the most critical details you should include.
Though we’ve given you an example of an HVAC invoice, it’s more for explanation’s sake and not one that you can practically use. Fortunately, there are several others available that contain many of the points we’ve highlighted. Here are 4 of them.
1. BuildOps
BuildOps is a field service management platform tailor-made for commercial contractors, including HVAC companies. Its management functions include invoicing, taking the heavy lifting out of creating a custom, branded invoice. Simply pick the details you want to require, fill them in, and BuildOps does the rest. BuildOps HVAC invoicing software makes it easy to send invoices to clients and automatically creates records for them so you can keep your files organized. The invoicing functions also connect to your payment processing, customer data, and accounting systems – helping you streamline tracking of who’s paid you and how much you’ve been paid.
Discover even more benefits of using BuildOps to manage your HVAC invoicing.
2. Intuit QuickBooks
Popular accounting software Intuit QuickBooks offers a free downloadable HVAC invoice template. The template is available in Word, Excel, or PDF formats, which makes it easy to fill out and send digitally, or to physically print and send by mail. Simply fill it in with your information, and dependencies will automatically calculate item totals (based on price and quantity/duration), subtotals, taxes, and a final total.
Unfortunately, this formatting isn’t consistent across all file types. Some don’t allow for digital data entry, and others don’t include currency formatting (which can make the pricing hard to understand). In addition, this template has to be filled in and saved manually each time you want to send an invoice. So you have to spend extra time writing and filing your invoices by hand, instead of having this done quickly and automatically by management system software.
Get the free downloadable HVAC invoice template from Intuit QuickBooks.
3. eForms
This HVAC invoice template from eForms is simple and free to download as a Word, PDF, or OpenDocument file. You can fill it out digitally, but you can also print it out and fill it in by hand (which it seems most suited for). Its main weakness is that it’s not easy to customize in terms of what’s on the form or how that’s input. For example, it doesn’t automatically calculate totals, so you have to do the math yourself and ensure you don’t make a mistake. You also have to manually fill in and save the file each time you want to create a new invoice.
Download this free eForms HVAC invoice template.
4. Jobber
Instead of a static template, Jobber offers a free HVAC invoice generator on its website. This gives you greater control over inputting elements like logos, dates, line items (including quantities and prices), taxes, and discounts. It also calculates rates and totals. You can then have Jobber generate the invoice, which you can download and save as a PDF file.
Again, though, you must manually enter most of the information and elements every time you want to make a new invoice, then generate it and save the resulting file. This can cause confusion and errors that plague manual file management, especially if it’s done by separate employees.
A further problem is that you can’t download the base template, which can cause you to lose access to it if you can’t access Jobber’s website (or the Internet in general). This also forces you to input your company name, address, email, and phone number every time you want to create an invoice with Jobber’s tool. Jobber could then use this information to include you in its sales funnel.
Go to Jobber’s free HVAC invoice generator.
For a bigger list of even more HVAC invoice examples, see our full article on HVAC invoice templates you can use to make an invoice template your own.
There are many different types of services that HVAC technicians need to perform, including installation, regular maintenance, and — when necessary — repairs. While these services aren’t drastically different, having invoices that are uniquely designed for common scenarios saves you significant time customizing each individual invoice.
We recommend having a few basic types of invoices at the ready:
Having an invoice ready for each of these situations means you can simply fill in the details, rather than figure out which pieces of information you need for each invoice.
In October 2024, we did a study in 2024 of thousands of HVAC invoices, and we found two remarkable trends. First, companies that created and sent invoices within 10 days of completing jobs got paid the earliest. Second, companies that took more than 20 days after a job to create and send the invoice experienced the longest delays in getting paid — an average of nearly a month compared to companies that sent out invoices sooner!
This highlights how critical it is to draft your invoices correctly and get them sent out quickly. So how do you do that? Here are some best practices for sending HVAC invoices quickly to minimize payment delays.
1. Collect job details from technicians as soon as possible after a job is completed
The sooner your technicians file a report on a job after it’s done, the sooner your back office staff can start drafting and sending an invoice for that job. Be sure the report contains information such as hours worked, parts & materials used, item costs, and any additional overhead fees (travel/gas, environmental/disposal, etc.). BuildOps speeds up this process by allowing your technicians to enter this information into the mobile app and have it appear back at headquarters in real time.
Learn more about how the BuildOps HVAC invoice app can help speed up some of your processes in the field.
2. Use a consistent template with all the required information
Make sure the invoice template you use includes everything you and the customer will need for record-keeping purposes, such as:
Also be sure to keep the template’s design as similar as possible each time you make an invoice. Using radically different designs can confuse your customers (and your back office staff) as to where to find important information on the invoice.
3. Double-check the client’s contact information
Ensure the client’s contact information on the invoice is correct. Inconsistent contact information can cause confusion, delays, and other billing errors on the customer’s end. It can also cause problems on your end with customer file management.
4. Clearly display payment terms
When selecting an HVAC invoice template, pick one that has the payment terms displayed in a prominent place where your customer won’t miss them. It can also help to spell out payment terms in full instead of using shorthands (e.g. “net 30”) if you have space available.
5. Be flexible when it comes to payment
Put options on your invoice for accepting multiple different payment methods. This could include credit cards, automated clearing house transfers, mobile payments, or online payment service providers like PayPal. The more options you give your customer, the more likely it is that they’ll pay sooner.
6. Offer discounts and other incentives based on customer payment behavior
At the end of an invoice, you should leave a message thanking customers for their business. But you can also use this space to include personalized messages and offers based on how fast a specific client typically pays. If a client consistently pays quickly, you can entice them to continue doing so by letting them know you’re discounting your rates for them or bumping up the priority of their next job. Conversely, you can disincentivize late payments by highlighting stricter payment terms and reminding clients of penalties if they don’t pay on time.
BuildOps gives you more than just an HVAC invoice sample. It gives you a field service management system that includes features to streamline your invoicing that you won’t find in many other products. These include real-time job detail updates from the field, as well as AI-powered invoice creation and filing based on job report information. BuildOps also includes advanced search functions and asset tracking that make it easier to work with clients who manage multiple properties.
All of these make BuildOps your software of choice for running your commercial HVAC business. To see why for yourself, book a demo with us today. If you’re looking for some next steps, you can also check out our full guide to HVAC invoicing to take your processes to the next level.
FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
BuildOps connects every part of your business. #1 all-in-one Field Service Management and Project Management Software for commercial service contractors. Streamline your dispatch, quoting/invoicing, service, projects, and reports.
