Partpaymentsandprogressbilling
The end-of-project dispute is almost never about the work. It is about what the last payment was for.
5 minute read · Updated
Short answer
There are two ways to bill in stages, and mixing them causes the confusion. Either invoice each milestone separately for its own amount, so each invoice stands alone, or invoice the full engagement once and record payments against it, showing total, amount paid and balance due. Pick one per project and say which in the payment terms. Whichever you use, every document should show the running balance rather than leaving the reader to work it out across several PDFs.
The two approaches
| Milestone invoices | One invoice, payments recorded | |
|---|---|---|
| You raise | One invoice per stage | One invoice for the engagement |
| Each document is | Complete in itself | Updated as payments arrive |
| Suits | Long projects, separate deliverables | Advance plus balance |
| Client sees | Several smaller demands | One total with a shrinking balance |
| Risk | Stages drift out of sync with work | Ambiguity about what a payment covered |
Milestone invoicing is the cleaner option for anything long, because each document is self-contained and can be approved on its own merits. The single-invoice approach suits the common freelance shape of an advance followed by a balance.
Showing a part payment
A part payment recorded without a balance line is remembered, months later, as settlement in full. The fix is one field.
- Total — the full amount of the engagement or stage.
- Amount paid — what has been received against it, with the date and reference.
- Balance due — printed separately, in the same weight as the total.
In the generator this is the amount-paid field: enter what has been received and the document prints all three, so there is nothing left to interpret.
Keeping the thread across documents
- 01Give the project a reference and put it in the reference field on every related document.
- 02Number milestone invoices consecutively in your normal series — do not start a sub-series per project.
- 03State in the detail line which stage this is: “Stage 2 of 4 — design sign-off”.
- 04Show the running balance on each one, so nobody has to open the previous three.
- 05Reference the proforma or advance receipt where one exists.
Tax on staged payments depends on when the supply is treated as taking place, which is not necessarily when you invoiced. On a long project spanning a rate change or a financial year, that is a question worth putting to your accountant at the start rather than at the end.
The reference
Payment receipt format
What a payment or money receipt should contain, how it differs from an invoice, and how to handle advances, part payments and balances due.
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Questions people ask
Print three figures: the total, the amount already paid with its date and reference, and the balance due shown separately in the same weight as the total. A part payment recorded without an explicit balance line is what becomes an end-of-project argument about whether the payment settled everything.
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