A musician’s invoice, done properly, in a minute
Fill the form in, press the button, get a PDF you can send. It carries what an invoice normally shows and nothing it does not. Pick your country at the top and it uses that currency, those bank details and that tax number — UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. No account, no upload, nothing stored.
Most musicians write their first invoice by copying somebody else’s, and most of those were copied from somebody else’s again. The result is a lot of invoices carrying things they do not need — a signature line, a tax reference, a set list — and missing the ones they do.
An invoice from a self-employed player, or from a band, normally shows the word Invoice and a number you never reuse, your name and address, the client’s, the date, what you are charging for with the date of the booking on it, the total, and how and when to pay. That is the whole list, and it is the same list in every country the form offers. If you are registered for VAT (or GST, or sales tax) you add your number, the rate and the amount; if you are not, none of it goes on at all. There is a longer version of all of this in the guide, including deposits, balances, and who invoices whom when a band is five self-employed people.
What you typed is kept in this browser only, so your name, address and bank details are already filled in next time. It never reaches us, and it is not on any other device.
A band that books itself sends a lot of these. Inside Event Band Manager the client accepts a quote online, the deposit and balance invoices raise themselves, and the payments get marked off against the gig.
What comes out
One A4 page, as a PDF, with the same layout the app’s own client invoices use:
- The header — the word INVOICE, your number, the issue date, and either a due date or “On receipt”.
- Both parties — your name, address, phone and email on the left; the client’s on the right.
- The lines — description, quantity, unit price and amount, up to twelve of them. Name the booking, the date and the venue; quote an agreed rate in the description if that is how the work was priced.
- The total — a subtotal, a tax line only if you ticked registered, and the amount due in bold, all in the currency of the country you picked.
- How to pay — account name, the bank details your country actually uses (sort code and account number, routing number and account, IBAN and BIC, a BSB, a transit and institution number) and the reference you want quoted. Leave them out and it says payment details to follow.
- A note, if you want one — payment terms, a thank you, or what the deposit covered.
What it deliberately leaves off: a signature line, your UTR or National Insurance number, and a “VAT: £0.00” row. None of those belong on an invoice from somebody who is not registered, and the tax references belong between you and the revenue rather than in a client’s filing cabinet.
Name the file with the number and the client when you save it — 0042 Smith-Jones wedding.pdf — and keep a list of what went out and what came back. That list is what your tax return runs on, and it is what every player’s share is worked out from if you keep the band’s books.
Questions people ask
Do I need to be VAT-registered to send an invoice?
No. Most self-employed musicians and most function bands are nowhere near the UK VAT threshold, and an invoice from somebody who is not registered simply has no VAT on it. Leave the tax section alone and none appears — not even a zero line, which reads as though you were registered and zero-rating something. If you are registered, tick the box and your number, the rate and the amount all go on the document. Outside the UK the same section asks for whatever your country calls it — GST and an ABN in Australia, GST/HST in Canada, GST in New Zealand, VAT in Ireland, sales tax and an EIN in the US.
Does it work outside the UK?
Yes — UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Pick the country at the top of the form and everything follows it: the currency every figure is printed in, the bank details the How-to-pay block asks for (sort code and account number, routing number and account, IBAN and BIC, BSB, transit and institution), the tax number, and the way the dates are written. Nothing else about the document changes, because nothing else needs to.
What if we are a band, not one person?
Put the band name where your own name would go, and the address of whoever keeps the books. That is the usual arrangement: one person invoices the client for the whole fee, is paid it, and pays the other players out of it — their own tax return then shows the fee as income and the payments out as costs. The alternative, everyone invoicing the client separately for their share, is tidier for tax and almost no client or agency will accept it.
Can I put a deposit on it?
Two ways, and both work here. Either raise one invoice for the deposit when the date is confirmed and a second for the balance nearer the event, or invoice the full fee and add a second line for the deposit already paid as a minus figure — "Deposit received 3 March, −£600" — so the client can see the whole booking and the amount still due on one page. The total at the bottom is what they owe now either way.
Is anything I type stored?
No. The form is sent to us once, turned into a PDF in memory and handed straight back; there is no account, no database row and no log of what was on it. Your own details are kept in your browser, on your own machine, so the next invoice starts from the last one — and there is a button under the form that clears them.
If you send more than a couple of these
Bands that book themselves get invoices, quotes and a booking page inside Event Band Manager: a client accepts a quote online, the date becomes a confirmed gig, the deposit and balance invoices raise themselves with the right dates on them, and the money gets marked off against the booking. The same arithmetic then pays the players — travel off the top, the rest split equally, a statement each.