Invoice Koi

Invoicing for designers

Design work is agreed as a shape and paid for as a number, and the gap between the two is where the argument lives. The client remembers a logo. You remember three rounds of revisions, a stationery set nobody mentioned at the start, and a typeface license you bought out of your own pocket in week one.

An illustration of a color swatch fan, a scalpel, a roll of tape, a pencil and a folded proof sheet of ruled lines, with a koi swimming among them.
01On the document

What designers
put on an invoice.

These go in your price book once, with your own prices against them. After that a line is one tap: the item, the description, the unit and the price fill themselves, and the totals resolve underneath.

LineUnit
Design day ratedays
Design hourshrs
Brand identity, fulljob
Logo and markseach
Revision round, beyond the agreed twoeach
Typeface license and stock assetseach
Artwork and print-ready filesjob

Prices are yours. Invoice Koi ships a handful of round placeholder lines to start from and never fills your book with figures you did not set.

A job, grouped Subtotals per section
DISCOVERY
Research and route development, 2 days$900
Subtotal$900
IDENTITY
Logo and marks$1,400
Revision round, third$250
Subtotal$1,650
ASSETS
Typeface license$180
Artwork and print-ready files$320
Subtotal$500
Total$3,050
Grouped line items are free, on all nine templates.
A photograph of a graphic designer at a desk in a small studio, pinned proofs on the wall behind, color swatches spread across the desk.
Price book
Design day ratedays
Design hourshrs
Brand identity, fulljob
One tap puts the line on the invoice.
This job, grouped
DISCOVERY$900
IDENTITY$1,650
ASSETS$500
Total$3,050
No signal needed. It is written here.
02Why designers use it

Three things that
save the evening.

A project the client can read in stages

Group discovery, identity and artwork under their own headings with their own subtotals. A number arrived at in three steps is a number that gets paid rather than queried.

A deposit before the first stage

Record what has been paid against the invoice as it comes in. The balance, the status and every report figure follow from the payments you record, so a half-paid project shows what is still owed.

The license you bought in week one

Photograph the receipt for a typeface or a stock image and it is read into an expense with the tax inside it. Put it back on the invoice as a line and it bills at what it cost.

03 · Questions

Asked by designers.

How do I bill a design project in stages?

Each stage is a group of lines with its own subtotal on one document, or its own invoice as the stage completes. Both roll up in the reports the same way.

How do I charge for revisions beyond what was quoted?

Keep the extra round in the price book as its own line and add it when it happens. It reads as work that was asked for rather than as a price that moved.

Can I invoice a client abroad in their currency?

The document carries the currency and tax your business is set up with. Anything beyond that, your accountant is a better guide than an app.

Other trades