Invoice Koi

Invoicing for developers

Nobody argues with the code and everybody argues with the invoice. Half of what you did was in the estimate, some of it arrived on a Thursday afternoon as a message beginning "quick one", and by the end of the month you are trying to reconstruct three weeks of work from a commit log and a feeling.

An illustration of a mechanical keyboard, a coiled cable, a stack of index cards, a coffee cup and a pen laid across a notebook of ruled lines, with a koi swimming among them.
01On the document

What developers
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
Development hourshrs
Day ratedays
Sprint, two weekseach
Support and maintenance retainermonth
Hosting and third-party servicesmonth
Discovery and technical scopingjob

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
SCOPING
Discovery and technical scoping$600
Subtotal$600
BUILD
Development hours, 64$4,800
Sprint overrun, agreed$750
Subtotal$5,550
RUNNING COSTS
Hosting and third-party services$140
Subtotal$140
Total$6,290
Grouped line items are free, on all nine templates.
A photograph of a freelance developer working at a two screen desk in a spare room, notes and index cards taped to the wall beside them.
Price book
Development hourshrs
Day ratedays
Sprint, two weekseach
One tap puts the line on the invoice.
This job, grouped
SCOPING$600
BUILD$5,550
RUNNING COSTS$140
Total$6,290
No signal needed. It is written here.
02Why developers use it

Three things that
save the evening.

Hours that end up on the invoice

Track time against a client and turn it into a line, rather than rebuilding a month out of a commit log. What was tracked is what is billed.

A retainer that drafts itself

Set the support arrangement once on a monthly cadence and the draft is waiting on the day it is due. You look at it, add anything on top, and send it.

The build and the running costs, kept apart

Hosting and third-party services go under their own heading with their own subtotal, so a client can see what they are paying you and what they are paying somebody else through you.

03 · Questions

Asked by developers.

Can I bill hourly on one project and a fixed price on another?

Yes. The unit belongs to the line, not to the invoice, so an hourly line, a day rate and a fixed-price milestone can sit on the same document.

How do I invoice a monthly support arrangement?

As a recurring invoice on a monthly cadence. The draft appears with the client and the line already on it, and nothing goes out without you sending it.

Can I re-bill hosting at cost?

Scan the receipt into an expense and re-bill it as a line. Taking it back off removes that line and no other.

Other trades