Courier Invoice Template

A courier invoice bills a client for deliveries you've already made. This template is for account clients: one invoice per billing period, such as a week or a month, listing every delivery in that period with its fee, then any waiting time and fuel surcharge, and the amount due by a due date.

It's a different document from the ones a driver hands over at the door:

• A proof of delivery receipt is signed by the person receiving the goods. It confirms what arrived and in what condition, and says nothing about payment.
• A courier delivery payment receipt, on the same page, confirms that a customer has already paid for a delivery. Use it for customers who pay when they book or on delivery, not for account clients you bill later.

Each delivery job is one row. Fill the log in from your dispatch or driver records, in date order, so the client can check it against their own bookings.

• Ref. / tracking no. Use the job or tracking number your proof of delivery carries. That one number lets the client find the signed receipt for any line they query.
• Pickup to drop-off. Enough of each address for the client to recognize the job, such as a company name or a street and town.
• Service level. The service the client booked, such as same-day, rush or next-day. The sample adds the delivery window: "Same day, 4 hours" or "Rush, 1 hour".
• Qty and fee. The fee is the agreed price for one delivery at that service level. Use the quantity when one job covers several drops at the same fee: the sample's Nov 12 job goes to three bank branches at 28.00 each.

If the client gave you a PO number, put it in the "Bill to" block so their accounts team can match the invoice.

Waiting time is the time a driver spends at a pickup or drop-off beyond what your rates include. The template gives it its own table, so it isn't folded into a delivery fee. Each row has the date, the reference number of the delivery it belongs to, where the driver waited, the reason, the hours and your rate per hour. In the sample, the driver waited half an hour for filed documents on Nov 9 and a quarter of an hour for a signature on Nov 24, both at 40.00 an hour.

How much free waiting time you allow, and what you charge after it, are your own business terms. Agree them with the client before you bill for them, and write them in the billing terms. The sample note in the Word and Excel files, labeled "Sample terms", allows the first 10 minutes at each stop free and charges in 15-minute steps after that; replace it with your own.

Bill other extras, such as a return trip or out-of-hours work, as their own rows in the delivery log with a short description, so the client can see what each one was for. Rows in the delivery log count toward the delivery fees the fuel surcharge applies to, so if your agreement leaves an extra out of the surcharge, adjust the formula.

Agree payment terms when you open the account, and print them on every invoice with the invoice date and due date. The sample uses Net 30: November's deliveries are invoiced on Dec 1 and due on Dec 31. The payment reference and the footnote ask the client to quote the account and invoice numbers, so you can match the payment to the right invoice.

If you want to charge a late fee or interest on overdue invoices, agree it with the client in writing first, and check the rules where you work before you charge it.

1. Add your business details, then the invoice number, invoice date, payment terms, due date and billing period.
2. Under "Bill to (account client)", enter the company, its accounts payable contact, the account number and any PO number.
3. Fill in the delivery log from your dispatch records: one row per job, with the reference number that matches its proof of delivery.
4. Add any waiting time, with the reference number of the delivery it belongs to, the reason, the hours and your rate per hour.
5. Set the fuel surcharge rate to the one you agreed with the client (or 0%), and set the sales tax rate.
6. Edit the billing terms notes to match your agreement, replace the placeholders in "How to pay" with your own details, and send the invoice.

The PDF is a blank form for filling in by hand. The Word and Excel files have the same layout with the sample month filled in, for you to overwrite.

In the Excel file, each line amount is the quantity × fee or hours × rate, and the two table subtotals, the subtotal, the fuel surcharge, the tax and the amount due are formulas too. The fuel surcharge and sales tax rates sit in their own cells. To leave either out, set its rate to 0% instead of deleting the row, because the totals refer to them. The delivery log has nine rows and the waiting time table three. For a busier period, insert rows inside the table and copy the amount formula into them so the subtotals include them. In Word or on the PDF, work out the amounts yourself.

For a general layout rather than a courier one, see the invoice templates for Word, for Excel, as a PDF, for Google Docs and for Google Sheets.

• Delivery receipt for proof of delivery signatures and pay-on-delivery receipts
• Delivery note for the list of goods that travels with a shipment
• Freight invoice for freight shipments
• Trucking invoice for trucking jobs
• All invoice templates