How late can you invoice a customer?
Short answerThere is no universal deadline for sending an invoice, but the longer you wait, the harder it is to collect. Send it the day of the job or the next morning. Check your contract, your state's rules for your trade, and any commercial customer's invoicing terms, since those can set limits.
The explanation
From a practical view, an invoice sent within a day gets paid faster. The customer still remembers the work, the photos are fresh, and any question about the job can be answered quickly. A bill that arrives six weeks later invites doubt.
Legal limits exist but vary. Contracts can set a window. Some commercial customers require invoices within a set number of days or they will not pay. Statutes of limitation limit how long you can sue over an unpaid bill, but that period depends on your state and the type of debt. Ask a local advisor.
Build a habit so it does not depend on memory. Create the invoice from the completed job in the same tool, send it from the truck or at day end, and review open jobs weekly for any that were done but not billed. Unbilled completed work is the quiet money leak.
Steps
- Create the invoice from the finished job the same day.
- Send it by the customer's preferred channel.
- Run a weekly list of completed jobs with no invoice.
- Check the invoicing terms of your larger commercial customers.
What to watch for
- Batching invoices at month end by habit.
- Changing prices after the fact.
How Apex does it
In progress
Part of this is built. The rest is not. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
Apex is designed to create an invoice from a completed job, send it by text or email, batch invoices and add an approval step before sending. These are mostly demo screens or partly built.
- IN01Invoice from completed job(Rolling out)
- IN03Send invoice by text / email(Rolling out)
- IN19Batch invoicing(Rolling out)
- IN35Invoice approval step before sending(In progress)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.
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