A pet-sitting invoice checklist for UK businesses

An invoice is a document with a job: to be paid, quickly, without generating a question. Most pet-care invoices fail at the third part, and the first two suffer as a result.

Here is what belongs on one, in three tiers.

Tier 1: the parts that make it an invoice

• The word "Invoice". Genuinely — a document that does not say what it is gets treated as a statement.
• A unique sequential number. Yours, in order, no gaps, no duplicates.
• The date it was issued.
• Your business name and address. Trading name and, if you are a limited company, the registered name, number and registered office.
• The client's name and address.
• A clear description of what was supplied, with quantities and dates.
• The amount due, and the currency.
• The date payment is due.

Tier 2: VAT, and the honest version

Most sole-trader dog walkers and pet sitters are below the VAT registration threshold and are not registered. If that is you, the correct thing is simple: do not mention VAT at all. No VAT line, no VAT number, no "VAT: £0.00". Charging or implying VAT when you are not registered is a serious problem, and an invoice that shows a zero VAT line invites exactly that confusion.

If you are registered, your VAT number and rate must appear, with the VAT amount shown separately and the total including it. Thresholds and rules change — check the current position with HMRC or your accountant rather than with a blog.

The practical software point: VAT should be a setting that is either on with your number and rate, or entirely absent from the document. A half-configured VAT field is worse than none.

Tier 3: the parts that get you paid faster

• Payment details on the invoice itself. Bank name, account name, sort code, account number — and a payment link if you use one. Never make a client message you to ask how to pay.
• Your invoice number as the payment reference, stated explicitly. This is what makes reconciliation possible when three clients pay £210 in the same week.
• Itemised lines with dates. "14 × 30-minute walk, 1–31 July" beats a lump sum. For a sit: the dates covered, the number of visits, and any extras separately.
• Extras spelled out. Key collection, medication visits, bank holiday rates, a cancellation fee. A surprise line item is the most common cause of a delayed payment.
• Your logo and contact details. Not vanity — an invoice that looks like the business the client hired gets paid sooner than a plain-text email.
• Your UTR, if you include it, and your terms.

Send it as a PDF, and send it promptly

An amount typed into the body of an email is not a document; it cannot be forwarded to a partner, filed, or handed to an accountant. Attach a PDF, and send it the day the work period ends. Invoices sent a fortnight late are paid a fortnight late, and they signal that the money is not urgent to you.

Keep the record after it is sent

The invoice is the start of a small piece of bookkeeping, not the end. You need to know, at a glance, what is outstanding, what is overdue, what has been paid — and how it was paid, since pet care collects cash, transfers and card payments in the same week. That record is what makes the year end survivable and what tells you when a client has quietly stopped paying.

In CorePaw Pro invoices carry your branding, VAT only if you are registered, your payment details and your terms; they are numbered centrally, delivered as PDFs in your name with your address as reply-to, and tracked as outstanding, overdue, paid or void with the date and method of every payment.

See pet-sitting invoicing.