You can make an invoice in Excel, as long as it meets the requirements in your country. Here’s how to set up an invoice template for Excel.
In August 2025, there were 49 500 Google searches for the phrase ‘invoice template for Excel’. In other words, invoicing in Excel is popular—however, you have to first check that you can use Excel for invoicing in your country.
If you’re able to use Excel for invoicing, read on to see how you do it. 👇
Can’t use Excel for invoicing?
With free invoicing software, you can easily make professional invoices in 2 minutes. The template is easy to fill out, you can send directly to your client, and you get a complete overview of your paid and unpaid invoices.
How to set up an Excel template
Did you know that you can use Excel for free online? That means that you can make invoices in Excel, even if you don’t have it installed on your computer.
These are all the fields you have to include in your template:
| Field | What to include |
|---|---|
| Invoice header | The document has to clearly state invoice at the top, or tax invoice if it includes tax |
| Your details | This includes your business name, the address your business is registered at, the organization number or tax number of your business. You can also add your contact information such as phone number and email address |
| Your client’s details | This is where you add your clients name and address, or if it’s a business, the business name, business address and organization or tax number |
| The invoice date | This is the date the invoice is issued. |
| The due date | This is the date the payment is due, for example 14 days after the invoice date. Read more about payment terms. |
| The invoice number | Each invoice needs to be marked with a unique number in ascending order, for validation and tracking purposes. The first time you create an invoice, you can use whatever number you want, but the next invoice has to have the next number in the sequence. Read more about invoice numbers. |
| A description of the goods or services | Clearly describe what was sold, including unit price, quantity, and tax rate |
| The total amount due | Show a calculation of the tax, and show the net total without taxes, and the subtotal with tax |
| Instructions for how to pay | One of the most important parts of the invoice are the payment instructions. One example of payment instructions are bank transfer details. You can also add a link to a payment gateway such as Google Pay or Stripe. |
If you want to get paid fast, it’s a good idea to include a thank-you message to the client. In fact, research shows that invoices that include ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ are more than 40 percent likely to get paid within 7 days.
Once you’ve set up your template, you can just make a copy and fill out the details when you need to invoice a client.
Don’t forget to promote your brand
You should make sure to add your business logo to your invoices. It makes it clear at a glance who the invoice is from, and it also makes you appear more professional. Putting work into your emails, invoices, and other business documents, will reflect well on your business.
It’s not the most important thing, of course—the most important thing is to get paid for your work, but it can make your customers more likely to remember you and to think positively of you.
See also: 14 amazing invoice examples to take inspiration from
Are there any alternatives to an Excel invoice template?
There are 4 main ways to make an invoice:
- Invoice pads or books, where you can make invoices by hand on prenumbered paper
- Invoice templates that you can either make yourself or download for Word and Excel
- Invoice generators that you can use to create invoices online
- Invoicing software that you can use to create invoices on your phone or laptop
This is the difference between the 4 methods
| Features | Invoice pad | Invoice template | Invoice generator | Invoicing software |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | ~$5 | Free | Free | Free |
| Email to clients | Have to take a picture and upload | Have to export as PDF | Have to download as PDF |  |
| Unlimited invoices |  | | | |
| Save and reuse clients, products, and services | | | | |
| Get notified about overdue invoices | | | | |
| Track invoice status | | | | |
| Store invoices safely | | | | |
The best long-term solution is to use invoicing software, as it does a lot of the work for you by saving clients, products and services—not to mention that all your invoices are safely stored, and that you’re notified if an invoice is overdue so that you can follow up on it.
