Deposit Invoice Calculator

A deposit invoice is the bill you send when the client accepts the estimate, before the work is finished. It is the part of the project total you both agreed would change hands first, so you are not funding their job with your own cash. The rest waits for a second invoice, sent when the work is done. Two documents, one project, one total. The schedule on this page is those two documents, reduced to the amounts.

People ask for 50 percent because it splits the wait in half. You have enough to start. They still have enough at stake to care about the finish. That split is a habit, not a statute. A two-day logo can be 50 percent, or paid in full before any files leave. A three-month build for a client who already pays on time might be 30 percent, then a milestone, then the balance. A stranger with a large budget is a poor candidate for an invoice that arrives only at the end. If you cannot name why this client should pay less than half up front, 50 percent is the number to print on the estimate and on the first invoice.

• ●50 percent is a common deposit on project work
• ●A fixed amount fits when the percent looks odd
• ●The balance is a second invoice, not a leftover note

Tax is where the arithmetic goes wrong. A $10,000 project at 10 percent tax is $11,000 once the tax is on. A 50 percent deposit taken before tax is $5,000 plus $500 of tax, so the signature invoice is $5,500 and the completion invoice is the other $5,500. The same 50 percent taken after tax is also $5,500, because half of $11,000 is $5,500. Those two paths match at a clean half. They stop matching when the deposit is not half, or when the tax is applied to only one invoice.

A fixed $2,000 deposit before tax, at that same 10 percent, is a $2,200 invoice now and an $8,800 invoice later. The same $2,000 taken after tax is $2,000 now and $9,000 later. One of those is the deal you described. The other is the number their bookkeeper will question when the estimate and the two invoices refuse to add up. Use the toggle for the path you actually sell. Before tax takes the percentage or the fixed amount off the project total, then adds tax on each invoice. After tax takes the deposit from the tax-inclusive total, and the deposit line should not have tax added a second time.

The two rows under the result are the thing you send. The first is invoiced on signature. The second is invoiced on completion. Together they should come back to the project plus tax. If a deposit was typed larger than the job, the calculator caps it at the total so the balance cannot go negative. An empty tax field is zero tax. That is fine for a client who is not charged tax. It is a quiet error if you forgot a rate you always charge.

Put the signature amount on the deposit invoice, call the line a deposit, and write the balance in the notes with the moment you expect to invoice it. Clients pay the first bill faster when the second number is already on the page. On completion, invoice only the balance. Sending the full project total again, with a sentence that they already paid some of it, is how a deposit gets paid twice or skipped. Keep the same split on the next job of the same kind, so you are not inventing a new structure every time someone says yes.

Nothing you type here is stored, and the page is arithmetic, not tax advice. What counts as the taxable amount depends on where you and the client sit. If the job crosses a border, ask an accountant which invoice the tax belongs on, then keep that choice. The PDF is free. You can download it or email a copy to yourself. The figures are on the page either way.

The completion invoice is not a second copy of the project. On the $11,000 job, $5,500 has already been asked for. The page the client opens later should show that payment and a balance of $5,500. If the deposit line is missing, their bookkeeper will either pay the whole project again or pay nothing while they wait for an explanation.

The deposit is due when they accept the estimate, not when you remember a week later. A $5,500 invoice that appears the day they sign is part of the agreement. The same $5,500 requested in a separate thread, after you have already started, is a new negotiation.