Deposit Invoice Generator — How and When to Ask for Money Upfront

A deposit invoice is a bill for part of your fee, paid before you start the work, with the rest due once it's finished. It protects you from doing the work and then chasing payment. TidyPapers' Deposit Invoice Generator (tidypapers.com/deposit-invoice-generator/) builds two linked documents at once — the deposit invoice you send now, and a preview of the remaining-balance invoice you'll send later — from one shared set of numbers. This guide covers every field.

When to use a deposit invoice

Use this instead of a single upfront invoice for the full amount when: the project is large enough that doing it all on credit is a real risk to you, the client is new and untested, or your own policy is "deposit to book the start date." If instead a client wants extra work added mid-project (not a new project), that's a Change Order, not a deposit invoice.

Step 1 — Set the currency

A Currency dropdown near the top offers € Euro (EUR), $ US Dollar (USD), £ British Pound (GBP). This applies to both documents the page generates.

Step 2 — Fill in the deposit invoice (the "due now" document)

This is the top document, labeled "Due now."

1. Your name / business — text field, under "From."
2. Client name — text field, under "Bill to."
3. No. — the invoice number, auto-generated and shown read-only.
4. Due date — a date picker for when the deposit is due.
5. A live "Deposit due" total at the top of the meta box, updating as you fill in the amounts below.
6. Project — a text field for the project name, shown under a "Project" heading. Below it, a line of text automatically states the deposit basis — for example, "30% of total project fee of $1,000" — updating live as you change the numbers.
7. Total project fee — a number field for the full project fee (the 100% figure).
8. Deposit — a percentage field (0–100) next to a live-calculated amount, e.g. entering 30 shows 30% of the total fee.
9. Deposit due now — the final calculated result: total fee × deposit percent. Not directly editable — it follows from the two fields above.
10. Payment terms / notes — a free-text box, with the placeholder example: "This deposit secures your project start date and is non-refundable once work begins." Use this to state your actual deposit policy.

Step 3 — The remaining-balance document (auto-generated preview)

Below the deposit invoice, a second document is generated automatically, labeled "Draft — issue on completion," with the on-page note: "Preview only. This invoice is not final and will be issued once the project is complete." It mirrors your "From" and client details, and shows:

1. Total project fee — same figure as entered above.
2. Less deposit paid (X%) — the deposit amount, subtracted, with the exact percentage shown.
3. Balance due on completion — the final result: total fee minus deposit.
4. Due date — shown as "On completion" rather than a fixed date, since you haven't finished the project yet.
5. Payment terms / notes — its own separate text box (not shared with the deposit document's notes), with the placeholder example: "Due within 7 days of project completion / final delivery."

This second document is a preview to plan around, not something you send today — you'll come back and download it once the project is actually complete, at which point you may want to update the due date and notes to match.

Step 4 — Download

1. "📄 Start your deposit invoice →" — the initial call-to-action button before you've entered data.
2. "📄 Download PDF →" — downloads both documents (the deposit invoice and the remaining-balance preview) together as one PDF.
3. "🗑️ Clear all →" — resets everything on this page. This only affects the Deposit Invoice Generator's own saved data, not any other TidyPapers tool.

What isn't automatic here

Your business name and currency are shared with the Invoice Generator: fill them in once (here, or on the Invoice Generator, or on any other tool that carries the shared business profile) and they're already filled in the next time you open this page. The client name and everything else on this page are typed in fresh, per document — see How Your Data Moves Between TidyPapers Tools for the full picture of what is and isn't shared between tools.