Billing a job in two parts: deposit, then balance

On anything bigger than a service call, you are financing the job until you are paid. Materials are ordered, the crew is booked, and the money arrives at the end — if it arrives.

A deposit fixes that, and creates two new problems if it is handled casually.

What a deposit is actually for

Be clear with yourself first, because it changes how you explain it.

A deposit is not a down payment on your profit. It covers money you have to spend before you can start: materials ordered, equipment reserved, a slot in your schedule that you are now not selling to anybody else.

If you can articulate that, the conversation becomes easy:

"The deposit covers the materials I order for your job. Once I've ordered them, they're yours — they're cut to your measurements and I can't put them back."

That is a reason. "I always take 50%" is a policy, and policies invite negotiation.

How much

Tie it to the real commitment, not to a habit:

• Materials-heavy job — enough to cover the order, plus a little
• Labour-heavy job — smaller, often nothing, because your exposure is a day of your own time
• Long job — consider progress payments at named milestones instead of one large deposit

Several states place limits on how much a residential contractor may take up front, and some require specific contract language when you do. That varies by state and by trade — check yours, and write the deposit into the contract language your state expects.

The part people get wrong: one document, paid twice

The common approach is to issue a single invoice for the full amount, take half, and mark the rest as outstanding.

It causes trouble every time:

• your books show one invoice half-paid for weeks, which is not what happened
• the customer cannot hand a clean document to whoever reimburses them
• if the job changes scope, the one invoice is now wrong in both directions
• and at year end, revenue lands in the wrong period

A deposit invoice and a balance invoice are two separate documents, each with its own number, its own date, and its own total. The balance invoice references the deposit and deducts it. That is what an accountant expects to see, and it is what survives being questioned.

The three lines that prevent the argument

On the deposit document:

1. What the deposit is for — "materials deposit for the works described in estimate #1043"
2. What it is not — "this deposit is not a payment toward labour and does not confirm a start date until materials arrive"
3. What happens if the customer cancels — the honest version, which is usually that restockable materials are refunded less the restocking fee, and custom-cut materials are not

That third line is the one that gets left off and the one that matters, because cancellation is precisely when goodwill has already evaporated.

Then make the balance easy to pay

A balance invoice that arrives three days after completion, as a PDF attached to an email, with bank details in the body, will be paid slowly.

Reduce the distance between "work is done" and "money has moved":

• issue it the day the work finishes, from the site if possible
• make the amount and due date unmissable
• include a payment link, and accept that the fee is cheaper than two weeks of chasing
• state the late terms, even if you never enforce them

How this works in practice

In Pro Speak Artisan, the invoice is issued from the estimate the customer accepted — same lines, same totals, nothing retyped. If the job is billed in two steps, you get a deposit invoice and then a balance invoice: two distinct numbered documents, not one invoice paid twice.

Either can be settled by a payment link, or simply marked paid by hand when the customer pays in cash, by transfer or by cheque — because plenty of them still do, and your records should say which.

The deposit is not an awkward thing to ask for. It is awkward to ask for badly.