Invoice payment terms, explained with dates

The common terms, and what date they mean

All of these count from the invoice date unless you say otherwise. Take an invoice issued on Thursday 10 September 2026:

• Due on receipt — payable as soon as it arrives. In practice, put a date on it anyway: 10 Sep 2026.
• Net 7 — due 17 Sep 2026. Common for trades and small jobs where materials were paid for up front.
• Net 14 — due 24 Sep 2026. A good default for freelancers with individual clients and small businesses.
• Net 15 — due 25 Sep 2026. The same idea as Net 14, phrased in half-months; widely used in the US.
• Net 30 — due 10 Oct 2026. The standard for larger companies, and often non-negotiable because their payment runs are monthly.
• Net 45 and Net 60 — due 25 Oct and 9 Nov 2026. Long, and usually set by a procurement policy rather than by the person who hired you.

End of month terms

Some clients count from the end of the month the invoice was issued rather than from the invoice date. “Net 30 EOM” on a 10 September invoice means 30 days after 30 September — 30 October. That is three weeks later than plain Net 30, so it is worth checking which one a contract means before you agree to it.

If your client pays on a weekly or monthly payment run, the run date matters more than the term. Ask when theirs is, and send your invoice a few days before it.

Which terms to choose

Shorter is better when you can get it, but terms that get ignored are worse than terms that are honest. Pick what matches the client: Net 7 or due on receipt for one-off jobs and individuals, Net 14 for regular small-business clients, Net 30 where a company's process will not allow anything else.

Whatever you choose, write it on the invoice as a date as well as a phrase. A due date is what people act on, and it is what separates overdue from outstanding in your own records. In Invoira, the due date is a field; an account uses it to show what is overdue on the dashboard.

Deposits change the conversation more than terms do. Asking for part of the fee up front, invoiced separately, is normal for project work and removes most of the risk of a long Net.

Wording you can copy into the notes

Paste any of these into the notes field, adjust the dates and amounts, and it prints under the totals:

• “Payment terms: Net 14. Please pay by 24 September 2026 using the bank details above, quoting invoice INV-0042 as the reference.”
• “Due on receipt. Bank transfer preferred; please send the remittance advice to accounts@example.com.”
• “Net 30 from the invoice date. If a purchase order is required, please let me know before the due date so the invoice is not held.”
• “50% deposit invoiced on acceptance, balance due on delivery, Net 7.”
• “This invoice covers the period 1 to 30 September 2026. Queries within 7 days, please.”

Late payments

If an invoice goes past its due date, a short, factual message referencing the invoice number and the date usually works better than anything stern. Many countries give businesses a statutory right to interest on late commercial payments, and many contracts set their own late fee — both depend on where you are and what you signed, so check with an accountant or a lawyer rather than copying a percentage from the internet.

Invoira does not calculate interest or add late fees. If you charge one, add it as a line on a follow-up invoice, or state it as a sentence in the notes of the original.

A worked example

Questions

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