Invoice vs receipt: one asks for money, the other proves you got it

They often come from the same template and look almost identical, so people mix them up all the time. The difference is only timing. An invoice goes out before the money moves. A receipt comes after.

Get the order wrong and things stall. More on that at the end.

The invoice: please pay

You send it when the work is done. It has a due date and how to pay, because its whole job is to get money to move. Your client's accounts team pays from it. (Here's exactly what to put on one.)

The receipt: paid, thank you

You issue it once the money has landed. Instead of a due date it has the date you were paid and how they paid: card, transfer, cash. It's the client's proof of what they spent, for their records or their expenses.

A receipt needs very little: the word Receipt or Paid, who paid whom, the date, the amount, the payment method, and what it was for. Often that last part is simply "Payment for invoice AB-0114".

Do you need both?

If you're a freelancer billing clients, usually not. The invoice is the document that matters. Most clients never ask for a separate receipt, because their bank statement already shows the payment.

If one does ask, don't make a second document. Mark the invoice paid, with the date, and send that. It's a perfectly good receipt. (In Quire, marking an invoice paid stamps it, so the invoice becomes its own record.)

Shops work the other way round. You pay at the till, so there's never an invoice, only the receipt.

The mix-up that costs you

Sending something called a "receipt" before you've been paid. To an accounts team, a receipt is a record of money that has already moved, so they file it and nothing happens. Call it an invoice until the money is in your account. If you're not sure what makes a document an invoice, start here.