What has to be on it
Nothing here is optional in practice. Each missing field is a reason for someone in accounts payable to set your invoice aside rather than process it.
- Your details — Legal or trading name, address, and any business or tax registration number that applies where you are. A personal name with no address reads as informal and gets treated that way.
- Their billing entity — The registered company name, not the brand name, plus the billing address and the accounts payable email if you have it. These differ more often than you would expect.
- A unique sequential invoice number — Gap-free, never reused. Finance reconciles by number, and a duplicate is a legitimate reason to reject and re-queue you.
- Issue date and due date — Both. An invoice with no due date cannot be late, which removes any basis for chasing it.
- Payment terms in words — 'Net 30' or 'Payable within 14 days'. State it rather than implying it from the due date.
- Itemised lines — Production and licence separately — see below. Include quantity, unit price, and line total.
- Total, with tax handled correctly — Whatever your jurisdiction requires. If you charge sales tax or VAT, show it as its own line.
- How to pay — A payment link if possible, and bank details as a fallback. Every step you remove shortens the delay.
- Their purchase-order reference — If they gave you one, put it near the top. Its absence is one of the most common reasons an invoice stalls at a larger company.
Itemise the licence separately
This is the UGC-specific part and it is worth doing even when the brand has not asked. Splitting the invoice into a production line and a usage-rights line makes explicit that the fee covers a defined licence — which is what turns a later extension into a priced change rather than a debate about what was already included.
It also has a quiet commercial effect. A brand that can see the licence costs money treats renewal as a purchase rather than as continuing something they already own, and renewals are the highest-margin income available to you.
- Production — Content production: 3 x short-form video, includes 1 revision round.
- Licence — Usage licence: paid social, 90 days from first publication, US and Canada.
- Add-ons — Rush turnaround, raw footage, or additional aspect ratios as their own lines, so nothing looks like it was free.
Where to send it
To the accounts payable address if one exists, with your day-to-day contact copied in. Sending only to the marketing manager means your invoice depends on them remembering to forward it, and forwarding an invoice is not their job.
Attach it as a PDF rather than pasting it into the email body — finance systems and approval workflows expect a document. Name the file so a stranger can identify it, something like your-name-invoice-0042-brandname.pdf. Put the invoice number and the amount in the subject line.
Ask one question before you deliver
'Who should I send the invoice to, and do you need a PO number?' Asked before delivery, it costs one line in an email you were sending anyway. Asked after the invoice is already late, it is the reason it was late.
Deposits and payment timing
For a new client, or any deal large enough that non-payment would genuinely hurt, ask for a deposit of a third to a half before you shoot. It is standard in production work and rarely refused. Beyond cash flow, it filters out brands that were never going to pay, which is the more valuable effect.
Invoice on delivery rather than on approval, unless the contract says otherwise. Tying the invoice to approval hands the brand an open-ended lever over when your payment clock starts, and approval can sit unattended for weeks with no bad intent at all.
Chasing without damage
Escalate in stages, and keep every stage factual rather than apologetic or aggressive. The first message should assume an administrative cause, because that is usually true.
- Day 1 past due — A short note with the invoice reattached: 'Invoice 0042 was due yesterday — reattaching in case it needs a PO or a different recipient.' Assume a process problem.
- Day 7 — Reply in the same thread, copy accounts payable if you have not already, and ask directly when it is scheduled for payment. A specific date is what you want.
- Day 14 — A firmer note restating the agreed terms and naming your position on late payment if your contract has one.
- Day 30 — A formal demand referencing the agreement, and a pause on any further work for that client until it is settled. Continuing to deliver into an unpaid balance is how a small problem compounds.
Retainers
Invoice a retainer on a fixed date each month, ideally in advance, and automate it if you can. Retainers invoiced by hand are invoiced late roughly in proportion to how busy you are, and a retainer that gets billed inconsistently starts to feel optional to the client.
State on the invoice what the month covers — deliverable count and scope — so the retainer keeps a defined shape. Retainers that drift into 'whatever you need' are the ones that quietly become unprofitable.