How to invoice a brand deal

Most creators learn invoicing by getting it wrong once. A brand goes quiet, and six weeks later it turns out the invoice went to the person who briefed you rather than the person who pays, or it was missing a reference number their system requires, or the payment terms everyone assumed were 30 days were 60 all along.

This page is the version nobody wrote down. It is written for one person billing a company for their own work.

Last updated: 13 August 2026

This is general practical guidance, not tax or legal advice. Rules differ by country and by your own registration status. If money is significant or your situation is unusual, ask an accountant in your own jurisdiction.

What has to be on a brand-deal invoice?

Nine things, near enough universally. A brand’s finance system is looking for each of them, and a missing one is the usual reason an invoice sits unpaid without anyone telling you.

1. The word “Invoice” — or “Tax Invoice” if you are registered for a consumption tax and charging it. Do not use “Tax Invoice” if you are not registered. In some countries that heading is a defined term with legal consequences, and in all of them it implies something about you that may not be true.
2. Your details — your full legal or trading name, your address, and your contact email. The name here should match the name on the bank account you want paid into. A mismatch stalls payments at the bank, not at the brand.
3. The brand’s details — their legal entity name and billing address. The legal entity is often not the name on the campaign. A brand you know by a one-word name may pay you as a holdings company two words longer, and if you invoice the wrong entity their system may have nowhere to file it.
4. An invoice number, unique and sequential. See below on why the sequence matters.
5. The date of issue. In most tax systems this is the point the supply is treated as having happened, which is what decides which period it falls in.
6. A description of what you did. “2 short-form reels and 3 story frames, Diwali campaign, delivered 12 September” is a description. “Services” is not, and it is the single most common reason an invoice bounces back.
7. The amounts — the fee, the tax if you charge any, and the total. Show the tax as its own line at its own rate. A total with tax buried in it is a document that contradicts itself the moment anyone checks the arithmetic.
8. The payment terms and the due date. Not just “Net 30” — the actual calendar date. Every accounts-payable team looks for a date, and computing one is not their job.
9. How to pay you. Bank account name, account number, and the routing identifier your country uses.

Depending on where you are, add your tax registration number, the brand’s tax registration number, and any reference number they have given you.

What does an accounts-payable team actually need?

This is a different question from the one above, and it is the one that decides whether you get paid on time.

The person who emailed you about the collaboration is usually in marketing. They have no authority to release money. Your invoice has to travel from them to their manager, then often to procurement, then to finance — and at each step it can stop for a reason nobody tells you about.

Four things shorten that journey more than anything else on the page:

• A purchase order or reference number, if they use one. Many mid-size and most large companies will not pay an invoice that does not quote one, and their system will reject it silently. Ask for it before you invoice: “Do you need a PO number on this?” is a one-line email that saves a month.
• The accounts-payable email address, not just your marketing contact’s. Ask for it and send to both. Most brands have one and will give it to you.
• The right legal entity. Ask which entity to bill. It is on their side of the contract, and if there is no contract, ask.
• The exact deliverables, and when they were delivered. Finance often has to match your invoice against something the marketing team signed off. Make that match easy to see.

Everything else — a nice-looking template, your logo — affects how you are perceived, not how fast you are paid.

How should I number my invoices?

Sequentially, without gaps, and in a way you never repeat.

The reason is not tidiness. In most tax systems an invoice number is the handle your records are audited by, and two documents sharing one number is a genuine problem — particularly if the brand has already filed the first one. In India, Rule 46(b) requires a consecutive serial number unique within a financial year. Elsewhere the wording differs and the substance rarely does.

Practical rules:

• Include the year or financial year. 2026-042 or 26-27/0042. When you are looking for one invoice among four hundred, this is the thing that finds it.
• Never reuse a number, even if you cancel the invoice it belonged to.
• Cancel, don’t delete. If an invoice has left your hands, correct it by issuing a document that voids it and keeps its number, or by issuing a credit note. Deleting the row and reusing the number means two brands hold different documents with the same reference.
• Don’t skip numbers to look busier. Gaps are what an auditor asks about.

What do net terms mean, and when does the clock start?

“Net 30” means the full amount is due within 30 days — that is, on or before day 30, not on day 31. It is a deadline, not a date.

The variants you will actually see:

The clock usually starts from the invoice date, not the delivery date — which is why sitting on an invoice for two weeks costs you two weeks. Send it the day you deliver.

Three things worth knowing before you agree to terms:

• Net 30 is a starting point, not a ceiling. Large brands and agencies routinely propose 60 or 90 days. It is negotiable, especially before you sign.
• Many countries give you a statutory right to interest on late commercial payments, whether or not your contract mentions it. Look up the rule where you are — it exists in the UK, across the EU, and in a number of other jurisdictions. Even if you never charge it, knowing it exists changes how a follow-up reads.
• Agencies often pay you only when the brand pays them. If a contract says “pay when paid”, you are financing someone else’s cash flow. Ask for it to come out, or price for it.

Beware of a specific trap: an email that says “please share your invoice by the 5th” is a deadline for you, not a payment date for them. So is “our finance team clears invoices in ten days once approved” — that is a description of their internal process, anchored to an approval date nobody has told you. Neither overrides the agreed terms.

Do I charge tax on a brand deal?

It depends entirely on where you are and whether you are registered, and it is the part most worth getting a local answer on. The shape of the question is the same everywhere, though:

• Are you registered? Most countries have a turnover threshold below which you are not required to register, and some let you register voluntarily. Below it, you charge nothing and issue a plain invoice.
• If you are registered, at what rate? This is a fact about current legislation where you live. Check it against your own tax authority, not against an app or an article.
• Whose location decides the treatment? Frequently the customer’s, not yours. In India, GST’s place of supply is the recipient’s location, which decides whether you charge CGST + SGST or IGST. In the EU, a cross-border B2B supply of services generally shifts to the customer’s country and the customer accounts for the tax themselves under the reverse charge — your invoice charges no VAT and must say so, quoting their VAT number.
• Currency does not decide tax. Being paid in dollars does not make a domestic supply into an export. Where the recipient is does.

If you take one thing from this section: the tax treatment follows the relationship, not the money. Two invoices for the same amount in the same currency can carry different tax because the clients are in different places.

Why did the brand pay less than the invoice?

Usually because they withheld tax at source and paid it to the government on your behalf. This is lawful, it is not a short payment, and chasing them for it is accusing them of something they did not do.

In India this is TDS, typically 10% under Section 194J for professional services, calculated on the taxable value rather than the total. The brand remits it against your PAN and it shows up against your tax account; you claim credit for it when you file. Similar withholding regimes exist in many countries.

What to do: record the amount that landed and the amount withheld separately, so what you are owed is invoice minus cash minus withholding. If you track only the cash, every one of those deals will look permanently part-paid and you will chase brands who have paid you in full.

Other reasons a payment can be short, in rough order of likelihood: a bank transfer fee deducted in transit on an international payment, a currency conversion at a rate you did not choose, a deduction for something agreed in the contract, or an actual error. Ask for the remittance advice — most finance teams send one, and it itemises exactly this.

What do I do when a payment is late?

Escalate slowly and in writing, and keep every message short.

Day 1 past due. A short, friendly note to your contact. Assume it is an oversight, because it usually is. Re-attach the invoice — do not make anyone go looking for it. Restate the invoice number, the amount and the due date.

Day 7. Same tone, but add the accounts-payable address to the thread. Ask a question that requires an answer: “Could you confirm the invoice has been scheduled, and for which payment run?” A question is harder to ignore than a reminder.

Day 14. Firmer, still polite, and now to accounts payable directly with your contact copied. Send a statement of what is outstanding. Ask whether anything is blocking approval — a missing PO number, the wrong entity, a signature — because frequently something is, and nobody has told you.

Day 30 and beyond. A formal notice referencing the contract or the accepted terms, stating the amount, the days overdue, and what happens next. This is the point at which mentioning your statutory right to late-payment interest is proportionate, if your jurisdiction gives you one. Pause further work.

Practical notes that matter more than the wording:

• Always attach the invoice again. Every time.
• Keep it in one thread, so the history is visible in a single scroll.
• Never send the original amount after a part payment. Quote the balance. Getting this wrong reads as either careless or accusatory.
• Address a person by name where you have one, and the team where you do not. Never an invented name.
• Chat can be faster than email for the first nudge, but the formal ones should be in email so there is a record.
• The most effective single line is usually a specific question about their process, not an expression of how you feel about the delay.

What should I keep, and for how long?

Every invoice you issue, every payment record, and the withholding certificates if you are in a country that issues them.

Retention periods vary — India expects around six years for GST records, the UK six for VAT, and other countries differ. Assume years, not months. That means:

• Keep the actual PDFs, not just rows in an app. A file is readable in ten years; a proprietary database may not be.
• Keep a copy somewhere other than your phone. One device is not a backup strategy, and neither is a service you cannot export from.
• Check that you can get your data out before you need to. If an invoicing tool cannot hand you your own book as files, that is a reason not to use it — it is holding a record you are legally required to keep.

A short checklist before you send

• Correct legal entity, spelled the way they spell it
• PO or reference number, if they use one
• Sent to accounts payable, not only to your contact
• Invoice number continues your sequence
• Description names the actual deliverables and when they were delivered
• Tax line correct for your registration status, at its own rate
• The due date printed as a calendar date
• Bank details with the right routing identifier for your country
• Account name matching your legal name
• Attached as a PDF, not pasted into the email body

Where Pact fits

Pact was built for exactly this loop: it reads the brand’s email, issues the invoice with a continuing number and the right tax for where you invoice from, prints the due date on the page, reminds you before and after it, and drafts the follow-up when a payment runs late. It records what landed and what was withheld, so the balance it chases is the real one. Everything runs on your device, and export is free because the record is yours.

Two edges worth knowing before you rely on them: the brand’s PO number goes in the client reference field and prints on the document, and a cross-border B2B supply inside the EU gets the reverse charge — no VAT charged, the required statement printed — provided you have set the client’s country and VAT number on the brand record. One thing it does not do, stated plainly because you should not find out later: there is no credit note yet, so a correction to an invoice you have already sent has to be agreed with the brand outside the app.

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