Fill in your invoice
Everything stays in this browser, nothing is sent or kept. The example is a month of weekly cleans with an oven clean added, change it or start blank.
Does it meet the ATO's rules?
The totals come from the same builder as the Yamate quote templates, in whole cents, with GST worked on the subtotal and rounded half a cent up, the ATO's total invoice rule (Tax invoices, rounding of GST, read 25 October 2026).
On this page (6 sections)
Invoice or tax invoice, which one do you send?
It depends on one thing, whether you're registered for GST. business.gov.au puts it simply. "Tax invoices – GST-registered businesses must use these." "Regular invoices – businesses that aren't registered for GST use invoices that don't show any tax."
Source: business.gov.au, How to invoice, read 25 October 2026.
Not registered? Don't write "tax invoice" and don't add GST. You're still meant to hand over something. "By law, you must still give customers a receipt if the goods or services were over $75 or they ask for one."
Source: business.gov.au, How to invoice, read 25 October 2026.
Registered? A tax invoice for a sale under $1,000 needs 7 details, starting with words that show it's a tax invoice, who you are and your ABN. "Tax invoices for sales of $1,000 or more also need to show the buyer's identity or ABN." If a customer asks for one, "you must provide one within 28 days", unless the sale is $82.50 including GST or less. The check above watches for the $1,000 line, so a month of cleans that tips over it tells you to add the customer's name.
Source: Australian Taxation Office, Tax invoices, read 25 October 2026.
When do you have to start charging GST?
At $75,000 a year in GST turnover, and that comes up quicker than people think. Four regular homes at $165 a week is over $34,000 a year on its own. The ATO says if you're not registered, "check each month to see if you've reached the GST threshold, or are likely to exceed it", and register "within 21 days". Leave it too long and "you may have to pay GST on sales made since the date you were required to register. This could happen even if you didn't include GST in the price of those sales."
Source: Australian Taxation Office, Registering for GST, read 25 October 2026.
That's the reason to keep your invoices numbered and in one place from the first clean. Do I need to register for GST? works through the threshold. This is general information, not tax advice, and you lodge it yourself.
How do you invoice a regular clean?
One invoice a fortnight or a month, one line per visit, each with its date. The customer sees every clean they're paying for, and when someone says "you didn't come on the 14th", the answer's on the paper. Put extras on their own line with the date too, an oven, inside windows, a fridge. Bundled into the visit price they look like a price rise.
Keep them. business.gov.au says "By law, you need to keep most business records for at least 5 years." The ATO says when the five years start, from "when you prepared or obtained the record or completed the transactions or acts those records relate to, whichever is later", so a January clean's invoice is kept five years from January.
Source: business.gov.au, How to invoice, read 25 October 2026.
Source: Australian Taxation Office, Overview of record-keeping rules for business, read 25 October 2026.
Cleaning for another cleaning company?
Cleaning is one of the industries where the ATO tracks contractor payments. A business that provides cleaning and pays "contractors or subcontractors to provide these cleaning services" must report those payments to the ATO in a Taxable payments annual report by 28 August each year. If you subcontract to a bigger cleaning company, what it pays you lands at the ATO in that report, so make sure what you invoice and what you declare match.
Source: Australian Taxation Office, Taxable payments annual report, cleaning services, read 25 October 2026.
It works the other way too. Once you pay a subcontractor to cover your cleans, and cleaning is at least 10% of your business income, the report is yours to lodge. Payments to employees don't go in it.
Source: Australian Taxation Office, Taxable payments annual report, cleaning services, read 25 October 2026.
Window, carpet and bond cleaning invoices
Window cleaning. Split inside and outside, and storeys if you charge more up high. A line that says "windows" invites the argument about which ones.
Carpet cleaning. List rooms or square metres, then stain treatment and protector as their own lines. A tenant moving out often hands the invoice to the agent, so put the address and the date of the clean on it.
Bond cleaning. Bill whoever booked you, usually the tenant, at the rental address, with the date. Any re-clean you include goes on the invoice as "re-clean included within 72 hours" or whatever you offer, so it's in writing.
Getting paid on the day
Send the invoice before you leave the driveway, with your PayID on it, and most regular customers pay that night. PayID for tradies explains setting one up.
Yamate sells software to cleaners and tradies. The template on this page is free and asks for nothing. In the app the regular clean books itself, and the invoice goes from your phone with the visits already on it.
General information, not tax advice and not legal advice. The check reads the ATO's published tax invoice rules and doesn't know your business, so check with the ATO or your accountant before you rely on it. You lodge your own GST and tax.