If you are a self employed construction worker you are probably raising your invoices.

Below are reminders for you, what should be included on your CIS invoice.

As any invoice, it should have all basic information that we can find on any other invoice, that includes:

  •  Unique invoice number
  •  Invoice Date
  •  Invoice Due Date
  •  Name of your company
  •  Your UTR number (unique tax reference)
  •  Your contact details
  •  Description of services you provided for client
  •  Subtotal (the amount due before taxes)
  •  Total due to be paid (the amount due after taxes and other deductions)

Without this information, your invoice is not considered as an official, legal document, so double-check that every invoice contains all of the necessary details.

There is an extra catch coming with CIS invoices, you need to provide details of CIS deduction.

We have three rates of CIS deduction:

  •  20% – registered subcontractors
  •  30% – unregistered subcontractors,
  •  0% – subcontractors with ‘gross payment status’.

You need to qualify for gross payment status, it means that contractor you work for doesn’t need to make deductions from your pay, so you don’t have to add information about CIS to your invoices.

However, if you use either the 20% or 30% rate, you need to ensure that your invoice templates include:

  • The CIS deduction rate
  • The total amount that is eligible for CIS deductions (i.e. the cost of labour)
  • The total amount to be deducted

VAT & CIS invoices

Let’s have a look at this tricky part.

  • If you have just registered for VAT and you are CIS contractor, you’re probably wondering how do you include VAT element on CIS invoices.
  • You need to remember that CIS is calculated based on the net price of labour only.
  • You also need to know that VAT applies to both labour and supplies; you should therefore calculate VAT using the total price of materials and labour before CIS deductions.