Tutoring invoice template: one line per session

Every month ends the same way for a lot of centre owners. There’s a tutoring invoice template in one window and the calendar in another, and between the two is an evening of rebuilding invoices by hand.

It’s the second most common complaint in the 172 public complaints about tutoring software we read: 34 of them were about invoices that have to be built by hand. One owner wrote that every month she feels she has to relearn how to build her invoices (the review). Another described charges that weren’t tied to the lessons actually taken, so staff still checked every student by hand (the review).

I’ve learned that a document you rebuild every month is a process that was never designed. So let’s design it.

Start from the sessions, not from memory

An invoice built from memory starts with what you think happened, and an invoice built from the calendar starts with what did. That one change removes most of the mistakes before they exist, because the make-up session squeezed in on a Wednesday is already on the calendar, and so is the cancellation that shouldn’t be billed.

A tutoring invoice template that matches the calendar

Here is the shape I’d use. The top of the invoice says who and when, and then every session gets a line of its own.

At the top: your business name and address, the family’s name, the invoice number, the invoice date, the period it covers and the due date.

One line per session:

At the bottom: the total, any package used and what’s left of it, what was already paid, the balance due, and how to pay.

The line for the late cancellation matters as much as the others. A parent who sees the date and the reason rarely argues with it, and a parent who sees “4 sessions, $220” will ask which four. Every line you write is a question you won’t have to answer later.

If you sell packages, show the draw-down on the invoice itself: “10-session pack, 4 used this month, 3 left”. The guide to tutor invoicing and billing covers what goes wrong when a package balance drifts, and what an invoice has to show when you do charge sales tax.

The month-end routine, in four steps

1. Pull the sessions held for the period, straight from the calendar.
2. Check the changes. Cancellations under your policy, no-shows, make-ups, and any tutor or rate that changed partway through the month.
3. Write one line per session, with packages drawn down and the remaining balance shown.
4. Send, then record each payment against the invoice it pays, the day it arrives.

Step two is the one that gets skipped in a busy month, and it’s the one that turns into a phone call the month after.

Does a tutoring invoice need GST and QST?

Often it doesn’t, and it’s worth knowing why before you add a tax line out of habit. The Canada Revenue Agency’s memorandum on tutoring and equivalent services treats tutoring an individual in a course that is approved for credit by, or follows a curriculum designated by, a school authority as an exempt supply, and it notes that the recipient of the supply can be the parent of the student being tutored.

Revenu Québec’s page on exempt supplies explains what that means in practice. You don’t charge GST or QST on an exempt supply, you can’t claim input tax credits on what you buy in order to make it, and exempt supplies don’t count when you work out whether you have to register.

Not everything a tutoring business sells fits that description. A course outside the school curriculum, an adult class or a recreational program may be treated differently, so read the memorandum with your own programs in mind and ask your accountant before you change what you charge.

Keep the trail

An invoice is also a record. The CRA asks businesses to keep their records and supporting documents for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. An invoice that lists each session by date is a record you can stand behind years later, and a lump sum is one you’ll end up rebuilding.

When to stop building invoices by hand

A template in a spreadsheet is a fine place to start. The signs you’ve outgrown it are easy to spot: invoicing takes more than an evening, parents ask which sessions they’re paying for, packages and payments stop agreeing, and you’ve quietly stopped trusting the balance column. And a parent who can see every line on their own screen stops asking which sessions they’re paying for, which is what a parent portal should answer for you.

In Pillar OS, invoices are built from the lessons themselves, with each line saying which lesson and which dates. A family is billed before or after, weekly or monthly, as you set it, and on billing day each family gets one invoice for everything due. Before anything leaves, the To send list shows what goes out and when. That’s in tutoring billing and invoicing, and the page on invoices built by hand shows what owners told us. Once the invoice is right, the next question is getting paid, which the guide to tutoring payments, card fees and e-transfer covers.

The month-end evening isn’t a law of nature. It’s a process that was never designed, and any process that was never designed can be.