Pro forma invoice generator
What a pro forma is for
A customer has accepted the quote and you want a deposit before the units are ordered. Their accounts department will not pay against a quote, and you cannot invoice work that has not started. The pro forma sits in between: a request for payment, laid out like an invoice, marked so that nobody mistakes it for one. The generator gives it its own number series, prints "pro forma" and "this is not a VAT invoice" where they cannot be missed, and converts it into the real invoice, same lines and amounts, when the payment lands. The guide has the worked example.
What it should say
The words pro forma in large type, a line saying it is not a VAT invoice, the amount asked for and what it is for, how to pay, and what happens next: that on payment a proper invoice follows and the job starts. Give it a number from its own series rather than one from the invoice run, or the invoice run gains a gap where a pro forma used to sit. The generator does each of these without being asked.
What it is not
Not a VAT invoice: the customer cannot reclaim VAT against it, and you do not account for VAT on it. Not a record of a supply: nothing has been supplied. And not something to send to a customer who has not agreed the job, because it reads as pressure and is treated as a quote anyway. Once the deposit arrives, a VAT-registered business has a tax point and owes the customer a proper VAT invoice for it, normally within 30 days; the pro forma's job is done.
Staged jobs
Some trades pro forma every stage and invoice on receipt; most simply invoice each stage as it falls due, which is simpler and usually right. The guide to staged payments sets out both, and the app bills an estimate in stages without a pro forma at all if that is how the customer works.