Fence Installation Invoice Template: Feet, Posts, Gates

Short answer: A fence installation invoice template prices the run by the linear foot and the gates by the each, then prints the post count next to the footage — a 148-foot run at 8-foot spacing is 20 posts in the ground, and a price per foot hides that number completely. Separate lines carry post-hole concrete, old fence tear-out and haul, rock or root digging, grade handling (stepped or racked), the 811 locate, and gate hardware.

Fence is the trade where the unit on the contract and the unit that costs you money are not the same thing. Customers buy feet. You buy holes. An invoice that only shows feet gives you nowhere to stand when a yard turns out to be shale, or when the ground drops 22 inches across one run. The general invoice anatomy is in what to include on an invoice, and the walk-the-line, count-the-corners side of the job is in fencing estimate template.

What has to be on a fence installation invoice?

Block	What it reads
Runs	Each run named by side, with its measured linear feet and the fence height
Posts	Total count broken into line, corner, end, and gate posts, with size and material
Post holes	Diameter, depth, and how they were dug — auger, hand, or hammer
Hole concrete	Bag count or cubic yards, and whether it was dry-set or mixed
Framing	Rails per bay, rail material and length, cap and trim by the linear foot
Infill	Picket, panel, slat, or fabric — count or linear feet, with grade and species
Grade	Linear feet stepped, linear feet racked, and the total fall handled
Gates	Each gate by width and type, with hinges, latch, drop rod, and posts
Site work	Tear-out, haul-off, scrap credit, vegetation clearing, root and rock work
Locate and permit	811 ticket number, permit number, HOA approval reference
Totals	Material subtotal, labor subtotal, deposit applied, balance due

The property line belongs in writing too. Note on the invoice whose survey pins or markers the fence was set to, and how far inside the line it sits. Fence disputes between neighbors surface months later, and your invoice becomes the record of what you were told to build to.

Why does the post count belong next to the linear-foot price?

Because the post is where the labor is. Digging, plumbing, bracing, and concreting a post takes a fixed chunk of time whether the bay next to it is 8 feet or 6 feet. Two jobs at the same footage can differ by six holes and half a day.

Run	Linear feet	Spacing	Bays	Posts
Straight back run	148	8 ft	19	20
Same footage, 6 ft spacing	148	6 ft	25	26
Three-sided yard, same total	148	8 ft	19	20 plus 2 corner posts already counted
Two gates added	—	—	—	4 gate posts, heavier section

The arithmetic is footage divided by spacing, rounded up, plus one for the closing post — then add posts for every corner, every end, and both sides of every gate. A run that is not an even multiple of the spacing gets one short bay, and saying which end it lands on stops it reading as a mistake.

Material travels with that count. Pressure-treated southern yellow pine rated for ground contact, western red cedar, vinyl sleeved over a steel or wood insert, chain link terminal versus line post, and aluminum all carry different unit costs and different setting methods. Name the material and the retention or gauge on the line, not just “posts.”

How do I bill the concrete in the post holes?

By the bag or by the yard, from the hole volume — not as a lump called “concrete.” Hole volume is straightforward: the area of the circle times the depth.

Hole size	Volume	80 lb bags at ~0.6 ft³ yield
8 in dia × 24 in deep	0.70 ft³	about 1 to 2
10 in dia × 30 in deep	1.36 ft³	about 2
12 in dia × 36 in deep	2.36 ft³	about 4
12 in dia × 42 in deep (gate post)	2.75 ft³	about 5

Subtract the post itself: a nominal 4×4 is actually 3.5 inches square, which displaces about 0.21 cubic feet in a 30-inch hole. Check the yield printed on the bag you actually buy, because it varies by product.

Depth is set by two things, and both belong on the invoice: the local frost line, and the rule of thumb that roughly a third of the post’s above-ground height should be buried. A 6-foot privacy fence in a region with a 36-inch frost depth is a different hole — and a different bag count — than the same fence where the ground never freezes. Cite the depth you dug, because that is the number a customer cannot see once it is backfilled.

How does slope change the invoice — stepped or racked?

Grade is the hidden labor multiplier in this trade, and it deserves a line with a measured number on it rather than a shrug.

Ground condition	What you do	How the line reads
Flat within a few inches	Nothing special	Included in the run
Gentle, continuous fall	Rack the panels to follow grade	”Racked, 62 lin ft, 14 in total fall”
Steep or terraced	Step the sections, cut posts long	”Stepped, 41 lin ft over 22 in fall, 5 steps”
Swale or ditch crossing	Custom-cut bottom rail or a gap detail	Its own line, with the gap dimension stated
Retaining wall or curb	Core drill and set into masonry	Per post, plus the drill and epoxy

Racking and stepping are not interchangeable. Racked panels follow the ground and leave no triangles underneath, but not every panel system racks, and vinyl in particular usually does not. Stepping is faster to build and leaves gaps at the low corner of each section, which the customer will notice on the first day the dog is out. Write on the invoice which one you did and what the resulting gap is, because that sentence prevents the most common post-install complaint in fencing.

How do I invoice gates and hardware?

Every gate is its own line, priced by the each, with the hardware itemized underneath it. A gate is a fence section that has to move ten thousand times, and pricing it per linear foot is how contractors lose money on this trade.

Gate	What drives the price	Hardware named on the line
3–4 ft walk gate	Frame, bracing, one pair of hinges	Hinges, latch, stop
5–6 ft wide single	Sag risk, heavier frame or a truss rod	Heavy hinges, anti-sag kit
10–16 ft double drive	Two leaves, drop rod, ground receiver, alignment	Drop rod, cane bolt, heavy hinges, keeper
Pool gate	Self-closing and self-latching, latch height	Self-closing hinges, magnetic latch
Automated	Operator, power, safety loop, and a licensed sub	Operator model, and who is running the power

Gate posts are not line posts. They are bigger, buried deeper, and set in more concrete, and that difference goes on its own line. Pool enclosures also carry code requirements on latch height, gate swing, and gap dimensions that vary by jurisdiction — verify locally and note on the invoice which standard you built to.

What does a filled-in fence invoice look like?

Rates below are placeholders so the structure and the arithmetic are visible. Substitute your own.

Invoice 2026-0512 · 148 lin ft, 6 ft cedar board-on-board · Job: 88 Pinegrove Ln

#	Line	Qty	Unit	Rate	Amount
1	Existing chain link removed, posts pulled, hauled	148	lin ft	4.50	666.00
2	Scrap credit, fabric and posts to metal recycler	1	each	-85.00	-85.00
3	811 locate placed and honored, ticket 26-441908	1	each	0.00	0.00
4	Post holes augered, 10 in × 30 in	24	each	22.00	528.00
5	Rock excavation, 3 holes, hammer and hand-dig (CO-1)	3	each	65.00	195.00
6	Post-hole concrete, 80 lb bags, mixed and set	56	bag	9.75	546.00
7	Line and corner posts, 4×4×8 PT ground contact	20	each	19.50	390.00
8	Gate posts, 6×6×10 PT ground contact	4	each	58.00	232.00
9	Rails, 2×4×8 western red cedar, 3 per bay	60	each	11.20	672.00
10	Pickets, 1×6×6 cedar, board-on-board overlap	512	each	5.35	2,739.20
11	Cedar cap and trim	148	lin ft	3.90	577.20
12	Installation labor, set posts, hang rails, fasten pickets	148	lin ft	14.00	2,072.00
13	Grade handling, stepped 41 lin ft over 22 in fall	41	lin ft	4.25	174.25
14	Walk gate, 4 ft, self-closing hinges and latch	1	each	385.00	385.00
15	Drive gate, 10 ft double, drop rod and cane bolt	1	each	940.00	940.00
16	Offcuts, banding, and packaging hauled off	1	job	120.00	120.00

Invoice total 10,151.65 · Deposit paid at material order 3,000.00 · Balance due 7,151.65

Line 3 is worth keeping even at zero. A free line that shows you did the safety step is worth more on the page than it costs, and the ticket number gives the customer something to look up. Line 2 is worth keeping for the opposite reason: a credit on an invoice buys more trust than the eighty-five dollars is worth.

Material and labor split out of that table as roughly $5,595 in goods against $4,556 in labor, and printing those two subtotals matters because states differ on how they tax materials versus labor on work attached to real property.

Where do the 811 locate, the property line, and the permit go?

Near the top, as their own lines, with numbers.

Calling 811 before digging is free to the caller, and utility operators mark their lines in the dig area. Notice requirements are set state by state, and most require a set number of business days before you break ground. The obligation is not only a state one: OSHA’s excavation standard requires that the estimated location of utility installations be determined before an excavation is opened (29 CFR 1926.651(b)(1)), and a post hole is an excavation. Put the ticket number on the invoice, and photograph the paint and flags before the auger runs. Private lines the utility does not mark — an irrigation main, a pool line, a sub-panel run to a shed, a septic field — are the customer’s to identify, and that sentence belongs on the invoice in plain language.

Permits, HOA approval, and setback requirements are all pass-through lines at cost with the reference number printed. Height limits, which side the finished face must point, and how far off the property line the fence sits are set locally and vary street by street, so verify rather than assume.

What happens to the invoice when the digging goes bad?

Rock, roots, buried debris, and old footings are the change orders of this trade, and they always turn up at hole four out of twenty-four. Handle each with a numbered change order, a photo, and a per-hole price agreed before the auger goes back in.

CO	Ties to	What happened	Amount
CO-1	Line 4	Shale at 18 in, 3 holes hammered and hand-dug, photo 2	195.00
CO-2	Line 4	Buried concrete footing from a prior fence, 1 hole relocated	85.00
CO-3	Line 12	Root ball at the maple, bay shortened and post relocated 14 in	60.00

The per-hole price is what makes this painless. “Difficult digging billed at a stated rate per hole, photographed before and after” turns a confrontation into arithmetic, and it belongs in the original quote so the invoice can just reference it.

When do I collect on a fence job?

Fence material arrives on a pallet and gets unloaded into the customer’s yard, so most of your exposure exists before the first post goes in. A deposit at material order is standard for that reason. The balance falls due at completion, and completion means the gates swing and latch, not merely that the pickets are up.

Walk the line with the customer on the last day, open and close every gate in front of them, then hand over the invoice on the spot. Payment at the fence beats payment by mail two weeks later, which is most of what how to get clients to pay comes down to.

What should I keep after the fence invoice goes out?

Keep the lumber yard or supplier invoice, the 811 ticket, the permit, photos of the marked utilities before digging, photos of every difficult hole, and a shot of the finished line from both ends. Keep the mileage too — fence work runs on trips to the yard for six more pickets, and those miles are deductible if the log is contemporaneous, which is the whole point of independent contractor mileage log.

Keel is an iOS app that runs entirely on the device: no account, no bank connection, no cloud, no login, and an App Store privacy label reading Data Not Collected. Fence work happens at the far corner of a back yard behind a locked gate, often with one bar of signal, and the invoice has to be writable there. You build it on the phone standing at the last post — the footage, the post count, the bag count, the 811 ticket number, your own invoice numbering, your logo and brand color, and a payment link as a QR code the customer scans off the screen before you coil the extension cord. Photograph the lumber yard receipt in the truck and Apple Intelligence reads it on the device; the four trips back for more pickets are logged as mileage. Freeboard shows cash minus tax reserve minus committed invoices minus buffer, so a material deposit that is already spoken for at the supplier does not look like profit. The ledger is append-only and hash-chained, so the locate ticket number and the rock-hole count you recorded on the day stay exactly as recorded. At year end it exports as one file, or as the Accountant Pack: a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF. Free is $0 with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

What should a fence installation invoice include?

Each run by side with its linear feet and height, the total post count split into line, corner, end, and gate posts, hole diameter and depth, the concrete bag count, rails per bay, picket or panel count, linear feet stepped or racked with the total fall, every gate by width with its hardware, tear-out and haul-off, the 811 ticket number, any permit, and separate material and labor subtotals.

How many posts are in a fence run?

Divide the run length by your post spacing, round up to get the number of bays, then add one for the closing post. A 148-foot run at 8-foot spacing is 19 bays and 20 posts. On top of that, add a post at every corner, at every end, and on both sides of every gate, since gate posts are heavier and set deeper than line posts.

Should the invoice show fence concrete separately?

Yes, because it is measurable and the customer cannot see it after backfill. Bill it by the bag or the cubic yard, calculated from hole diameter and depth, and state the depth you dug. Depth is driven by the local frost line and by burying roughly a third of the post’s above-ground height, so the same fence costs different money in different climates.

How do you invoice a fence on a sloped yard?

Put grade on its own line with a measured number: linear feet stepped or racked and the total fall handled. Say which method you used, because they produce different results. Racked panels follow the ground with no gaps underneath but not every system racks. Stepped sections are faster to build and leave a triangular gap at the low end of each section.

Who pays when a fence post hits rock or a tree root?

The customer does, as long as the original quote set a stated per-hole rate for difficult digging and you documented it. Photograph the obstruction before and after, issue a numbered change order tied to the post-hole line, and get a text approving it before you go back in. Without that language in the quote, the argument happens on invoice day.

Do I need to call 811 before digging fence posts?

Yes. Marking underground utilities before excavation is required nationwide, the call is free, and states set their own notice period, commonly a few business days. Put the ticket number on the invoice and photograph the flags and paint before the auger runs. Private lines like irrigation, pool plumbing, or a shed’s power feed are not marked by the utility and remain the property owner’s to identify.

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This article is general information, not professional or tax advice.