How to Invoice After Flashing Work in Roofing, Line by Line

Short answer: How to invoice after flashing work in roofing: bill linear feet and counts, not squares. One line per flashing type — step flashing along the sidewall, counterflashing set into a reglet, apron at the headwall, a kickout at the eave, pipe boots by the each — then the shingle courses you opened and rewove, sealant, any deck sheets replaced, access, and your minimum service charge. Warranty covers the metal you installed, not the roof around it. Collect before the ladder comes off the roof.

A flashing repair is the one roofing job where the square is the wrong unit. The roof stays; what you sold was the intersections — walls, chimneys, valleys, pipes, skylights — and those get counted and measured in feet. The header fields every invoice needs are in what to include on an invoice. Below is the part that only applies when the bill is for eleven feet of metal that was letting water into a bedroom ceiling.

Why is a flashing invoice not priced in squares?

Because you did not install 100 ft² of anything. A tear-off gets priced by squares of actual roof area after the pitch multiplier, which is the arithmetic in how do roofers send estimates. On a flashing call that multiplier has not disappeared — it moved. It prices the hours instead of the material.

What the pitch changes on a repair	Effect on the invoice
Walk-up slope, roughly 4/12 (1.054)	One person, ladder, no staging — base labor line
Mid slope, 6/12 to 8/12 (1.118 to 1.202)	Roof jacks and a plank, slower work at the wall
Steep, 12/12 (1.414)	Staging setup billed as its own line, two-person minimum
Second story and above	Ladder time, material haul, often a second body just to tend

The flashing itself does not get bigger on a steep roof. The day does. Bill the metal by the foot and the count, and let slope, story height, and access price the labor.

What has to be on a flashing invoice?

Write it before you pack the truck, while you can still see what you touched.

Block	What it reads
Location on the roof	Elevation and slope, plainly: “north dormer sidewall, second story, 8/12”
Reported problem	The stain inside, which room, the date it was reported
Diagnosis	What you found, and whether you ran a hose test to confirm it
Removed	Flashing type, metal, condition, and why it failed
Installed	Type, metal and gauge, linear feet or piece count
Tie-in	Courses stripped and rewoven, underlayment or ice barrier renewed
Substrate	Deck sheets replaced at a per-sheet rate, rotted fascia, photo count
Masonry	Reglet cut, tuckpointing, sealant type and where it was used
Access	Staging, ladder height, siding removal and reinstall
Debris	Haul-off of old metal and shingles — a repair rarely justifies a container
Minimum charge	Named as a line when the measured work lands under your floor
Warranty	What is covered, and in the same breath what is not
Photos	Counts: before, open-up, after

The open-up row is the one that earns its keep. Nobody ever sees the deck under a failed chimney base, and the photograph of it is the reason a $180 sheathing line reads as a fact instead of an upsell.

How do I write a line for each flashing type?

One line per type, named the way a roofer would name it, with the unit attached.

Flashing	Billed by	What the line has to name
Step, roof-to-sidewall	Linear foot of wall, or piece count	Piece size, metal, whether siding came off
Kickout at the eave end	Each	Size, sealed or soldered corner, gutter tie-in
Apron or headwall	Linear foot	Height up the wall, hemmed lower edge
Counterflashing at masonry	Linear foot	Reglet cut and depth, or surface-mounted and sealed
Chimney base and saddle	Each, by chimney width	Cricket if required, back pan, corner detail
Valley	Linear foot	Open W-metal or closed cut, ice barrier underneath
Pipe boot	Each	Pipe size, lead or rubber, collar condition
Skylight	Each	Manufacturer kit or fabricated pan, curb height
Drip edge and gutter apron	Linear foot	Profile, where it laps the underlayment

Two of those rows decide whether you get a callback. Base flashing at a vertical sidewall has to be continuous or step, at least 4 inches high and 4 inches wide, and it has to move water away from the wall onto the roof or into the gutter — the requirement in IRC R905.2.8.3, which is where the kickout comes from even though the code never uses that word. And a chimney needs a cricket when the dimension parallel to the ridge is greater than 30 inches and it does not intersect the ridge, under IRC R1003.20. If you measured a 42-inch chimney with no saddle behind it, that is a line on this invoice and a sentence in the notes.

Counterflashing deserves its own honesty. Surface-mounted metal held with sealant is a two-year fix; metal let into a cut reglet is the repair. Print which one you installed. That sentence is the entire warranty conversation eighteen months from now.

How do I bill the shingles I had to open up?

Step flashing is woven into the courses, so replacing it means stripping those courses and putting them back. That is real labor and real material, and it is the line most repair invoices forget.

Bill it three ways at once: the tie-in labor by linear foot of intersection, the replacement shingles at the unit you actually buy them in, and the underlayment or ice barrier you renewed while the deck was open. Buying a bundle to use eleven pieces on a 16-foot wall means the bundle goes on the invoice, not the eleven pieces.

Add the color-match line while you are there. Shingles more than about eight years old have weathered, and the color you can buy today will not be the color on that roof. Write one plain sentence — new material at the repaired area will not match the surrounding field — and photograph it from the ground. Saying it after the customer notices costs far more than saying it first.

What changed between the estimate and this invoice?

Flashing calls are diagnostic work, and diagnostic work moves. Every item below should have gone out on the estimate as a named conditional line, then been approved by text with a photo attached before you did it.

Found on the roof	How it appears on the invoice
Rotted decking under the base flashing	Per-sheet rate, count photographed before it was covered
Chimney over 30 inches wide, no cricket	Cricket framing and flashing as its own line, with the code reference
Failed mortar joints at the reglet	Tuckpointing by the linear foot, or a mason referral and no line at all
No kickout, water tracking behind the siding	Siding removal and reinstall, plus a written note that wall damage is outside your scope
A second leak found during the hose test	A separate estimate, not a surprise line
Skylight seal failed, not the flashing	Reprice the job before proceeding, in writing

The last two matter more than the money. A roofer who quietly folds a second problem into an unrelated invoice loses the argument, and a roofer who quietly does not mention it owns the leak.

How do I build the price from my own cost?

Up from your numbers, in this order. A per-foot figure you heard at the supply counter is somebody else’s cost structure.

Step	The flashing-repair version
1. Pick the unit	Linear feet per flashing type, plus each for penetrations
2. Material from the unit	Coil stock or pre-bent pieces including cut waste, sealant, nails, boot, underlayment, and shingles at the bundle
3. Labor from the unit	Crew hours at loaded cost — setup, ladder, and teardown usually exceed the metal work — times an access factor for slope and story
4. Minimum	The smallest job you can leave the yard for and still earn the hour
5. Overhead	Truck, fuel, insurance, workers’ comp, staging, and a reserve for callbacks on repairs
6. Profit	Applied as a margin, not as a markup

That last row is where repair work quietly bleeds. Say a flashing call costs you $640 all-in. A 20 percent markup prices it at $768, of which $128 is profit — a 16.7 percent margin, not 20. Holding a true 20 percent means dividing by 0.80 and billing $800. On $18,000 re-roofs that gap is annoying; across forty repair calls a year it is a month of payroll.

Published per-foot ranges are a sanity check and nothing more. They swing with metal prices, whether copper or aluminum is expected in your market, how far you drive, and what a steep second story costs you in staging. When your build-up lands well off a range you trust, look inside your own numbers before you edit the price.

What does the warranty line have to say?

The scope trap in flashing work is that you replaced fourteen feet of metal on a nineteen-year-old roof. An invoice that says “1 year warranty” and nothing else has just promised the whole roof.

Write four things: the workmanship warranty applies to the flashing installed and the courses tied in at the named intersection; no warranty attaches to the remaining roof covering, existing decking, masonry, or interior finishes; the manufacturer’s shingle warranty does not extend to a partial repair; and an honest note on the roof’s remaining service life. Homeowners accept “this roof has a few years left and this fixes the leak.” They do not accept discovering it in the spring.

What do I show before I ask for payment?

Six frames, in order: the stain inside, the failed flashing in place before removal, the open-up shot of the bare deck, the new metal set before shingles go back, the finished intersection from the same angle as the second shot, and the hose test running if you performed one. Reference the counts on the invoice.

Then collect. Repairs are due on completion, on the tailgate, with the payment link on your screen as a QR code. When the homeowner is not there, text the PDF within the hour with the photos attached — a leak repair that gets billed the following Tuesday gets questioned, because by Tuesday the ceiling has dried and the urgency is gone. The rest of the escalation ladder is in roofing customer won’t pay.

What do I keep after the flashing invoice goes out?

Keep the diagnosis notes, the photo set tied to that job, the supply house ticket for coil stock and boots, and the miles between the yard, the house, and the supplier. The photos defend the repair. The tickets and miles are the deduction.

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. In practice the flashing invoice gets built on the tailgate in about a minute, carrying your own numbering, logo, and brand color, with the payment link rendered as a QR code the homeowner scans off your screen. The coil stock receipt gets photographed at the counter and read on-device by Apple Intelligence. Repair routes get logged as mileage, which adds up in a trade where a leak call is half windshield time. At year end it exports as one file, or as the Accountant Pack: a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF, on an append-only hash-chained ledger. Free is $0 with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 lifetime purchase, not a subscription. Once the homeowner pays at the door, the paid confirmation is a separate document from the bill, which is the distinction drawn in invoice vs receipt.

Frequently asked questions

Should a flashing repair be billed by the square?

No. A square is 100 ft² of roof surface and it prices tear-offs and re-roofs. Flashing is an intersection, so it bills by the linear foot for step, apron, counterflashing, valley, and drip edge, and by the each for pipe boots, kickouts, skylights, and chimneys. Slope and story height price the labor line instead of the material line.

How do I charge for the shingles I removed to install step flashing?

As three separate lines: tie-in labor by the linear foot of the wall, replacement shingles at the unit you purchase them in, and any underlayment or ice barrier renewed while the deck was open. Buying a full bundle to use eleven pieces means the bundle is the material cost. Add a written note that new shingles will not color-match a weathered roof.

What warranty should a flashing repair carry?

A workmanship warranty scoped to the flashing installed and the courses tied in at the named intersection, with explicit exclusions for the rest of the roof covering, existing decking, masonry, and interior finishes. State that the manufacturer’s shingle warranty does not cover a partial repair, and note the roof’s remaining life. An unscoped “1 year warranty” reads to a homeowner as coverage on the whole roof.

Do I need to install a chimney cricket, and does it go on the invoice?

A cricket is required where the chimney dimension parallel to the ridge is greater than 30 inches and the chimney does not intersect the ridge. Measure the chimney before quoting. When one is required and missing, it is framing plus flashing plus counterflashing, and it belongs on the invoice as its own line with the code reference in the notes.

How do I bill rotted decking found under the flashing?

At a per-sheet rate stated on the estimate as a conditional line, never as a number invented on the day. Photograph every bad sheet in place with something for scale before you cover it, and text the count to the homeowner the same hour. The conversation then is about how many sheets, which is answerable, instead of about the price, which is not.

When should a flashing repair invoice be paid?

On completion, at the truck, before you leave the property. Repairs are small enough that terms invite drift and urgent enough that the customer’s motivation peaks the moment the leak is fixed. Hand over the invoice on your phone with the payment link as a QR code, or text the PDF with the photo set within the hour when nobody is home.

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