Tree Service Invoice Example: Every Line Explained

Short answer: A tree service invoice example is only useful if it shows access, because access is what the money follows. On the invoice below, a 74 ft dead red oak in a fenced back yard carries $3,190 while a 46 ft maple in the open front yard carries $480. Setup, utility coordination and hand-carry come to $1,055 of a $5,583 invoice — 19 percent, none of it cutting. Stump grinding adds $1,003 on its own lines.

One property, one day, two trees, and one change order signed on site. The customer saw two trees roughly the same age and expected two roughly similar numbers. What follows is the invoice that explains why they are not, which lines get a phone call, and how the proposal and the invoice tie together. The pricing side of the same job is in tree service pricing guide.

What does a finished tree service invoice look like line by line?

Every rate below is one crew’s number in one market. Crew wages, insurance class, tipping fees and equipment payments move these more than anything else, so read the structure and price the lines from your own cost.

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INVOICE #TS-2026-0812 · Issued July 22, 2026 · Balance due on receipt Ridgeline Tree & Timber · Proposal T-2026-0119 signed July 2 · CO-1 approved on site July 20 Job: 1301 Pinegrove Lane · Work performed July 20, 7:10 a.m. to 4:40 p.m., crew of four Tree A — red oak, standing dead, 74 ft, 31 in DBH, rear yard. Access class C: no gate over 34 in, 180 ft drag to the street, house corner 11 ft away, service drop 9 ft away. Tree B — silver maple, 46 ft, 22 in DBH, front yard. Access class A: open drop zone, chipper at the trunk. Certificate of insurance on file. Utility work order U-77451.

#	Description	Qty	Unit	Rate	Amount
1	Site setup — drop zone coned to the sidewalk, 60 lf of plywood over the drag path, irrigation heads flagged and photographed	1	job	$265.00	$265.00
2	Utility coordination — service drop to the house sleeved and dropped by the utility at our request, work order U-77451. Crew stood down 40 minutes waiting on their truck	1	job	$180.00	$180.00
3	Tree A removal — climbed and rigged, 26 pieces lowered on a friction device, nothing free-dropped over the fence, spar taken in 4 ft blocks	22.5	crew-hr	$96.00	$2,160.00
4	Dead-wood premium, Tree A — three years standing dead, bark sloughing, two upper limbs tested unsound; climber worked a set line with a redundant anchor	1	tree	$420.00	$420.00
5	Hand-carry — no gate wide enough for equipment. Brush and 4 ft blocks carried and dragged 180 ft to the chipper at the curb, 6.4 crew-hours	1	job	$610.00	$610.00
6	Tree B removal — notched and felled whole into the drop zone, limbed and bucked on the ground	5.0	crew-hr	$96.00	$480.00
7	Brush and crown chipped and hauled	3	loads	$185.00	$555.00
8	Rounds bucked to 18 in and stacked at the rear fence, customer keeping the wood	1	credit	−$240.00	−$240.00
9	Stump grinding, Tree A — 38 in measured at grade across the root flare	38	in	$9.50	$361.00
10	Stump grinding, Tree B — 26 in at grade	26	in	$9.50	$247.00
11	CO-1 — grind depth increased from 6 in to 14 in below grade at both stumps for replanting, spoil hauled off rather than mounded, 1.5 yd³. Approved on site 1:05 p.m. by R. Okafor	1	change	$395.00	$395.00
12	Topsoil and seed at both stumps and on the drag path ruts	1	job	$150.00	$150.00

Subtotal	$5,583.00
Deposit received July 2	−$1,400.00
Balance due	$4,183.00

Not included — root grinding beyond 24 in from either stump, replanting, repair of the driveway crack photographed on arrival, and any work on the neighbor’s side of the rear fence.

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Why is the 74-foot oak more than five times the money of the 46-foot maple?

Because height set the class and access set the hours, and only one of those is visible from the street.

Tree B was 62 percent of Tree A’s height and took 5.0 crew-hours: notch, back cut, one drop, limb and buck on the ground with the chipper parked at the trunk. Tree A took 22.5 crew-hours because nothing could be dropped. Every piece came out on a rope with a climber setting it and two people receiving it, in a yard with a house 11 ft off the trunk and a service drop 9 ft away.

Then the same access charged a second time on line 5. With no gate wider than 34 inches, 26 pieces of oak and three truckloads of brush moved 180 feet by hand — 6.4 crew-hours of walking. A driveway on that side of the house would have deleted the line entirely, and it is worth saying so to the customer in exactly those words.

Write both facts into the header, not just the tree species. “74 ft, 31 in DBH, access class C” is a number the customer can compare against another bid. “Large oak” is not.

What is a utility line doing on a tree invoice?

Because a service drop within nine feet of the work is not something you cut around and hope.

Only line-clearance qualified crews may work close to energized conductors. OSHA’s rule for line-clearance tree trimming keeps a trimmer from approaching within 10 feet of anything energized above 750 volts unless specific conditions are met, and requires a second line-clearance qualified trimmer within unassisted voice communication when that approach happens. A certified arborist pruning to ANSI A300 is not automatically qualified for that work.

The practical answer on a residential job is the one on line 2: call the utility, have the service drop sleeved or dropped, and get a work order number. The utility does that at no cost to the homeowner in most areas, which is exactly why the line needs a sentence explaining what the customer is paying for — a scheduled coordination and forty minutes of a four-person crew standing still, not the utility’s truck.

Why does stump grinding refuse to sit inside the removal price?

Different machine, different insurance class, different measurement, and often a different day.

Grinding is priced by inches at grade measured across the root flare, not by DBH. Tree A measured 31 in DBH at breast height and 38 in at grade, and the customer who read the proposal will notice both numbers. Depth is the other variable and it is the one that changes the bill: 6 in below grade is enough for turf, and 14 in for replanting is more than twice the passes and a spoil pile nobody wants left behind. That is why line 11 exists as a change rather than as a bigger version of lines 9 and 10.

Grinding and spoil together are $1,003 here, 18 percent of the invoice, on two stumps that took under two hours. Bury that in a per-tree price and you have quietly made removal cheap and grinding free.

Which lines get pushed back on, and how should they read?

The line they call about	What they are thinking	Write it like this
Hand-carry, $610	”You were already in the yard."	"No gate over 34 in. Twenty-six blocks of oak and three loads of brush moved 180 ft by hand — 6.4 crew-hours. Equipment at the trunk would have removed this line.”
Dead-wood premium, $420	”A dead tree is easier, there are no leaves."	"Three years dead. Bark sloughing, two upper limbs tested unsound. Every tie-in point had to be tested and backed up, and pieces were kept small because the wood cannot be trusted.”
Utility coordination, $180	”The power company did that for free."	"They did, and there is no charge from them on this invoice. This line is the scheduling and 40 minutes of a four-person crew waiting on their truck.”
Stump grinding on its own line	”The stump is part of the tree."	"Different machine and a separate measurement — 38 in at grade across the root flare, not the 31 in trunk. Depth was changed to 14 in on CO-1 so you can replant.”
Wood credit, −$240	”You are selling my firewood anyway."	"You kept it. The credit is what the rounds would have cost to load and haul, and the brush was still chipped and removed at our cost.”
Chip loads, $555	”You sell that mulch."	"Three loaded trucks off a dead oak crown and a maple. The line covers the loading, the drive, and the gate, not the mulch.”
Tree B at $480 next to Tree A at $2,580	”Same crew, same day, same trees."	"One was felled in a single piece into an open yard in five crew-hours. The other came out in 26 pieces on a rope between a house and a fence in 22.5.”

The pattern never changes: replace the adjective with a count. “Difficult access” is arguable. “180 ft of hand-carry, 6.4 crew-hours, no gate over 34 in” is not.

How do I explain the estimate against this invoice?

The proposal priced two trees nobody had touched. The invoice records what came out of the yard, and both documents read in the same order with the same wording so they can be laid side by side.

Only one number moved on this job, and it moved with a signature. Grind depth went from 6 in to 14 in at the customer’s request at 1:05 p.m., which is CO-1 on line 11 with a name and a time attached. Everything else on the invoice — the access class, the dead-wood premium, the hand-carry, the per-inch grinding rate — appeared on the proposal signed July 2 with the same figures.

That is the whole discipline. A rate the customer agreed to in advance is a bill. The same work with a number attached after the crew was already up the tree is a negotiation you will probably lose. Where a quantity changed, print both: “38 in at grade (proposal estimated 34 in).” Storm and after-hours calls get their own rate schedule and their own header, never a line on a scheduled-work invoice.

How do I set the crew-hour rate these lines run on?

Build it from the bottom, then check the total against the market instead of the other way around.

Layer	Example figures	Per crew-hour
Groundman and climber blended wage	$26.50
Burden	× 1.36 — comp at tree-care rates, payroll tax, paid time	$36.04
Equipment	$58,000 a year — chipper, chip truck, saws, rigging, climbing gear, replacement reserve ÷ 3,600 crew-hours	$16.11
Overhead	$33,300 a year — general liability, office, sales, unsold estimates ÷ 3,600	$9.25
Loaded crew-hour		$61.40

Then apply margin, not markup. At a 35 percent margin the arithmetic is $61.40 ÷ 0.65 = $94.46, which is the $96 on lines 3 and 6. Adding 35 percent to cost gives $82.89 and a real margin of 25.9 percent — a $13 hole in every crew-hour, or $440 on the 33.9 crew-hours in this one invoice.

Published per-tree ranges are worth a glance and nothing more. This invoice divides out to $2,791 per tree, a figure that describes neither tree on the property.

What goes in the file when the chipper shuts down?

Photographs first, because they are the invoice’s evidence: the service drop before the utility sleeved it, the yard and gate showing the carry, the two unsound limbs, a tape across the stump at grade, the ruts before topsoil, and the finished site. Then the signed proposal, CO-1 with its timestamp, the utility work order, the disposal tickets, and the fuel and chain receipts from the day. A dump ticket is a receipt rather than an invoice, and the difference matters at tax time — invoice vs receipt covers it.

Keel keeps that pile on the phone that is already in your chest pocket, with no account, no bank connection, no cloud, no login, and an App Store privacy label reading Data Not Collected. Photograph the gate ticket, the saw shop receipt and the fuel stop; Apple Intelligence reads them on the device, and the gear side of that is in tree service business expenses. Runs to the yard and to the transfer station log as mileage. This invoice goes out from the tailgate in about a minute with your own numbering, your logo, your brand color, and a payment link the customer scans as a QR code off your screen, which is most of how to get paid for tree service work. The $1,400 deposit was the crane-free crew day and the permit rather than profit, and Freeboard says so: cash minus tax reserve, minus committed invoices, minus a buffer. Free covers unlimited invoices, receipts and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

What should a tree service invoice include?

Species, height, DBH and an access class for every tree, the crew-hours or the flat price each one carried, hand-carry and site protection as their own lines, brush and log disposal separated from the removal, stump grinding measured in inches at grade with its depth stated, any wood credit as a negative amount, and every change order with the time and the name of the person who approved it.

Why does a tree in the back yard cost more than the same tree out front?

Because access buys hours. A tree in an open drop zone is felled in one piece and cleaned up on the ground. A tree between a house and a fence comes down in pieces on a rope, with a climber setting each one and ground crew receiving it, then everything moves by hand to the chipper. On the invoice above that difference was 5.0 crew-hours against 28.9.

How is stump grinding measured and priced?

By inches measured at grade across the root flare, plus the depth you grind to. A trunk that measures 31 in at breast height can measure 38 in at grade, and the wider figure is the one the machine has to cut. Depth changes the price again — turf depth is a few passes, replanting depth is more than double and produces spoil somebody has to haul.

Should tree work near power lines be on the invoice?

The coordination should be, and the work near the conductor usually should not be yours at all. OSHA restricts approach within 10 feet of anything energized above 750 volts to line-clearance qualified crews, with a second qualified trimmer in voice range. On a residential job the correct line is a call to the utility, a work order number, and the crew time spent waiting on their truck.

How do I bill for a customer who keeps the firewood?

As a visible credit rather than a lower total. Print what they got — the buck length and where the rounds were stacked — and set the credit at what loading and hauling that wood would have cost you. State separately that the brush was still chipped and removed, because customers routinely assume keeping the wood removes the disposal line too.

What is the difference between a tree service estimate and the invoice?

The estimate prices trees that are still standing; the invoice records what came down and what it took. Keep the same line order and wording in both, reference the proposal number and any change order in the header, and make sure every rate on the invoice already appeared on a document the customer signed. Show both figures wherever a measured quantity moved.

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