Excavation invoice template — yardage, loads and machine time
Excavation invoices are settled by haul tickets. These templates put yardage, load count and machine hours where the customer can check them.
An invoicing spreadsheet that opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, or prints to PDF. Pre-filled with the fields a excavation invoice needs, plus the payment terms this trade most often gets caught out by.
- Blank — the invoice fields, ready to fill in by hand.
- Auto-calculating — same sheet with subtotal, tax, deposit and balance due wired up. Formulas work in Excel and Google Sheets.
- Printable — a clean one-page layout to fill in or save as PDF.
How excavation work actually gets paid
Excavation bills per cubic yard moved and per hour of machine time, and the two have to reconcile against haul tickets — the ticket is the evidence and it should be referenced on the invoice. Soil that is not what the bid assumed is the standard dispute: rock, clay and groundwater each change the rate, so the contract needs a unit rate for unsuitable material and the invoice needs to bill against it rather than absorbing or inventing a number. Standby time when trucks are late is real and needs a term behind it.
What a excavation invoice must contain
- Invoice number, issue date, due date and the site
- Cubic yards excavated, and the soil condition actually encountered
- Haul-off: load count, ticket numbers, and tipping fees
- Machine time by class — excavator, skid steer, dozer — hours × rate
- Mobilisation and demobilisation, each as its own line
- Unsuitable material or rock, billed at the agreed unit rate
- Dewatering: pump hire, hours run and discharge handling
- Backfill material, placement and the compaction density achieved
Where excavation invoices go unpaid
- Yardage billed without haul tickets to substantiate the load count
- Rock or unsuitable soil billed with no unit rate having been agreed up front
- Standby hours for late trucks charged with nothing in the terms allowing it
- Access route damage repaired at your cost because restoration was never scoped
The estimate this invoice bills against
An invoice is only as defensible as the estimate it came from. BidWand writes the estimate from a plain description of the job — labour, materials, exclusions and assumptions — so the numbers on this invoice are ones the customer already agreed to.
Draft the excavation estimate behind this invoice
This generates the estimate, not the invoice — describe the job and you get the itemised figures to bill from. No email needed to see the first one.
What you get — see the format first
A complete estimate you can send to the customer, built from the rate you enter:
| Description | Qty | Unit | Unit price | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labor — itemized by task | hrs | hour | your rate | — |
| Materials — with your markup applied | qty | ea / sq ft | cost + markup | — |
| Permits, disposal, access | — | — | — | — |
Plus a plain-English scope summary, assumptions (what had to be guessed), exclusions (what you are not doing — the section that prevents most change-order arguments), and a validity period. Printable, or send the link.
Every figure comes from the rate and markup you supply. We never fill in a market price for you.
Related guides
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Estimate templates by trade
excavation · roofing · landscaping · handyman · cleaning · general contracting · concrete · drywall
How to estimate
How to write a contractor estimate · Estimate vs quote vs bid — and which one you should send · What to include in a contractor estimate · How to price a job as a contractor · Should you charge for estimates? · How to follow up on an estimate · How to handle change orders · Estimate vs invoice: what's the difference? · How to raise your prices as a contractor