Free Invoice Generator with Built-In Time Tracking

Track time and generate clean client invoices, no signup, no client book upload.

Freelance invoicing tools usually either time you or bill you, not both fluently. This one turns tracked time directly into invoice line items — a stopwatch entry becomes a quantity in hours and a rate, with no manual copy-paste — and keeps every client's rate history separate from what any single invoice already charged, so raising your rate next quarter never quietly rewrites last month's paid invoice.

How to create an invoice from tracked time

Add a client with a name, email, billing address, default hourly rate, three-letter currency code and default tax rate; switch on a default late fee here if your terms include one.
Select the client, type a task description in the time tracker and press Start; use Pause and Resume as needed, then Stop & log time to save the entry at its rate.
Tick the tracked entries you want to bill and click Add selected to invoice draft, then add any manual lines such as a flat fee or an expense with their own quantity and rate.
Check the issue date, the due date (14 days after issue unless you change it), the tax rate and the notes, then press Finalize invoice to assign the next INV number.
Open the invoice with View / print, press Print / Save as PDF and choose Save as PDF as the printer in your browser's dialog; mark it paid once the money arrives.

What to include on a freelance invoice

A unique invoice number — this tool issues them in sequence as INV-0001, INV-0002 and so on.
The issue date and a due date, which is what any late fee is measured from.
Your client's name, billing address and email, all taken from the client record.
Your own business name, address, tax or VAT number and payment details: the template has no separate sender block, so put these in the Notes field and they print under the totals.
One line per piece of work with description, quantity (hours), rate and amount.
Subtotal, tax rate and tax amount, and the total due, plus the accrued late fee line when a policy applies.
Payment terms in plain words, such as "Payment due within 14 days via bank transfer".

Printing or saving your invoice as a PDF

There is no PDF library in this tool. The finalized invoice is laid out as a print page, and the Print / Save as PDF button opens your browser's own print dialog, where choosing Save as PDF (or Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows) writes the file straight to your disk. The document never passes through a server on the way.

The printed page carries only your client's details, the invoice number and dates, the line-item table, the totals and your notes, followed by a small generated date. It has no BrakeTools name, link or QR code, because the invoice is meant to go out as your own document.

From stopwatch to line item, honestly

Tracked time is stored in milliseconds and converted to hours in hundredths — that's 36-second granularity, tight enough that thirty seconds of drift doesn't silently move a decimal on a $150/hour rate. The rate that lands on the line item is the one captured the moment you started that time entry, not the client's current default rate, so editing a client's rate going forward never rewrites the amount already tracked.

Line item amount is quantity times rate, rounded to the cent using a rounding routine written specifically to avoid the classic floating-point artifact where 1.005 becomes 1.0049999999999999 on the screen. It's a small thing until you're auditing a hundred invoices and every rounding error tells a slightly different lie.

Invoice numbers, taxes, and totals

Invoice numbers are sequential and zero-padded — INV-0001, INV-0002 — drawn from one running count across every client, not a per-client sequence. If you delete an invoice, the counter still reflects the total ever created, which is the same behavior most small-business accounting software uses to keep numbering unambiguous.

Totals are a flat subtotal-plus-tax calculation: every line item's amount is summed, one tax rate percentage is applied to that subtotal, and the total is subtotal plus tax. There is no support for per-line-item tax rates or multiple simultaneous tax jurisdictions — if your invoicing needs that, this tool's tax math is too simple for your situation.

Late fees accrue, then freeze

A late-fee policy is either a flat amount or a percentage, applied once per elapsed period past the due date, and the accrued figure recalculates live against today's date for as long as an invoice sits unpaid. The moment you mark an invoice paid, that accrued number freezes permanently at whatever it was — it is never recomputed again afterward, even if you reopen the invoice later.

The percentage accrues linearly, not compounded, and a partial period counts as a whole one: at 1.5% per 30 days on a $2,000 invoice, one day late shows $30 and day 31 shows $60. A flat fee is charged once, as soon as the due date has passed.

That freeze-on-payment behavior means a late fee genuinely reflects what was owed at the moment of payment, not a number that keeps drifting after the fact depending on when you happen to look at it again.

Where your client list and invoices actually live

Clients, tracked time, and invoices are stored in your browser's IndexedDB, not on a server — closing the tab and reopening it later brings everything back because the database lives on your device, and nothing about a client's name, rate, or an invoice total is ever transmitted anywhere.

That also means the data is tied to one browser profile on one device, and this tool has no export or import for it. Clearing site data, switching browsers, or moving to a new computer leaves the old history behind with no cloud sync to fall back on, so save a PDF of every finalized invoice as your permanent record.

What this tool won't do for you

It does not send, email, or file anything with a tax authority — a generated invoice is a document you still have to deliver and, separately, report.
It has no per-line tax-rate support, no multi-currency conversion within a single invoice, and no recurring-invoice scheduling.
It cannot tell you whether your late-fee percentage or flat amount is enforceable in your client's jurisdiction or contract — that's a question for the contract you signed, or a lawyer if the contract is silent.

Questions people ask about Freelance Invoicing

Is this invoice generator free, and do I need an account?: It is free to use and there is no signup, login or trial. Clients, time entries and invoices are written to your browser's local database, and the PDF comes from your own browser's print dialog, so nothing about your clients or rates is sent to a server.
What is the difference between an invoice and a receipt?: An invoice asks the client to pay an amount by a due date; a receipt confirms that a payment was received. This tool produces invoices only. Marking one as paid records the date and freezes any late fee, but it does not print a separate receipt document.
Can I change the currency on the invoice?: Yes, per client. Each client record has a three-letter ISO currency code such as USD, EUR or GBP, and every invoice for that client is formatted in it. There is no conversion between currencies, so one invoice always uses a single currency throughout.
Can I set up recurring invoices?: No. There is no scheduler that creates or sends invoices automatically. For a monthly retainer, open a new draft for the client each period: the client's rate, tax rate and late-fee policy fill in automatically, and a manual line covers the fixed fee.
If I raise a client's hourly rate, does it change past invoices?: No. Each time entry stores the rate that was active when you started tracking it, and that snapshot is what feeds the line item. Raising a client's default rate only affects time you track from that point forward, so an invoice you already sent keeps the number your client actually agreed to.
Why is my tracked time showing as something like 2.47 hours instead of 2:28?: Time is billed in decimal hours, rounded to the nearest hundredth — about 36 seconds of precision — because that's the format invoices and most hourly contracts expect, not a clock display. 2 hours 28 minutes and some seconds becomes roughly 2.47 hours once converted for the line item.
Does a late fee keep growing after I mark the invoice paid?: No. The accrued late fee is frozen at the value it had the instant you record payment and is never recalculated after that, even if you reopen the invoice weeks later. What you see logged against a paid invoice is exactly what was owed at the moment it was settled.
Will my invoices sync between my laptop and my phone?: No. Everything is stored locally in your browser's IndexedDB on the device you're using, with no server-side account, sync layer, or data export. A second device starts empty, so keep your working history in one browser and save each finalized invoice as a PDF you can open anywhere.

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Content reviewed 2026-09-27.