GP Locum Invoice Template and Generator

There is no official invoice for locum work, so every locum ends up making their own. Whatever it looks like, a practice manager needs to find the same things on it:

• your name, address and contact details
• the practice’s name and address
• an invoice number and the invoice date
• each session worked: the date, what it was, and the rate
• the total, and when payment is due
• your bank details for payment
• if you are pensioning the work, the NHS pension employer contribution as its own line, so it is clear it is not part of your fee

The builder above is that template with the arithmetic done for you: fill it in and it produces the PDF. If you would rather have a file to edit yourself, download the blank Word template. It has the same layout, with a note on working out the pension line by hand.

It builds a professional PDF invoice for a GP practice. Your details and theirs, the sessions worked, your bank details for payment, and, if you are pensioning the work, the NHS pension employer contribution the practice owes on top of your fee.

Your own details are remembered on this device so the next invoice takes seconds, and they are shared with the Form A and Form B filler, which is the other half of the same job. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.

The session lines are simple arithmetic. The pension line is not, and it is where locum invoices most often go wrong.

• It is 12.94% of your fee, not 14.38%. The employer contribution rate is 14.38%, but it applies to your pensionable pay, and a locum’s pensionable pay is 90% of the fee. Charge 14.38% of the fee and you have over-invoiced the practice; the correct figure as a share of the fee is 12.94%.
• It has to match box 3 of the Form A exactly. The practice signs a Form A saying what the employer contribution was, and you forward that money to PCSE. If the invoice and the form disagree, somebody is out of pocket and the reconciliation has to be unpicked. So this tool computes the line using the same functions that fill in the form, rather than applying a percentage to the invoice total.
• Amounts are held in whole pence. Fee to 90% to 14.38% is a chain of multiplications, and doing it in decimals drifts. These are figures someone pays, so each step is rounded explicitly.
• Leave it off if you are not pensioning the work. The line is optional, because a locum who is not pensioning a session has no employer contribution to collect.

2 sessions at £350.00, pensioned:

• Fees, £700.00
• Pensionable pay, 90% of that, £630.00 (box 2 of the Form A; it does not appear on the invoice)
• NHS pension employer contribution, 14.38% of pensionable pay, £90.59 (box 3 of the Form A)
• Total the practice pays, £790.59

Note that £90.59 is 12.94% of the £700.00 fee. Invoicing 14.38% of the fee instead would have asked the practice for £10.07 more than the Form A will say they owed.

It produces a document. It is not an accounting system and none of this is tax advice.

• It does not send or chase anything. You download the PDF and email it yourself. Worth doing promptly: the matching Form A has to reach NHS Pensions within 70 days of the last day worked, and the practice has to sign it first.
• No VAT handling. There is no VAT line and no assumption made about your VAT position. If VAT is relevant to you, take advice on it.
• No bookkeeping. It does not track which invoices have been paid, produce statements, chase late payers, or total your year for Self Assessment. For what to set aside from the fees once they arrive, use the locum tax calculator.
• It assumes freelance locum work. Invoicing through a limited company, or for work that is not pensioned this way, has different requirements.
• Your details live in this browser only. That is deliberate. Your name, address and bank details are never uploaded, but clearing site data loses them, so use the export as a backup.