Choosing an invoice layout: Modern, Classic or Receipt
Pick the invoice layout your customers read most easily: Modern suits many service businesses, Classic suits formal accounts departments, and Receipt suits small or already-paid sales. In Swiftly Workspace you set one as the company default under Document Theme.
The content of an invoice is fixed by law and habit: who bills whom, what for, the VAT and how to pay. The layout decides how fast someone on the other side finds those things. A clear invoice is more likely to be approved and paid without a question; a cluttered one waits in a pile.
The three layouts side by side
| Layout | How it looks | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Modern | A colored accent bar across the top, a large title, your details and the Bill-to side by side, and one headline that says whether the invoice is due or paid | Many service businesses, agencies and consultants |
| Classic | No accent bar; Supplier and Client blocks with company ID and VAT number, a strip of dates, a wide line table with unit prices before and after tax, a note block for legal mentions | Formal business customers, accounts departments, cross-border invoicing |
| Receipt | A centered heading over one tidy list of labels and values, with the lines folded into the same list | Small one-off sales, and handing over proof of payment |
Modern is the default for a new company. All three apply to invoices, credit notes and proformas alike, so a proforma and the invoice that follows it look like a matching pair, and so do an invoice and its credit note.
What every layout carries
- The parties. Your company and the customer, with the VAT numbers your invoices already hold.
- The lines and totals. What you sold, the subtotal, the VAT and the total.
- A paid or due state. The invoice says plainly whether money is still owed, and can list the payments already received.
- Payment details while money is owed. Your bank details and payment reference, and on finalized euro invoices with an amount due and your IBAN on them, a SEPA QR code the customer scans to pay.
Where the layouts differ
Modern keeps the extra blocks many EU invoices use, including a separate ship-to address when it differs from the billing address, a VAT breakdown per rate and a bank block, drawn in a light, modern style with thin rules instead of shaded boxes.
Classic is the dense one. Its line table shows the unit, the unit price without tax and with tax, which accounts teams in many countries expect to see. A note block at the bottom holds sentences such as the reverse-charge mention for cross-border services. If your customers are larger companies that check every invoice against a purchase process, Classic gives them the most to check against.
Receipt trims on purpose. It drops the side-by-side party blocks, the ship-to address and the per-rate VAT breakdown, and keeps a subtotal, the VAT and the total. While an invoice is due, it still shows the due date, IBAN, payment reference and QR code. Once it is paid, the payment block goes and the page reads as a receipt.
Brand color and theme
Each layout comes in three themes: Standard, Gold and Corporate. A theme sets the colors of the headings and rules. To use your own color, enter it in the brand color field as a hex value such as #3B5BFF, or use the color well. Leave it empty and the theme's own accent is used. More on matching invoices to your brand is in setting your brand color and document language.
The language on the invoice
The labels on the PDF (Invoice, Due date, Total and so on) follow the customer's preferred language when the customer record has one. If not, they use the company's Default Document Language, and if that is empty too, English. Labels are translated into Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish. Once each customer's preferred language is set, a Belgian business can send French labels to a customer in Wallonia and Dutch ones to a customer in Flanders from the same settings.
How to choose
- Think about who opens it. An owner-run business reads an invoice once and pays it; an accounts department books it line by line. Modern suits the owner, Classic suits the accounts department.
- Check your VAT. If your invoices mix VAT rates or carry reverse-charge lines, pick Modern or Classic, which show the breakdown per rate.
- Look at your average invoice. One or two lines, paid on the spot? Receipt keeps it short.
- Preview one of each. On a Mac, open a finalized invoice's PDF Preview and use the Layout & Theme menu to compare layouts on your own data. That menu changes the preview; your company default changes when you choose Save as Company Default.
The setting lives in Administration, then Document Theme, on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and the company owner saves it. The step-by-step guides cover changing the layout on iPhone or iPad and changing the layout on Mac. To send the result, see how to share an invoice PDF from iPhone or iPad.
One caution: however polished, a PDF stays a picture of an invoice. Where structured e-invoicing is required, the readable PDF travels as a courtesy copy; why a PDF is not an e-invoice explains the difference.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a different invoice layout for one customer?
No. The layout, theme and brand color are company-wide defaults, so every customer gets the same look. What changes per customer is the language of the labels, which follows the customer's preferred language.
Which invoice layout is the default?
Modern. A new company starts on Modern, and the owner can switch it under Administration, then Document Theme, at any time. The PDF of an invoice that is already finalized follows the new layout the next time it is generated.
Does the Receipt layout still show VAT?
Yes, as a single VAT line between the subtotal and the total. What it leaves out is the breakdown per VAT rate, so choose Modern or Classic if your invoices mix rates.
What makes an invoice layout look professional?
Consistency and white space. Use one layout and one accent color on every document, keep the totals and the amount due easy to spot, and make the payment details complete. Fancy fonts and dense boxes slow the reader down.
Run your business on Apple.
Create your account on the web, then set up your workspace in the app on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.
Create your account
