Free Restoration Invoice & Estimate Template (Word, Excel, PDF)

A work authorization and a direction of pay, both dated the day you arrived. The authorization is what makes the work billable: it names the scope, the address and whoever opened the door, and without it a night call-out is work you did for a stranger. The direction of pay asks the carrier to send the mitigation draft to you rather than through the homeowner — most carriers honor it, none are bound by it, and an assignment of benefits is the instrument that actually moves the claim. Get the deductible acknowledged in the same sitting, since it is the one number no policy pays and that conversation goes better before the equipment lands. At the far end, the final walkthrough and certificate of completion is the matching page, and it turns your last line into a payable one.

Yes, split them, because the two are usually paid out of different parts of the policy on different schedules. The structure is the building; contents pack-out, cleaning, storage and disposal are the homeowner's belongings. Bill pack-out by the hour against an inventory made before anything moves, then keep storage vault rental as a recurring monthly line rather than a single charge, because a vault goes on billing long after the structure is finished. Specialty work carries its own units: electronics decontamination and testing by the item, textile laundering by the load, document freeze drying by the box. Anything non-salvageable leaves with a photographed itemized list attached, since the contents side is settled off that list and a bag nobody itemized is a bag nobody pays for.

As a sequence, in the order it gets reviewed. Start with the mold remediation work plan and protocol, a deliverable in itself. Then containment, measured as the poly you hung, with each zippered door counted separately, then the negative air setup stated with what it held: commonly four air changes an hour at around minus 0.02 inches of water column. Removal and bag-out come next, then HEPA vacuuming per room, then mold encapsulant on framing that stayed. Where your state wants an independent assessor, keep the post-remediation air clearance re-test off your own invoice: bill the coordination and let their report carry the result. Federal EPA guidance treats an isolated patch under about ten square feet as a different job from a multi-room remediation, so say which you did.

New work if the source was never inside your scope, a warranty callback if it was — and your own first invoice decides which. Odor sealing and encapsulation covers a cleaned surface; it never covers a source nobody removed. If shellac odor sealing went over cleaned framing and the smell is back out of insulation, ductwork or a cavity nobody opened, name the source, the area and the removal, and that is new scope. If the source sat inside what you already billed, absorb the re-treatment. Either way, say on the first invoice what the deodorization line covered and name the method, because a hydroxyl generator runs by the day in an occupied house while ozone treatment needs the space empty and aired out before anyone goes back in.