Every tradie has heard a theory about the best time to send an invoice. Friday arvo, before the weekend. Monday morning, when people are back at their desks. Never on a Sunday.

We looked at more than 550,000 invoices sent through Fergus to find out who’s right. The answer is simpler than any of those theories: the best time to send an invoice is the moment the job is done. And if you want to get paid faster still, make it dead easy for your customer to pay with Fergus Pay.

Myth: there’s a perfect time to send your invoice

There isn’t. Whatever day or time an invoice goes out, between 31% and 33% of them are paid within 7 days.

We compared 40 different send times, from early in the week to late on the weekend. The best and worst were barely 2 points apart. That’s not a strategy, that’s noise.

Fergus data · 550,000+ invoices across 40 send times

So stop holding invoices back for the “right” moment. Saving an invoice for Monday morning doesn’t make it more likely to get paid. It just means it gets paid later.

The real secret: invoice on the day

How soon you invoice matters far more than when. Invoice on the day the job finishes and you’re typically paid in 3 days. Leave it 2–4 weeks and the wait stretches to 26 days, more than 8 times longer.

Fergus data · 61,000+ paid jobs, Apr–Oct 2026

Here’s why. The clock doesn’t start until you hit send, so every day an invoice sits on your phone is a day your money sits in someone else’s bank account. And the longer you leave it, the slower customers pay. 2/3 of invoices sent on the day are paid within a week of landing. Leave it longer and that drops to only half.

Late invoices are also less likely to get paid at all within the month. 92% of jobs invoiced on the day are paid within 30 days, compared with 66% when invoicing takes 2–4 weeks. By then the job is old news, and your invoice is competing with every other bill on the customer’s fridge.

Tip: send the invoice from the site in Fergus Go before you pack up the van.

Fergus Pay: make it easy to pay, get paid in a day

Invoicing fast gets the bill into your customer’s hands. Fergus Pay lets them pay it there and then, straight from the invoice. A typical Fergus Pay invoice is paid in 1 day, compared with 11 days without it.

Fergus data · Fergus Pay vs other payment methods

And it works no matter when you invoice. Fergus Pay invoices get paid sooner every time.

Lots of tradies save their invoices up and send them in one go at the end of the week. Here’s what that costs:

Fergus data · 61,000+ paid jobs, Apr–Oct 2026

Batching with Fergus Pay gets you paid in about 6 days, roughly the same as invoicing on the day without it. Do both and it’s 1 day. And 82% of jobs invoiced on the day with Fergus Pay are paid within a week, compared with 64% when they’re batched.

The bottom line: send it now, make it easy

There’s no magic hour for invoicing. Getting paid faster comes down to two habits:

1. Invoice as soon as the job is done. Ideally from site, before you leave, not saved up for the weekend. Every day you wait adds a day to your payment.
2. Use Fergus Pay. Give customers an easy way to pay online and half of them pay within about a day.

Do both, and you’ll typically have the money the day after the job, not next week.

Based on Fergus data: 550,000+ invoices for send-time analysis, and 61,000+ paid jobs (Apr–Oct 2026) for time-to-invoice and Fergus Pay comparisons.