Invoice app for painters & decorators in London
Price per room, materials markup, receipts from the decorator’s merchant — invoicing handled in the same chat you message the customer in.
£29.99/mo · 7 days free · no card needed
Start Free on WhatsAppA real London decorator’s voice note:
"Mrs Davies, Chelsea London, three bedrooms painted, two coats, materials three-forty."
What decorators in London actually have to log on a job
- Surface prep as its own line — Fill, sand, prime — priced separately so customers see why a "paint job" isn’t just paint.
- Trade-discount paint sourcing — Dulux Trade / Crown Trade receipts auto-categorised; markup or pass-through, your call per job.
- Wallpaper m² calc — Voice-note the room dimensions; Holdfort costs rolls + paste + drops with waste built in.
- Listed buildings / heritage — Specialist paints (mineral, lime) flagged so the invoice carries the spec for conservation officers.
- Day-rate vs square-metre pricing — Switch quoting model per job without rebuilding the template.
What decorators in London actually deal with
Thames Water (most of the capital) or Affinity Water (north-west outskirts)
ULEZ — every day, every postcode. If your van is non-compliant, that’s £12.50 per working day on top of fuel.
32 London boroughs plus the City — Building Control is handled borough-by-borough, and Part P notifications vary by borough route.
Victorian terraces, ex-council flats, Georgian conversions, modern new-builds around Docklands and Stratford. Old lead pipework still common in pre-1970 stock.
Serving Chelsea, Hackney, Clapham, Islington, Camden and the rest of Greater London. Parking restrictions (red routes, controlled parking zones, school streets) and the congestion charge zone make a 20-minute job a two-hour billing situation.
London callout rates run £75–£120 vs £45–£80 for the rest of the UK. Materials cost the same but travel time and congestion eat the margin. Holdfort doesn’t set your prices — your rates are yours — but it stops you from losing track of what’s owed, what’s paid, and what’s been expensed along the way. All through WhatsApp. No app to install, no portal to log into.
Questions from London decorators
Both. Voice-note "master bedroom, walls and ceiling, two coats Dulux Trade Vinyl Matt" and Holdfort produces an itemised quote at your set m² rate; switch to day-rate for site work.
Either. Set a default markup (10/15/20%) or flag a job as pass-through-at-cost — receipts attach to the invoice automatically.
Not as a separate line, but you can log them as receipts (photo the email or Dart Charge notice) and they’re captured as deductible vehicle expenses at tax time. Every charged day reduces your tax bill.
Yes — set your scheme (NICEIC, NAPIT, ELECSA, Stroma) once. Each invoice prints the scheme and your notification reference, which is what boroughs like Southwark and Lambeth ask for on Building Control self-certification.
They voice-note the invoice from inside the van before moving. Sixty seconds, invoice sent, and they’re out of the red route before the warden comes. It’s the main reason central-London trades signed up first.
Yes — quarterly-ready breakdowns and sole-trader categories. Required for self-employed earners over the MTD threshold from April 2026. See the MTD guide.
£29.99 per month, all in. 7 days free, no card needed to start. Founding-member price locked for life.
London decorator? Finish the job. Voice note the rest.
7 days free. 30 seconds to set up. Just WhatsApp.
Start Free on WhatsAppHold the fort. We’ve got the paperwork.