What an Australian invoice needs
At minimum, an Australian business invoice should include:
- Your business name and Australian Business Number (ABN)
- The client's name and address
- An invoice number, ideally sequential
- The invoice date and payment due date
- A description of the work performed — this is where clear worklog comments matter
- The amount charged, and GST if applicable
- Your bank details or preferred payment method
None of this is unique to Jira-based billing — it's standard invoicing practice — but it's easy to lose one of these fields when invoices are built manually from a generic template that wasn't designed with Australian requirements in mind.
Regular invoice vs tax invoice
If you're registered for GST, most sales need to be issued as a tax invoice rather than a plain invoice. A tax invoice generally has stricter requirements than a standard invoice, including:
- The words "Tax Invoice" stated clearly on the document
- Your ABN
- The GST amount, either shown separately or with a statement that the total includes GST
- For larger invoices, additional detail such as a breakdown of GST per line item
If you're not registered for GST — common for sole traders under the GST registration turnover threshold — you don't charge GST and shouldn't include it on your invoice, but you should still show your ABN.
GST and worklog-based billing
For hourly billing generated from Jira worklogs, GST is typically applied as a percentage on top of the calculated subtotal, rather than per worklog entry. The practical flow:
- Calculate the subtotal from hours × rate across all worklog entries
- Apply GST to the subtotal, if registered
- Show subtotal, GST amount, and total as separate line items
This is where generic international invoicing tools tend to fall short — they'll happily generate a total but won't format the GST breakdown the way Australian tax invoices expect, or won't have a dedicated ABN field at all.
A note for New Zealand agencies
The equivalent concepts apply across the Tasman with different terminology: New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) instead of ABN, and GST at New Zealand's rate rather than Australia's. If you're billing New Zealand clients from Jira worklogs, the same worklog-to-invoice principles apply — just confirm current NZ GST invoicing requirements with Inland Revenue rather than assuming Australian rules carry across directly.
Generating compliant invoices from Jira
WorklogPDF lets you set your ABN, business address, and GST details once in Settings, and includes them automatically on every invoice generated from your Jira worklogs — rather than re-entering them, or worse, forgetting them, on invoice number forty-three.
| Field | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| ABN | Set once in WorklogPDF settings, applied to every invoice |
| GST | Configured rate applied to the calculated subtotal |
| Invoice number | Auto-generated sequentially (INV-2026-001, etc.) |
| Line item descriptions | Pulled from Jira worklog comments |
| Hours and rate | Calculated from worklogs and your configured per-person rates |
Generate ABN-ready invoices from Jira
Set your business details once, then generate client invoices from Jira worklogs in about 30 seconds each.
Try WorklogPDF free →Frequently asked questions
Does every Australian invoice need to show an ABN?
Any invoice issued by a business should show the ABN of the supplier. Without one, the client may be required to withhold tax from the payment under no-ABN withholding rules, so including it is standard practice even for small, informal invoices.
When does an invoice need to be a "tax invoice" rather than a regular invoice?
If you're registered for GST, sales generally need to be issued as a tax invoice, which has stricter formatting requirements than a regular invoice — including the words "Tax Invoice", a GST breakdown, and your ABN. Rules and thresholds are set by the ATO and worth confirming directly for your specific situation.
Can WorklogPDF generate GST-compliant invoices?
WorklogPDF lets you store your ABN and business details in settings and includes them on every generated invoice. You're responsible for confirming your invoices meet current ATO tax invoice requirements for your specific GST registration status — WorklogPDF is not a substitute for accounting or tax advice.