6 Tips for Invoicing Your Clients Professionally
invoice software for mac
6 Tips for Invoicing Your Clients Professionally:
As a small business or freelancer, invoicing your clients is a necessary day-to-day task that likely takes up a good deal of your time. Additionally, the way that you invoice your clients speaks volumes about your level of professionalism. It should be the goal of every small business to provide a simple and seamless way to invoice their clients while maintaining professionalism. Accuracy is also a very important requirement when invoicing clients. Here are a few tips that can help your small business be more professional when invoicing clients and help you to simplify the process as a whole.
Be Clear In Your Payment Expectations and Policies
Every invoice that you send out should include clear payment expectations and any other polices that you are implementing. Once the work has been delivered, it is important to remember that it is your right to be paid by the organization that you are working with. As a freelancer or small business, you shouldn’t be uncompromising, but you should be consistent with the policies and expectations from the first interaction with your potential client. Make sure that both parties have an understanding of when a payment will be due, how work will be delivered, and what form the payment should come in.
Accept Multiple Payment Methods
Not all clients want to pay you using the same method. Accepting multiple different payment methods will speed up payments to your business and allow you to ensure that you are providing an excellent experience to your users. Online invoicing systems typically will allow you to accept major credit cards, or opt for check payments as well. Make sure that you discuss payment methods with a client well ahead of the completion of work and before issuing invoices to avoid issues.
Include All Services and Charges, Set the Precedent
Although it might seem like a great idea to give your clients a break on your services to attract their future business, it often sets a bad precedent and can lead to confusing invoices in the future. If you didn’t charge them for certain tasks on one invoice but did on another, that can be very confusing. Make sure that you are consistent with the way that you apply charges and if you choose to provide price breaks to clients make sure that you are upfront about it.
Include All Relevant Contact Details
If your client is having problem spaying the invoice, make sure that they know all of the relevant ways in which they can contact you. Include email, phone number and address on all of your invoices so that you can be easily reached when they run into issues.
Properly Number All Invoices
As a small business, you probably send out a huge number of invoices each month. When you run into a problem from one client, you need to be able to quickly identify the invoice and rectify the issue. Although in the past many numbered their invoices by hand, online systems will handle the numbering of your invoice for you, which greatly simplifies the process in the long-term.
Backup and Save All Invoices
Like any other type of data, invoices can also fall victim to data loss and are a very important aspect of your business. Although all data should be backed up, it is especially true for invoices and other financial data. Make sure that you are appropriately backing up all invoices that you create so that should data disasters occur, you can still collect the money that you are owed by clients.
If you would like to learn about how the CloudBooks (Invoice Software for Mac and Windows) can help you to professionally invoice your clients, please contact us today to schedule your initial, risk-free consultation with our small business accounting experts.
