Delay in payment or slow paying clients is one of the major compliant of all freelancers and businesses. Often this may not be always a problem with clients, but freelancers are also equally responsible for not sharing the right or ambiguous invoices.
While you might not stress about preparing an invoice, do you know a well-structured invoice can help you get paid faster for your services? For your business to prosper, you must ensure timely payments.
Not all clients may be wise enough to pay you for services in time, and there is often a delay. But that’s where a professionally designed invoice comes into play.
If you dig deeper, you will realize that your client might be having difficulty reading your invoice, there might be some missing information, or they have to follow couple of manual steps to process your invoice. It might be the reason for your payments getting delayed. Hence, it is time you started designing a professional invoice.
But you need not worry if you are short on time to design an appealing invoice, having so much already on your to-do list. Welance, a business management platform, does it free for you. It has a free invoice generator where you can enter the required details and design your invoice in no time.
You might wonder what makes the Welance invoice generator unique and worth trying. Well, apart from covering everything which a professional invoice should have, Welance invoices are designed the way modern ecommerce sites are with one click checkout process. All Welance invoice comes with embedded payment button offering multiple payment options to your clients in over 135 currencies and direct settlement into your linked bank account.
Details in a professional invoice
So let us explore more about the features of a professional invoice.
1. Your business details
An invoice speaks for your business and the services you offer to the clients. Hence, your business details come first. You must highlight your business details or keep them as a header in the invoice you prepare. It helps your client instantly recognize you and your business so they can pay you as soon as possible.
You must mention your business’ name in your business information. If you have not named your business yet and beginning as a freelancer, you can include your name instead. A business logo can add professionalism to the invoice.
Next come your contact details, where you can include your phone number, email address, and your business address. You must also have your tax ID and the list of applicable taxes you charge from your client.
Hence, this forms a good start for your invoice. Welance applies it in their invoice generator and provides a section for you to enter your business details under ‘Invoice Form.’
2. Invoice number
It must be hard keeping track of your invoices where there are many piling up every month. Hence, it is necessary to keep your invoices organized as you might need any of them anytime if discrepancies arise in the future. Moreover, you might need to refer to your invoices during the tax season.
An invoice number helps you keep track of your invoices in the best way possible. So you can give a unique number to your invoices. You can choose a numbering system that suits you to track things easily.
Also, staying consistent with the numbering system is much needed. Besides, adding a date to your invoice along with an invoice number makes you organize it even better. Welance lets you include the invoice number and issue date in the ‘Invoice From’ section to help you keep track of your invoices systematically.
3. Client’s contact details
You deal with numerous clients while freelancing. You might face discrepancies in keeping track of invoices for multiple clients. Hence, adding the client’s contact details to your invoice is essential.
If your client is not the one paying you directly and someone else deals with the accounts, you can provide that person’s contact details to reach them easily. You can include the customer name, company’s address, phone number, email address, etc., to list the complete information.
Welance has developed a well-organized section to list your client’s details under ‘Invoice To.’ You can enter the billing and shipping details along with the shipping address.
Besides, there is also an option to choose the invoice currency you prefer to get paid in. It makes the payments easy, and you get paid quickly.
4. List of services
The most important part comes here. To list the services offered to your client is why you prepare an invoice in the first place. Hence, you must ensure it is transparent.
You must prepare an itemized list of services you offered and keep it in a tabular format to enhance readability. Include all the details about each service. You can list the services provided in the invoice period, date, quantity or hours, rate, discounts, taxes, etc.
Creating subtotal and, finally, the entire section makes your invoice systematic. You can list your services even better in Welance free invoice generator.
The information it asks you to provide for each item you enter is enough to make it transparent to your client, and you get paid faster than usual.
5. Payment details
Eventually, you are getting paid for your services. So you must also be clear while mentioning the payment details. If you make an error while listing your payment details, it might also be a reason for the detailed payments.
It begins with the payment terms agreed upon by you and your client at the commencement of the contract. Hence, you must mention the payment terms with an invoice due date. If you charge any late fine for delayed payments, you must mention it in the payment terms.
You must specify the payment mode you would prefer for payments, such as check, credit card, bank transfer, etc. Enlisting the correct bank details is essential if you choose bank transfer. Also, you should update your bank details if it has changed.
With Welance, you need not worry about the way you list your payment details as it has got everything covered. You can add a payment note or terms before heading to the payment method section.
You can choose from numerous options in the payment method section, such as bank transfer, UPI and even connect your Stripe, and Payoneer accounts. The best part is that the invoices are embedded with payment buttons, which client can use to quickly initiate the payment, they need not to add or enter your bank account details and either use variety of payment options from wallets, bank account, cards, google pay or UPI to pay for your services.
6. Initials
Last but not least, your invoice must look authentic. Authenticity comes from adding your signature towards the end of the invoice. Adding initials confirms to your client that the invoice is from you. So you can add your grand signature as a footer in your invoice. Welance lets you choose if you want to add an invoice signature. So you are good to go.
7. A courtesy note
A thank you or a friendly note in your invoice helps you show courtesy towards your client. So it can push your client towards paying you fast. Not to forget, it creates a good image for you and your business. You can add it towards the end of the payment note if you use Welance free invoice generator and it is all set.
Conclusion
Designing and sending invoices regularly to your client is a huge responsibility as a freelancer or small business owner. Over that, chasing and reconciling on payments received is another burden. But you can shed all your stress and use Welance free invoice generator to get a professional invoice that stands out, and you get paid with the least delays.