Why It’s Important to Use Professional Invoices as a Freelancer

When you first started freelance, you were likely asking all sorts of questions such as how do I find clients or what is an invoice? Luckily over time you’ve learned the tricks of the trade and know the ins and outs of being a successful freelancer. But, there’s always room to grow and learn.

One
of the most important skills to master as a freelancer is invoicing. Proper
invoicing is crucial so that you’re paid the money that you’re owed for the
work you’ve completed. But, invoicing is much more than just sending your
client a list of assignments and their cost.

Keep
reading to learn about the importance of invoicing and how you can make the
process a lot less cumbersome and time-consuming.

Invoices Reflect Your
Professionalism

It
pays to be a well-rounded freelancer. From your communications to the work you
provide, clients like knowing that they can depend on you for prompt responses
and top notch work. To make yourself a better-rounded freelancer, it’s
important to send clients professional invoices that don’t look as if they were
thrown together at the last minute.

While
invoices don’t need to be over the top intricate, they need to include certain
pieces of information so that clients (and you!) can keep track of the numbers
over months and years.

Before
sending an invoice, you’ll want to ensure you include this information:

NameContact informationClient’s nameInvoice numberIssue and due date

Most
importantly, you want to provide line item descriptions and the total amount
due. The line item descriptions provide a breakdown of the goods and services
that you provided during the invoice period.

While
it may be easier to bulk goods and services together, it’s best to break them
down so that clients can have detailed tracking information. Each line item
should have a description, quantity, rate, and subtotal.

For
example, if you’re a freelance writer, you may have created several blog posts
and social media posts for the client. For each line item, you’ll want to
provide the title of the blog post along with the set per-word rate. For social
media posts, you can lump them into a bulk assignment and just change the
quantity.

Once
you’ve completed all of the line item descriptions, the last step to creating
an invoice is to provide information as to how and where a client should pay
you. most freelancers prefer to be paid using web-based payments like PayPal or
Venmo while others have checks mailed to their homes.

Tips for Making Invoices More
Efficient

Now
that you know what information you should provide on an invoice, you’re likely
dreading the idea of having to manually create invoices every few weeks.
Luckily there are many ways you can make the invoicing process much more
efficient.

First,
create a template that you can reuse for each invoice. You can create an
invoice template using programs such as Microsoft Word, InDesign, or an invoice
creator. This way you don’t have to create an invoice from scratch each time.
If you’re billing multiple clients using the same invoice, be sure to change
relevant information such as invoice number and the client’s name.

Automation & Invoicing

While
using a template cuts down on the time you have to spend on creating invoices,
there’s still a lot of time spent sending them to clients and filing them
appropriately. To make the process even more convenient, consider using an
automated invoice generator. This software does all of the hard work for you.
You simply input the data and the generator creates a professional looking
invoice for you.

By using an automated invoice generator, you never have to worry about printing, filing, or mailing invoices. Many invoice generators interact with other types of software, especially accounting software. This means that a good portion of your bookkeeping and accounting is already done for you!

Lastly,
automation makes you a more efficient freelancer. You can minimize accounting
and bookkeeping mistakes that can be costly come tax season. using an automated
invoicing process also allows you to spend more time writing, editing, or any
other freelance service that you provide.

Conclusion

As
a freelancer, there are all sorts of daily and weekly tasks that you have to
complete. But, one of the most important items on your list is to send invoices
to your clients so that you can get paid! If you’re new to invoicing or want to
make your invoicing process more efficient, be sure to keep this information in
mind so that you can get paid on time.

The post Why It’s Important to Use Professional Invoices as a Freelancer appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.