So, you have a small business and making organized sense of your invoicing is blowing your mind. Or maybe you’re pretty organized, but the whole invoicing thing takes you forever? You're not alone: invoicing for small businesses can be TOUGH.
But as tough as it is, it's equally important to get it right.
In fact, invoicing is one of the most important things you do as a business, and although it may not be easy, it is definitely necessary.
The bottom line is that as the business owners, if we don’t invoice our partners or customers, we may not get paid. Because of this, we work really hard to make sure our invoicing happens quickly, both for the sake of our partners, and for our peace of mind as well.
But, this diligence didn’t happen overnight. It was a process we worked through as we learned how to most effectively invoice our partners. Now, we're excited to share this information with you!
4 Really Good Tips for Effective Invoicing for Small Businesses
Here’s some of what we have learned along the way about effective invoicing.
Organization of your books is crucial to effective invoicing.
If your books are not organized, invoicing will be extremely difficult. Get a handle on this area of your business and you’ll find effective invoicing to be that much easier.
Looking for more resources about getting your books organized? Look no further! Check out this post:
From Shoebox to Success: How to Update Your Business Financial Records
Make your terms clear to your clients.
One very easy way to make sure there is no confusion about your terms is to include them in your initial signed contract. Make sure your clients are crystal clear about all of your terms so there's no room for error.
It can also be helpful to issue an invoice upfront for the deposit. Once the work is completed, send another invoice and hold the final product or service until the client pays the balance.
Using initial deposits and partial payments can be a great way to steady your cash flow and make the payment process easier on your clients too.
"Invoice on time to get paid on time."
There’s really something about human nature that makes that statement so true. Truly, if we are slow in invoicing, our partners may feel like it’s okay for them to be slow in paying. Send your invoices on time and you'll find you're usually paid quicker too!
Include all of the pertinent details in your invoice.
Including all of the transaction information right on the invoice goes a long way in making it easier for our partners to pay us quickly.
Here are the basic essential details we include on each invoice:
- Our company information
- The partner’s name and address
- The service we provided
- Total amount charged for each service, including the taxes
- The invoice ID number
Keeping track of all of these details manually can be a huge challenge, so we use QuickBooks Online for our bookkeeping. QuickBooks Invoice is especially helpful for keeping all of our invoice data organized. When it’s time to send the invoice to a partner, it takes a minimal amount of time to produce the document and send it out.
Speaking of QuickBooks, we have some great resources on our sites for using it effectively and trouble-shooting when necessary. Start here:
Why Does QuickBooks Not Match My Bank Account?
Bonus marketing tip
Do your invoices have a bunch of white space on them? We see this a lot with businesses that offer simple and straightforward services. But have you ever thought of using the extra space on your invoices for advertising? You could mention a new product or service your business offers, or even include a coupon or something of value for your clients!
We can help with invoicing for small businesses and so much more
Contact us at
Two Roads for all your bookkeeping needs. We make your life simple, including creating effective invoicing strategies for your business. Learn more about this and our other
bookkeeping services here.
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This post was first published in 2014 and it was updated in 2021 just for you.