As a freelancer or entrepreneur you will soon learn that there is a lot involved in creating a successful venture. From creating the perfect home working environment to managing working hours it can be a huge hassle, but by far the most difficult thing to get to grips with is creating invoices and getting paid.
When you choose to be a freelance worker you will no longer automatically receive a paycheck through the mail each month and instead you must create invoices online and make sure you get paid on time. Today we want to take a deeper look into invoices and we are here today to help you create an invoice that has all of the important information you need.
Here are the essential elements you need to include in every invoice this year.
Your brand
As a business owner whether you are a blogger or a full scale empire, you need to ensure that every document and every piece of content that leaves your hands has your branding all over it. The best way to integrate your branding into an invoice is with a small logo in the top left hand corner of the page. It’s simple and effective and ensures everyone knows who they are dealing with.
The legal stuff
Once you break away from your regular working life and join the thousands of people working for themselves you will soon learn legal jargon is important. As a business owner you need to cover yourself for any eventuality and include terms and conditions to ensure you get paid on time. For example, you will want to add an identification code for the customer or invoice, business information, customer information, value outstanding, VAT, date, payment deadline, and information of any interest that will be added due to late payments. This last point is crucial as a freelancer because you need to ensure people will pay you on time.
Price information
Of course, the most important piece of information you can add to an invoice is the price the customer needs to pay for your product or service. When creating an invoice it is always a good idea to set it out as a table with columns for item, description, and price. This means that if someone has purchased more than one thing they can easily break down the cost. Also include a total price without and with VAT and ensure that the price to pay is in bold.
Payment information
How will you ever get paid if you don’t add your bank details to the invoice? Once you have given the price details of the product or service to the customer it is time to input your own payment details. This will include your name, bank, account number, and sort code. This should be enough information to allow the customer to directly pay you for their product or service. It is up to you if you want to add an extra option of a paypal email address too.