Online Invoicing
Invoicing Best Practices
Date Your Invoices Accurately
When invoicing your customer, be sure to select the date you performed the service or delivered the product as the Invoice Date, not when you finally have time to sit down and create the invoice. The date you delivered your goods or performed your services is when you transferred ownership of the goods or provided the service and when you should start the due date timer.
Make Sure Your Customers Have Your Email on File so You Don’t End Up in Spam
Before you start emailing your customers invoices, send them an email letting them know you are now invoicing by email and asking them to add you to their contacts list so your invoice doesn’t end up in their Spam or Junk folder instead of in their inbox.
Make Notes on Invoices To Communicate with Your Team
If you have more than one person on your team handling invoices, i.e., your salesperson takes the order, your shipping manager fulfills it and you finalize the invoice and send it to your customer, use Internal Notes on the invoice to communicate with each other. Internal Notes aren’t visible to the customer so you can document special instructions or reminders or anything else you want. By adding notes directly on the invoice, the full order history will be captured and available to refer to it later.
Send Your Customers an Invoice Statement if They Have an Overpayment or are Past Due
Collection agencies make a lot of money because they do what most of us don’t like to – ask people to pay up. With WorkingPoint, you can send your customer a friendly email of their open invoices so they can see the status of their account and be reminded to send in their payments.
Print Your Invoice on Your Company Stationary to Really Stand Out in the Crowd
If you send invoices in the mail, you can personalize your invoices further by printing them on your stationary second sheets. A fun color or texture in your company’s style will reinforce your brand and it’s an easy way to distinguish yourself from the stack.
What is an Invoice?
An invoice is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the descriptions, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller has provided the buyer.
Why Do I Want to Invoice My Customers?
Creating an invoice sounds pretty official, and it is – what your invoice says is important because the invoice acts as a contract between you and your customer. Your invoice tells your customer what they bought from you, how much they owe you for the goods/services and when you expect payment. When your customer accepts the delivery of your goods/services they become contractually obligated to pay for what they received from you. (Of course, be sure to get their signature on any goods delivered and services performed because this is their written verification that the goods were received or the service performed.) Your invoice also signals to your customer that your goods/services have been delivered/fulfilled, and it’s a request for them to pay you.
By creating an invoice, you are performing a lot of other important tasks too. For example, when you create an invoice, you are capturing the income from your sales that you can use to compare against other months or other years to track your company’s growth. You are also tracking your customers’ sales history which lets you see how much a customer has purchased from you over the life of the relationship. If you sell inventory, you are reducing your available quantities and keeping your inventory valuations up-to-date. Most importantly, you are gaining insight into your cash: who owes you, when you should expect it, and who’s behind in payment.
How Do I Perform Online Invoicing with WorkingPoint?
Managing the invoice cycle can get complicated and become difficult to manage. Not with WorkingPoint. You’ll always know the next step in the process.
Here’s a look at a typical invoice cycle:
Estimate a Project
If you estimate projects to obtain a “go” from your customer before starting work, start here. Create a quote to give your customer an estimate of a project or job. Quotes work just like invoices – you can add contacts and products & services on the fly, personalize the Terms & Conditions and Notes to your customers, and send the quote via email or snail mail.
A quote is a non-posting transaction – which means, it doesn’t affect your books but it is an excellent way to keep track of the prices you have offered your customer for prospective work.
Convert the Quote
When your customer approves your quote, you can turn your quote into an invoice with literally one click. Simply open the quote and click Convert to Invoice.
Invoice Your Customer
By invoicing with WorkingPoint, you’ll have everything you need to create and customize an invoice for your project or order: add contacts and products & services, enter shipping charges and details, give discounts, charge sales tax automatically, add notes, and much more. And WorkingPoint doesn’t stop at the invoice. We’ll help you track track customer sales history, receive payments, and manage your Accounts Receivable (who owes you what).
You can create an invoice from several places in the application – the Invoices List, a contact’s detail page and from the Home page dashboard.
Send the Invoice to Your Customer
Sending invoices to your customers has never been easier: by email or by snail mail, with just a click your invoice is ready to be sent to your customer quickly so you can get paid faster.
Monitor the Money Coming In
Filter the Invoices List to show Open Invoices by Due Date (This Month or a custom range for the next 30 days) and WorkingPoint will change the list view to show you only invoices that you can expect to be paid during the month and summarize the information so you can see totals at a glance.
Don’t stop there. Change the filter and sort by any combination you want to learn important information about your invoices.
Receive Payment
WorkingPoint makes it easy to apply payments to invoices and record them into your chosen bank accounts directly from the invoice itself. The simple-to-complete form lets you record the important payment information, like how you were paid, for how much and when you deposited the payment to your bank. WorkingPoint records the deposit in your bank account so your balances stay current and updates the invoice’s status to Paid.
If you have a PayPal account, WorkingPoint online invoicing can help you get paid faster by making it easier for customers to pay you with PayPal. By including a link on their invoice, customers can quickly access their PayPal account and make a payment. WorkingPoint records the invoice payment in your WorkingPoint account for you, saving you time and reducing data entry errors.
Handle Overpayments
If your customer paid the exact amount of the invoice, excellent! – the invoice cycle for your project is complete. However, if your customer paid more than the amount due on the invoice, WorkingPoint will help you keep track of the overpayment by creating a credit that you can use to apply to a future invoice.