An invoice is a document that shows which goods and services were sold and requests payment from the buyer.
The invoice provides information about the sale, such as quantity, price, and delivery date.
It’s also a payment request from the seller to the buyer, and includes payment details and a due date.
What to include on your invoices
- The date the invoice was created, also called invoice date
- A unique invoice number
- The name and contact information of your business
- The name and contact information of the client
- A detailed description of the products or services you’ve sold, including quantity and unit price
- When and where the products or services were delivered
- The total amount
- Due date, also called payment deadline
- Payment method, for example your bank details if the client is paying with bank transfer
- Consumption tax, such as VAT or GST, if applicable
- Discounts, if applicable
If you use invoicing software, you won’t have to worry about most of these details. Your contact information and payment details will be autofilled on the invoices.
You can also save all your products and customers so that you can add their details to your invoices with the click of a button.
Pro tip: What else to add on the invoice
It’s also a good idea to add a logo so that your invoices are instantly recognisable and help build your brand. Secondly, you can add more than one payment method, for example bank transfer and a PayPal link. This gives the clients more flexibility about how to pay, and can help you get paid faster.
It’s also proven that being polite, for example by adding a thank you-message, will get you paid 5 percent faster.
How to make invoices
There are several ways to make invoices. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each of them.
Pen and paper
If you want to send invoices using pen and paper, you should buy an invoice pad. These are prenumbered pads, with all the fields you need to make valid invoices
Templates
With free invoice templates you can create invoices in Word or Excel, for example. You have to make sure to update the invoice number every time, and you have to put in more effort to store and follow up on your invoices.
Generators
This is an online tool to make invoices. It’s fast, but you have to manually save your invoices somewhere and follow up on them if clients don’t pay by the due date.
Invoice software
This is the best investment if you’re going to be invoicing regularly. With invoice software most of your details are prefilled, and as you make invoices your clients are saved in a client register and your goods and services in a product list.
All your invoices are saved in one place, and you’ll be notified when invoices become overdue.
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