Invoicing guides
Twenty-seven guides to invoicing. Some explain why the figures on an invoice come out the way they do. The others cover the parts with no formula: what belongs on the document, when to ask for money, and what to do when an invoice goes late. The sums themselves run in the calculators.
Invoice basics
- What to put on an invoiceThe fields that decide whether it gets paid, and the ones that matter less.
- Invoice numberingA scheme that survives a gap, a second client and your accountant.
- Credit notesCorrecting or cancelling an invoice that has already gone out, without editing or deleting it.
- Invoice vs receiptWhat an invoice and a receipt each do, and when a client needs both.
- Quotes, estimates and invoicesThree documents people use interchangeably, and what each one commits you to.
- Keeping your invoicesWhere your invoices are stored, and how long the tax office expects you to keep them.
- Pro forma invoicesThe invoice-shaped document sent before a sale, and why it is not a VAT invoice.
- Commercial invoicesThe invoice that goes with goods across a border, and what customs needs on it.
- Invoicing clients abroadWhich currency, whose VAT, what the invoice must say, and how the money reaches you.
Pricing and totals
- How an invoice total is worked outThe order discount, tax, shipping and a deposit are applied in, and why the order changes the total.
- Invoicing by the hourBlocks of hours at different rates, expenses that are not hours, and where a deposit goes.
- Setting a freelance rateWorking backwards from what you need to earn, through the hours you can bill.
- Billable hours in a yearHow many hours a year you can bill once days off and unpaid work are taken out.
- Markup and marginThe same profit over two denominators: a 50% markup is a 33.3% margin.
- How retainers workWhat a monthly fee pays per hour once the month is counted, and what an overage rate is for.
Tax, discounts and fees
- How VAT worksAdding VAT, and taking it back out of a total that already includes it.
- How sales tax worksA combined state, county and city rate, and how the tax splits back across the rows it is made of.
- Early payment discountsWhat 2/10 Net 30 means, and why a 2% discount costs far more as a yearly rate.
- Payment processing feesWhat reaches your bank once the processor and the exchange spread have taken their share.
Payment terms and late payments
- How due dates are countedWhen Net 30 falls, what end of month changes, and what happens on a weekend.
- Counting working daysWhy counting a stretch and counting forward from a date are two different sums.
- Late payment feesA percentage, a flat charge or a monthly one, and which of them is not interest.
- Late payment interestDaily interest on an unpaid invoice, and why the year has 365 days rather than 360.
Getting paid
- Choosing payment termsChoosing terms instead of defaulting to Net 30, and what moves the payment date.
- Deposits and progress billingAsking for money before the work is done, and how to ask without losing the job.
- Chasing a late invoiceThe steps to take, in order, before anything legal.
- Payment plansWhen a client can pay, but not all at once: what to agree and how to record it.