If you own a business or freelance, you may want to learn the basics of invoicing. Invoicing is an integral part of business and freelance because it helps you sort out your payments and finances, particularly as you scale up. There are a ton of ways to create invoices that you can use, depending on your time and patience. In this article, we shall take a look at the different ways to create invoices.
What Should Your Invoice Contain?
Before we get to the different ways you can create invoices, here are a few things you ought to add to your invoice:
- Add the word ‘invoice’ so that your client knows it is an invoice and there is no confusion.
- Your business details including your business name, contact information, address, registration number, etc. It is vital that you show your client your business is legitimate.
- Include your client’s name and address to make sure they know who is payable.
- Add an invoice number. You can start adding numbers your own way, but each invoice must have a unique number to make it easy to track every transaction.
- Include all relevant dates like issue of invoice, delivery date, payment due date, and so on.
- Add a list of all the products and/or services provided. Your client must know what you’ve provided.
- The total amount your client owes, along with tax information.
- Payment methods and your bank details so that your client can pay you.
How to Create Invoices?
Here are a few ways you can create invoices:
Invoice Generator
Maybe you didn’t know, but you now have tools to create invoices, known as invoice generators. These tools are particularly useful when you start scaling up your business and have multiple clients to deal with. If you want a seamless invoicing, and inturn payment system, you may want to get yourself an invoice generator. There are a bunch of paid invoice generators and free ones you can choose from. You can try Dukaan’s invoice generator tool.
All you have to do is open the invoice generator, select a template that suits your requirements, enter the particulars like business name, description of provided services, customer name, address, payment date, invoicing date, etc., and download the invoice. You may share this invoice by email.
Using Google Docs
You could use Google Docs which is a popular and easy tool to use for content and a bunch of other things. You can download invoice templates to create invoices or do the same without using a template, depending on what you find easy. If you want to do this with a template, you will need to:
- Log into your account and head to Google Drive.
- Then, go to the ‘+New’ option and hit Google Docs.
- After this, you will find an arrow next to it, with an option that says ‘From a template.’
- Go to the search bar, type invoice to get a list of invoice templates. Choose the invoice template that you think will work best.
- Then, enter all the particulars in the template like business and customer name, address, contact information, payment details, provided services, etc.
Using Microsoft Word to Create Invoices
Not too happy with Google Docs and want to go old school. You can also use Microsoft Word to do this. MS Word also has a selection of professional-looking templates that can do your invoices justice. The main issues with MS Word are that creating invoices is a tedious task, and that you will have to print out each one and send paper invoices, which will cost you money and time. Not to mention, this will slow down the payment process significantly. If you still want to use MS Word, here’s how you do it:
- Go to ‘File Menu’, hit ‘New,’ and click on ‘Invoice Template.’
- Then, click on the invoice icon on the left-hand side in the dialog box. You can select the one that you think works best for you.
- Then, make a header that has details, including your business name, phone number, business logo, and other important information.
- After this, you include the client’s essential information.
- As mentioned, you will also have to include unique invoice numbers, payment due dates, date of creation of invoice, etc.
Using Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is known to be one those tools that just about everyone knows they have to master. Invoice creation is a good reason to learn Excel. If you do not want to spend on an invoice generator and prefer to use Excel, you shouldn’t have a problem because Excel offers many templates that can get the job done for you. Here’s how you create invoices with Excel:
- Head to File Menu, and select the invoice icon placed on the left
- After this, you have to choose the template you think works for your requirements.
- Then, enter the essential details, like your company name, customer name and address, contact information, business logo, email address, etc.
- Do not forget to mention all the services and/or products provided and the break up of their costs along with the final price and tax information.
Conclusion
This should suffice if you are looking to get your invoicing sorted as a budding business owner or freelancer. However, note that using an invoice generator can substantially speed things up and make the invoicing process a lot easier for you. There are many invoice generators on the market that you can look up. Choose one that fits your needs and budget.
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