Small businesses offering professional services need to invoice their clients frequently in order to get paid. A service invoice must include all the necessary details to make an invoice self-explanatory. It is important to include an itemized list of services, business transactions, last date for payments, and total balance. Mastering the skills to create service invoices is the basic need for any professional services small business owner. It enables keeping track of sales, payments, revenues and expenses.
Today, we will briefly discuss the topics that will help business owners to make service invoices and get quickly paid for the work:
- How to create an invoice for the service offered?
- Key invoicing tips for creating service invoice
- Examples of service bills
- Types of Customization in Service Invoice
How to create an invoice for the service offered?
It is important for businesses to create a self-explanatory service invoice to request payments for the services offered. To create an aesthetically complete service bill follow our simple guide:
1. Include Business Logo
Start creating your invoice by adding your business logo on the top of your service invoice template.
2. Add Company’s Contact Details
In this step, add the complete contact information of your company including the name of your company, address, contact details, and email address.
3. Add Complete Client’s Contact Information
Include your client’s complete contact details just below the header. It should include name, address, and contact details. Please confirm the billing details from your clients. Billing address may differ from contact differ.
4. Assign Invoice Number
Do not ever create an invoice without an invoice number. Invoicera generates an automatic invoice number to make your tasks easier. And even allows you to customize your invoice numbers as per your needs. An Invoice number makes it easy to record invoices and track them when needed.
5. Define Due Date Precisely
Include the soonest payment deadline as possible with precisely mentioning dates. For example mention “Payment Due on or before September 30th, 2020 than mentioning “Payment due in 45 days”. Make your due date stand out in the invoice by highlighting the section for more emphasis.
6. Include Itemized List of Services
Now comes the important section. Include an itemized list of services provided in the service bill to help your client understand the due amount he needs to pay.
- Mention and describe the services you’ve provided.
- Quantity of products/workforce used.
- Rate of every service
- Taxes
- Finally, the subtotal
Use a more tabled template from the service invoice templates to make your invoices more readable and understandable.
7. Include Overall Due
After adding all the details, including the total amount payable in the end. Make sure your total amount payable is inclusive and exclusive of all the taxes, overhead costs, and credit notes issued if any.
8. Mention Clearly Your Payment Terms
In the footer of your invoice include all your payment terms to offer seamless payment transfer for your client.
- Mode of payments
- Transfer details
- Late payment policy
It’s also important to include any late fees you plan to charge on overdue invoices in the payment terms section of the invoice, so clients know your late policy.
Key invoicing tips to create service invoice
Proactively Send Service Invoices
Promptly invoice your clients as soon as you complete a client’s project. The quicker you will be in sending out invoices, the faster you can expect revenues. It boosts your overall cash flow and ensures obstacle-free business activities. Creating a service bill right away means the job is fresh in your mind and you tend to forget less. It overall increases invoice efficiency by eradicating the chances of errors.
Keep Your Payment Deadlines Short
For a service-based small business like yours, keeping long deadlines actually hamper processes. Ideally, a service-based company should expect and accept payments on the very day of project completion because your jobs are usually short hours. Moreover, even if you have to give deadlines do not exceed more than 3 days while invoicing your clients. Clearly mention in your policies about strict no delay in payments to make a statement.
Offer Multiple Payment Methods
Create a seamless flow of payment for your clients. Offer multiple payment methods to ensure zero delays in payments processing. Talk to your client about their most chosen payment option and offer them the same for added convenience. With other modes of payments, online payments are on must higher acceptance because of the convenience they offer to clients and businesses. Do not forget to add it to your processes too. If you work with your clients on a frequently recurring basis, offer them recurring payment facilities with automation so that the processes take place without any hassles.
Introduce offers/early payment discounts
If your business margins allow you to consider different offers then do not hesitate to give your clients some extra discounts to encourage frequent transactions and early payments. This will not only boost goodwill but also increase loyalty and boost transactions in your organization.
Do not Leave Late Payments on their fate-FOLLOW UP
While manually you might skip it, but automated software like Invoicera notifies you with real-time status of your invoice (sent, received, opened, paid, or due date missed) it helps you clearly track each of your invoices and stay up to date with automated notifications. Invoicera also offers automated personalized payment reminders that frequently remind your clients of due or missed due dates.
Service Invoice Template Example
This sample service invoice template is for service-based small business owners to understand the structuring of a service invoice template free to create for all industry types.
Types of Customization in Service Invoice
In a service invoice, Invoicera offers pre-designed multiple templates to choose from. All of these templates are easily customizable and offer professionally beautiful invoices. Other than that you can even customize your own brand service invoices with blank templates and save them for further usage.
To offer more assistance to companies that have unique needs, experts at Invoicera help you create completely personalized invoices as per your workflow and branding needs.
Want to connect with our experts to know more?
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Veronika Tondon is a business enthusiast with extensive experience in Invoicing & Payment Process. She has 6+ years of experience in Invoicera, the leading cloud-based invoicing solution as Invoicing Consultant. Sound knowledge in business process execution, offers end to end solutions for complete automation of business processes and AR/AP processes. Contact Veronica for your invoicing requirement.