The Benefit Of A Professionally Planned Invoice Template

The Benefit Of A Professionally Planned Invoice Template

By:


A correctly planned invoice speaks volumes about the standard and professionalism of your business. To leave a lasting impact you should spend some time creating an invoice template that conveys the values of your enterprise.

To be credible in the eyes of your customers and existing clients it is important that all the paperwork that they receive from you appears professional and well prepared. Although the invoice is probably the last thing they receive from you at the completion of a piece of work, it still needs to look the part and if done right, may promote further work from your client.

An invoice template is where you need commence. This will allow you to quickly generate invoices that include your branding and company details, creating consistency across your all clients and all your invoices. Elements that you should include in an invoice template would be your company logo, company address and other contact details, terms of payment and payment details bank account number, sort code or if you get paid by cheque payable to details. Even if you get paid by cash, your customers may still ask for an invoice for tax return purposes.

The other and probably most important element of your invoice is a space for the itemisation of fees. You will need to itemise each element of your invoice, date each item, clarify the service or goods and cost them. You will then need to create a total and if applicable add VAT.

Most clients will want the VAT value separately calculated on the invoice so leave space for that. If you are using spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel 2010 or the Open Office spreadsheet package you are at an advantage at this stage of creating your invoice template. The advantage is there when you want the template to automatically add up your invoice total. Microsoft Excel for example will allow you to automatically calculate the VAT value and will then calculate a total for you. Once these formulas have been entered in the template you will hardly ever have to worry about them again as all the calculations will happen automatically.

What if you dont have a spreadsheet application? Arent they expensive?. Well the Open Office version of Excel is in fact completely free!

If you dont like the idea of using a spreadsheet and would prefer to use a word-processing application such as Microsoft Word 2010 then you will be happy to know that there are plenty of free invoice templates that ship with the software package. Word does in fact contain some of the functionality of Excel in that it is able to do essential calculations too. It will, for example, be able to add up your itemised invoice for you without too much trouble.

It is quite acceptable these days to email an invoice to your customer saving loads of your priceless time rather than posting it in the traditional manner. Think of creating a PDF of your invoice before you send it, rather than sending the real Microsoft Word or Excel document. A PDF cannot be edited and also does not need to have Excel or Word to open, making it the ideally suited file format for this reason.

About the Author:
James Prentice is an experienced Excel expert and small business advisor. He advises on free invoice template alternatives for small businesses as well other administration and support issues. James delivers Excel and Word Training as a part of his on going consultancy work in this discipline.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


Tags: , , ,

|

Loading...
Related....
Videos...

Recent Business Articles

Comments

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search for it!

Loading

Site Navigation:

Copyright 2005-2011 ArticleSnatch, LLC - All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Service.