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Free invoice generator software for Research and Development

hey what is up guys it's Brennan here and today we're going to be taking a look at Zoho invoice doing a tutorial on how to use Zoho invoice for beginners step bystep exactly how to get started with Zoho invoice which is again a free invoicing software for you in your small business so that's what we're going to be taking a look at here in today's video of course if you don't already have a Zoho invoice account you can go ahead and sign up for free at that first link Down Below in the description box again that is Brennon vy.com Zoho invoice and then we'll take you right over to the this page here where you can go ahead and get signed up with Zoho invoice for free again some of those links Down Below in the description are affiliate links which is a great way to help out and support the channel without further Ado let's go ahead and dive into the tutorial so again if you again if you want to follow along and you have not already signed up with Zoho invoice it is that first link Down Below in the description uh so once you've gone ahead and signed up with Zoho invoice now before we dive into the actual software again I'm going to be showing you exactly how to use it as well in this video I did want to touch on on the pricing and the fact that yes it is available now for free as well so it is completely free to get signed up with Zoho invoice this is a free software uh it's different than some of the other Zoho softwares which have like limitations on their free versions or are only free trials whereas Zoho invoice is actually completely for free uh for their invoicing software so you can accept online payments uh you know create send quotes I'll be getting into again the software in in just a moment here again it is a free invoicing software for small business so we can create professional invoices send invoices and receive payments uh as well through a variety of different payment gateways uh as well that you have to choose from uh so without further Ado let's go ahead and actually dive into the software so as you can see here once you get signed up with Zoho invoice uh this is what your dashboard will look like uh now to show you uh what it looks like of course this is sort of the getting started process now first you can go ahead and start customizing your invoices so as you can see here uh you know welcome to Zoho invoice this is your top top tier invoicing starts here uh so you can configure Zoho invoice ing to their step setup guide uh so this is where you will then pick you know the template that you want to go with uh so for this tutorial we're going to keep things pretty simple uh but they have a standard option a spreadsheet option uh a cont Continental opt option uh and a compact option so if you want standard you know spreadsheet style uh compact you kind of have a a variety of different looks and feels depending on how you want your invoices to look uh so you know you could really go through here and pick whatever you like depending on if you like where the item in description is labeled the quantity uh the rate and the amount we're just going to stick with standard for this video and you going to also add your organization's logo so you can up upload a logo there we're just going to leave it bit blank as the uh standard but it will upload a logo uh you have the option to change the color so you can change like the background color uh if you want to change the uh background color and obviously that's like way too bright um this is a great place to like make sure that your uh invoices actually match your branding so you do have that the selection and choice here uh so that your invoices will match your overall like company branding and uh overall color scheme that you have within your business so um they do also have Swatch options if you just want to you know select one of those colors and apply it you also have that choice there so you can go ahead and change the label uh you know from black uh if you want to change things there like that like the this that color uh as well or that would be the font and then the label color you can also change so that would be for some of the text labeling um we're going to go ahead and go back to what looked pretty uh simple and standard uh cuz we want it to be you know more legible things like that of course so we're just going to go back to that uh white color on the color scheme here and all we have to do is like drag it all the way up in there and okay good enough and we'll change the labels Back to Black and there we go so you know that looks pretty decent you can go ahead and you know change more of the customizations we'll take a look at that a little bit later uh in this tutorial so we're going to go ahead and save and proceed uh and then how do you want to receive payments so this is the section where you would then go ahead and set up your online payment gateways or you can just use cash as well uh so if you are going to be just accepting cash in your business um you have that option there as well as setting up an online payment Gateway this is so your customers can actually pay you online now I'm not going to be going through the sign up process of the different online payment Gateway way there are a variety of different options so you have options like stripe Square PayPal authorized.net I do talk a lot about these on the channel as well so if you are interested in learning more about different types of payment gateways I do also have a video on that on the channel it's just best payment gateways uh if you are interested in trying to choose between them a lot of times It ultimately does come down to what country you're located in as to which option might be best for you uh as well as the overall um you know credit card processing rate that's where you're going to encounter you know how much it costs um for you to process credit cards is where those fees come from so uh that's something to bear in mind as well for this video we're just going to keep it simple and keep it as cash but that's where you would then set up you know online payments uh so here you know you can change your invoice you can set up make it a recurring invoice uh set up payment links uh credit notes as well if you want to um so you know you can edit these however you want in terms of you know what's available so we'll set up recurring invoice and payment links uh as well so we're going to go ahead and create our first invoice so again as you can see it is pretty easy to just walk through and create invoices in here um now this is where you're going to be adding in your customers now this customer data will be saved and synced within Zoho invoice they do also have an app that is worth mentioning too uh that you can download as well so as you can see here this is what the app is available on and what it looks like uh when you have the app so again this tutorial is just on the desktop version or the web and you know laptop uh website version um but they do also have an app as well for Zoho invoice so when you go in here you're going to select or add new customer so we're going to go ahead and add a new customer so the contact we're going to say is uh Joe uh Schmo and we can say the company is uh Schmo uh Industries something like that um and then you can add their customer email work phone a mobile phone you know payment terms that you would typically have for a specific customer uh so you can set that as like the net 15 net 30 um that would be the total time period that they have to actually make the payment of the invoice uh you can make it due at the end of the month due at the end of next month due on receipts uh you know personally I like do on receip just myself um you can also you know enable a portal uh for them to be able to then see like you know transactions make online payments they can see like their transaction history which can be nice if you are interested in that you can also add you obviously language that you're going to be sending it in um as well as documents if you're going to be uh adding documents there are also additional details you can add I mean you can add customer website um you know social media things like that as well if you want so there are a lot of fields here in terms of you know all the information that a customer that you may want to include on a customer file you can also include addresses of course um adding the business address can be pretty uh necessary in a lot of times I I know that some customers and clients will need to have a business address uh on the invoice so that's something worth keeping in mind you can also set up some custom fields and um you know inter remarks for certain customers there too so we're going to go ahead and okay we're just going to go uh that is the name okay customer portal is only available when their emails at well we have not added their email because we're not going to create a email uh for this so we're going to go ahead and save it so as you can see here now we have the customer added in here uh and then we have the invoice number uh so this is where you would then add invoice number um you can keep it sort of the infv thing or you can really just type in like anything that you want here uh so we'll just go with 23 uh as you can see here yeah so it will automatically continue Auto autogenerating invoice numbers uh so you can add your own manual invoice numbers or you can just have autogenerating autogenerating is nice because then the management on your end of things is fairly consistent so you don't have to worry about accidentally maybe making something the same invoice number uh so you can also just do that instead as well uh invoice date you can go ahead and put it on the date of the invoice we'll stick to today uh do on receipt we have the uh due date and now in terms of the items this is where you're going to add in your item table uh and adding in the services so let's just say uh grass cut um so maybe this is like a lawn care company or something like that and the rate is for this lawn is $60 let's just say it's like a big lawn I don't know uh and then you're also going to add in uh weed uh uh trimming or something like that uh yard trimmings right and that's going to be uh let's just say an extra 30 bucks I don't know uh so it comes out to $190 and you can continue adding these rows you can also add things in bulk or a header for subsections if you really want to get um creative in terms of like the overall look look of your uh invoice if you do have like invoice subsections of like what things cost just so you can break it out easier for your customers uh and if you need to as well you can also move these around too so you can move them uh up and down and all around if you need to uh and that's it so you can go ahead and you know save and print save for later save and and send later or save it as a draft we're just going to go ahead and save this as a draft uh and then this this is what the invoice will look like so as you can see here uh you have your company details to be in the top left now uh for this company uh for this tutorial is like joeo Florida USA uh you know and it will have your company uh email address listed there as well uh and you know you can go ahead and add your logo too uh that's where that will appear again I did not do that for just the sake of this tutorial uh and then we're billing the customer is Schmo Industries which is who we're billing and we charging you know them for a grass cut and some weed trimming for $160 then $30 a subtotal and the total there is $190 now if you do have sales tax uh that is something else you can add um in the invoice or just as part of your business settings that's when you're signing up initially uh just bear that in mind as well uh but that is what the template looks like now you can go here and change it to if if you have you know other templates that you already have saved again we just have the standard template um so yeah that's what the invoice looks like you can go ahead and easily send it uh and it will send out through your invoices now in addition to invoices you do also have quoting so you can also do quoting within Zoho invoice uh you can create new quotes it's essentially the same process uh that you're going through uh from an invoice but instead this is like a quote for a job um so let's just say lawn scope or lawn service or something like that right uh and let's just say it's uh $1,000 cuz they let their La get crazy overgrown uh but we'll give them a a new customer discount of like 5% or something like that uh no shipping charges no adjustments uh you can add terms and conditions additional files uh contact people as well so this would be the quote that you would say save and send out um to your customer you can also add an expiration date so let's just say like oh if they don't let me know by the next week then boom this offer is no longer valid um there's also you know a salesperson you can also add in here different projects uh subject as to what the quote is for uh and yeah so you can go ahead and save this as a draft and this is what a quote will look like now quotes look very similar to invoices so there's really not you know too much to distinguish from but it is a little bit different because there is an expiration date uh and it's important to explain that obviously a quote is a quote it's an estimate essentially the invoice is then that final number um that is what is you know going to be paid on you also have payment links is another option that you can set up in here within Zoho invoice so I figured I would include this as part of the tutorial uh so you can create payment links so um let's just say they need to send you $200 and you don't feel like typing out an entire invoice um or maybe there was an underpayment or something like that um tell your customer let's just say under payment um you know generate link and boom so then you can you know generate a link just to get paid on something really quickly and easily uh and then you can have your customer go and easily pay you um off of that link now this is really makes sense if you're accepting online payments obviously uh versus cash you would need to collect that in person um but this is another feature within the software that can be nice just to also get you know funds if something was messed up or if it you just want to generate a quick payment link uh instead of going through the process of creating an entire invoice so there's an option there uh payments received so this is where you're going to be viewing your unpaid invoices as well as you know anything that's paid throughout the client portal um as you can can see here this is sort of the life cycle of the customer uh payment as well as the uh unpaid invoices process so it will send out an initial request and then it will also send out three reminders uh you know one two three um for unpaid invoices now again we don't have any unpaid invoices because again I haven't sent any invoices out directly uh but that is where you will then see them here uh in the uh payments received section you can also set up recurring invoice so this is great maybe if you have a service-based business so we're going to go ahead and create a new recurring invoice as you can see here um we're going to set this profile name as uh lawn or something like that it's going to repeat every uh two weeks so like on a bi-weekly period do on receipt uh and we're going to say it is you can also set quantities of course I haven't been changing the quantities here in this video uh but if you were to do like you know two Lawns or two houses or something like you know I don't know uh 2 O of something and it's maybe you know $90 a pop then 180 so you can set quantities here too you need three of something you know certain items uh you know you can just go ahead and easily quote things out that way um cut we're going to say it's a cut uh a lawn cut and boom so this is how you would set it up as repeating so you do have multiple options in terms of how often you want things to repeat uh you can make them a custom repeat so every you know maybe every 3 weeks or something like that you can get really in the weeds with it in terms of like every two years one day every other day or something like that uh or you can use the presets like once a week or every two weeks or even just once a month um for the monthly bills so you can get monthly recurring Revenue uh through your Zoho invoice account which is very nice and important for a lot of service-based businesses to build up their monthly recurring Revenue so that you know hey how much money is coming in every month you know all those types of things now in terms of you know getting paid of course you know we're just going to hit save here that's just an active one um then you also do have expenses here uh now expenses are a bit different from regular invoicing uh so expenses is part of like a separate uh software as far as how Zoho invoice operates they do have a software which is you know more advanced for travel and expense reporting I just covered Zoho expense in a separate video if you are interested in checking that out is linked on the channel as well just under Zoho expense um that is more for advanced expens tracking um you can record you know basic expenses in here uh within uh Zoho invoice um but you know it's not necessarily as as Dynamic uh as like Zoho expense so that is something worth keeping in mind I get a lot of you watching this video probably don't necessarily care about expense tracking uh as part of your invoicing uh but this can be you know something if you have expenses that you're going to be you know recording uh and then you know getting reimbursed for that's something you can do within here as well I get it's maybe not as common for sending out invoices you know same could be said as well uh for doing you know your invoicing and then also keeping track of that in terms of accounting that would be again another separate software from Zoho that would be under uh Zoho books which is their online accounting software uh so I figured I would also mention those two softwares because they also do sort of pair with Zoho invoice you know the Zoho expense as well as Zoho books I just covered those again in other videos here on the channel if you are interested in checking those videos out as well now in addition into the other parts of the software Within Soho invoice they do also have a Time tracking feature so you can uh track the overall uh timelines of projects and how you know what things are billable and whatnot uh within it as well so you can base on Project hours the rate the rate per hour fixed cost per project uh task hours so you can log uh the total amount of you know hours abused on a task which can be important uh you you know depending on the rate per hour say someone's rate is like you know $20 an hour or something like that or $30 an hour uh you can add all the people that are going to be assigned to that specific job uh and then you can track you know the overall hours and and just calculate it out that way if you want to create a project and Bill things on your invoice um based on hours as well so that's something else that you can do here within the software uh you do also have overall reports as well so you can see you know all of your invoices and reports in here such as customer balances sales by customer uh total amounts of invoices you can get pretty detailed uh into the overall sales that are built out to different customers uh as well so that's something else worth keeping in mind now once you do get sales rolling through in the Zoho invoice you can also track your invoices and sales receipts uh all through the uh sales and expenses so similar to what you would have out of like an accounting software um you do also sort of get a little bit of those data analytics as far as your overall sales uh in invoicing receipts within Zoho invoice again it is a completely free software so it is nice that these you know aspects are included in terms of like last 12 months fiscal year uh you can really get a good overall view of your receivables uh in your business as well as part of Zoho invoice Beyond it just creating a basic invoice I get that a lot of other softwares out there are just like oh we can you know you can make an invoice but doesn't really do much beyond that so that is one of the nice things about uh Zoho invoice as well now again in terms of com figuring the payment gateways uh this is how you do it there are quite a few to go through again I'm not going to be signing up for a payment Gateway here I personally would recommend stripe is a good one uh again I do have other videos on the channel going over comp pairing between square square is another great one PayPal I use a lot authorized.net is another good one so again it just depends on what country you're in in order to actually accept those payments through the payment Gateway uh setting within your uh software so again that would be going to online payments and then as you can go through here so that again that's under settings online payments uh and then this is where you would then go ahead and select what you know payment processor and way that you want to go ahead and accept payments I would recommend as well doing either a a typically does cut down on the fees you can still accept credit and debit card as well is another option uh there as well uh within the software so again you know you can set up more additional branding features uh as well maybe light paint dark paint accent colors you can even edit in here uh within your invoicing software you can also add your logo again that will show up on your you know transaction PDFs email notifications uh and things that you go ahead and send out on your invoices uh so yeah guys that is pretty much a Zoho invoice again if you found this video helpful or want to sign up with Zoho invoice again you can go Ahad and check out that first link Down Below in the description box again that is brandy.com Zoho invoice take you right over to this page here where you can go ahead and get signed up with Zoho invoice for free again guys if you found this video helpful or enjoyed then be sure to smash that like button hit subscribe Button as well and notification Bell so you're notified whenever upload a new video anyway guys that all for today's video and I will see you in the next one peace out