Get Your Free Legal Invoice Template for Research and Development

Free legal invoice template for Research and Development

how do you make an invoice that increases your profits as a designer freelancer consultant corporate buyer or small business you need your invoices to speak for your professionalism as well as get you paid in this video we're going to explain how to make an invoice that increases your profits how you can personalize your invoices with powerpoint better than excel or word and how you can use a fully customizable template we created to get you started if you want to go straight to the resource skip ahead and go there now so how can good design increase your profits the first way is when you approach your invoices like calling cards for your business good design can speak for your professionalism and help you get repeat work secondly if you design your invoices in a user-friendly way your client can easily get the information they need to pay you on time on the first point you want your invoices to look good but you don't want to make them design full to the point where they're too playful as it could cheapen your service and make it look unprofessional for instance you don't want your clients to think you spend too much time on your invoice design because you don't have other paying clients for example my ultra personalized invoice wasn't the best first impression for my first client by contrast having a good looking invoice signals that your business is legitimate and that you get consistent work even if it actually is your first time so how do you make a professional invoice if you've never made an invoice before there's a few key elements you need to include the products or service provided to the client the contact information for both you and your client the amount owed for the work and the work that's been done and the due date it's good to draw the payer's attention to the total amount so they can pay you with as little reading as possible you'll also see that invoice has the payment method easily accessible so the payer knows exactly how to pay the invoicer it's usually a good idea to double check you've entered this information correctly or you won't get paid because no one wants to be that guy when they bring out the check at dinner i got this just gotta reach the check in all seriousness since many invoices are created and transmitted digitally now there could be software incompatibilities between your system and your payer system to avoid complications export the final version of your invoice as a pdf to ensure your layout and design is translated correctly exporting to a pdf is also good to prevent accidental editing since a pdf locks the content so how do you make invoices that show off your professionalism and help you get more work make them in powerpoint making a powerpoint invoice is superior to making one in a word doc as word is meant for text-based layouts with the occasional picture powerpoint on the other hand is more contextual allowing you to drag and drop anything into any position you want since invoices are one pagers you need design flexibility to rearrange elements to ensure they fit in one page which is easier on powerpoint than word or even excel powerpoint allows you to utilize different colors boldings or header sizes to draw the eye to the most important detail this personalization can make the difference between a positive user experience or a confusing one you don't want your payments delayed due to missed information but you also don't want the invoice to feel too crowded with too much information a general rule of thumb is if it feels like blinky.com you've gone too far for the billable charges use a powerpoint table instead of text boxes this makes alignment easy and convenient for multiple line items finally include the final total as a bigger number than the others this number can go either at the top of the invoice or at the bottom if it's at the top the recipient knows right away what to pay but if it's at the bottom it's more subtle like a summary especially if your invoice has a lot of line items unlike other invoice generators that don't have the flexibility to dictate what goes where design with powerpoint allows you to add or subtract additional elements like business expenses tax and fees or customer discounts depending on what you need if you're interested in taking your design to the next level you should check out our video explainer on the design of everyday things book by don norman now if you don't want to create a designfully beautiful personalized powerpoint invoice from scratch you can use our invoice template collection to save you time and hours of work this template has invoices for everyone whether you are a contractor small business corporate vendor or purchaser consultant or freelancer the template also includes a pay now button that can be copy pasted or deleted across each invoice in the collection just right click on the button and update the url to your payment link now here's a few examples of invoices in the template this product centric invoice lists the products sold price per unit and number of units it also accounts for tax and any applicable discount sum the tax minus the discount for the grand total due under terms and conditions lists any specific billing details like the due date this service centered design lists tasks accomplished their hourly rate the number of hours and the total our consultant invoice offers a similar use case but if you bill your clients on a flat fee basis simply remove the hours and rate columns for the total amount this visualization also allows you to include your signature at the bottom for b2b or b2c use cases this design bills for service oriented products like sas tools or subscription products and accounts for discounts credits refunds or any other adjustments to a client's payment plan that need to be reflected on the final bill this design adds a section for expenses incurred during a service period such as travel or transportation and it's especially useful for freelancers and contractors who often have additional resources and expenses to supplement their core services if you don't need any extra expenses just delete it for a basic invoice design you may want this designed for continuing relationships with repeat clients since the bottom summary tallies the to date billing last invoice date and amount or any outstanding amounts that are still to be paid with this collection you can impress your clients with fully personalized design fully beautiful invoices and make it as easy as possible for them to pay you on time every time and if you want a spreadsheet invoice template that you can download and customize go check out our video on our spreadsheet invoice template now thank you so much for watching [Music] you