Freelancer Invoice Template Word for Research and Development Made Easy

Freelancer invoice template word for Research and Development

In this video series you will learn how to create  this automated and fillable invoice design which   will even include a custom macro to automatically  calculate the values in the invoice table.   A lot of people are using Excel for creating  invoices but I really don’t recommend it. In Word   it is way easier to create a good-looking design  AND the design is way more stable. For example,   when you transfer an Excel document to  another computer, it can often be the case,   that the column width changes. And that’s the  reason why we will create this invoice design   in Word. By the way: you will find the link to  the template in the video description below.   Just a quick, but important information  at the beginning: In this video we will   create an invoice template which  is similar to the US format. Note,   that there are various different ways on  how to structure the content in the invoice,   so this is just one of many possible layouts FOR  THE US. Additionally, it is important to know   that each country has separate rules for which  data an invoice needs to contain. This means,   that this layout may or may not be an invoice  suitable for your country. Therefore I recommend   you the following procedure: Follow this tutorial  and create the document together with me, so that   you learn all the necessary skills and so that  you have the invoice template. Then, check out   some invoices from companies in your country and  also check the local laws to know what information   your invoice needs to contain. And afterwards,  you can add additional information if needed.   One more note before we start: you can change the  speed of the video in the YouTube video player,   so if the video is too slow or too fast  for you, adapt it to your desired speed.   All right, let’s start with the editing now.  As with every professional document, we first   of all set the document size, the orientation and  the margins in the “Layout” tab. For this sample   invoice we will be using the standard US letter  format. The orientation is already set correctly,   so we continue with the margins and we’ll  setup custom margins for this invoice.   For top and bottom margins we set 3.5cm and  for the left and right margins 1.5cm. Note,   that these are numbers I choose since they fit for  my design. However, some countries like Germany   for example, might have a dedicated standard for  business letters and then you should of course set   the margins ing to these standard. After we have set the basic page layout,   we move to the design tab and here we now  set the fonts and colors for our document.   Let’s start with the colors. We click on “Colors”,  “Customize Colors” and there we now integrate the   color from our corporate design. If you don’t  have a corporate design, simply select colors   that you will later on want to use throughout the  document. I’ve created a small video especially   for the Theme Colors, so check it out if you  want to know more about this function in Word.   Ok, after setting the colors, we will now do  the same for the fonts. So we click on “Fonts”,   “Customize Fonts” and select the default font for  our document. Again, you’ll also find a separate   small video about the theme font functions, if  you want to learn about it in more detail.   Now that everything is setup, we will start with  the header and footer of the document. To activate   the header and footer area, we simply double  click into the top margin of the document. Note,   that we typically put all the content in the  header and footer area, which does not need   to be changed and always stays the same – so for  example a document title. Therefore, we now enter   the title “Invoice” – then we change the size  of it to 24pt, set the casing to all uppercase   and change the font color to the accent color 1,  that we have previously set in the “Design” tab.   On the right side of the document, we will  implement the company logo. To do that,   you can simply drag and drop your logo  into the document. Then we resize the logo,   by pulling the white circle dot at the  bottom right corner – and, we also set   the layout options to “In front of text”, so  that we can move the image around freely. And   now we position it at the right margin. Here  we can actually use the alignment function,   to make sure that it is exactly aligned at the  right margin. So while the image is selected,   we go to the “Format” tab, click on “Align” –  and then we make sure that it says “Align to   Margin” here, so that the document margins are  the relation for the alignment function. Now   we can “Align right” to the margin and as  you can see, it is now perfectly aligned.   Let’s move on to the footer content. In the  footer, you would typically implement the   page number and all the contact data of your  company. So, we start with the page number and   type it in – and afterwards, we align it to the  right by pressing the tab key multiple times. In   the ruler you can see the so-called tab-stops. As  you can see, there are 2 tabs-stops, therefore,   I had to press the tab key 2 times for the  content to move to the far right of the document.   In case your tab-stop at the right is not aligned  properly with the margin, you can simply drag it   to the desired position. Now we press the enter  key and in each new line we insert another part   of our company details. Since we will want to  integrate fancy looking icons at the left of   the company details, we need to move the content a  bit to the right. For that, we select the details   and now we click at the 1cm position mark in the  ruler. This will create a tap-stop at 1cm for all   these positions. And with that tap-stop, we can  click into each line, press the tab key and the   content will be shifted to this tab position. Then we are going to insert the icons by going   to the “Insert” tab, clicking on icons and  searching for the relevant icons. For example,   when I search for “house”, I can select it and  then click on “Insert”. So, you will have to   search for the icons “house”, “phone”, “mail”  and “globe”. Once we inserted all 4 of these,   we will have to change the layout text wrapping  option for all of these to “behind text”. If the   text wrapping options don’t pop up at the right  of the icon, you will also find them by selecting   the image, going to the “Format” tab and then  you will see “Wrap text” here. Ok, now that we   changed the layout options, we select all 4 icons  at once. You can do that by holding the “CTRL” key   down while selecting them. When they are all  selected, we go to the “Format” tab and give   them a size of 0.5cm. Now we position all of the  icons roughly in line with the company details.   And to align them perfectly, we again select  all 4 of them, go to the “Format” tab and click   on “Align”. To now align them relative  to each other, we make sure that “Align   selected objects” is marked and then we press  “Align left” – and “Distribute Vertically”.   We are almost finished with the footer but  to visually separate the page number from the   company data, we are gonna insert a line here. For  that, click into the line which contains the page   number – and in the “Home” tab, we activate  the bottom border button. And if you want,   we can also insert a grey version of our logo  into the background for example. This will put   an emphasis on our company branding. Alright  – with the footer being finished, we can close   the header and footer area with a double click  into the editing area. By the way, note that in   some countries, the footer also contains your  bank details, in case the customer wants to use   a bank transfer to pay the invoice. So, make sure  to check some other invoices from your country, to   see if you need more details in the footer area. Before we now start editing the content, we make   sure that the paragraph spacing of our standard  text is 0pt. For that, we do a right-click on   the “Normal” style, click on “Modify” and as  you can see, there is still a standard line   spacing of 8pts. To change that to 0, we click on  “Format”, “Paragraph” and in the “After” text box,   we enter 0 and press “OK”. Now we are good  to go. And if you like the video so far,   please support the channel by liking the  video and subscribing to the channel.   So, for the actual content, we will  create 3 information blocks in this   sample invoice. The first block is the “BILL  TO” information. We write down “BILL TO”   and then the customer details in each line.  I’m gonna make the “BILL TO” title all caps   and also bold, so that it sticks out. Next, we  will create the “SHIP TO” section in the same   way. For this video, I’m simply gonna  copy the dummy data for the customer.   To make it more obvious that these 2 blocks are  separate, we click into the last line BEFORE the   “SHIP TO” section, go to the “Layout”  tab and enter an “After” value of 8pt.   Note, that the ”SHIP TO” section is typically  only needed if you are sending physical goods   to a customer or if you are providing a service at  the customers location. But even if this doesn’t   apply to you, you can also use this area to note  down some project details, so that your customer   immediately knows what this invoice is for. Alright, so there is still one information   block missing, which we are going to put on the  right side of the document, at the height of   the “BILL TO” section. To do that, we highlight  the whole “BILL TO” section and now we need to   create 2 tab-stops in the ruler. So, we click  into 2 random positions in the ruler and we   do a double click on one of the tabs. This will  open up the tabs editor. Here we select the one   with the higher number, we change the alignment  to a “Right” alignment and confirm with “OK”.   Now we have 1 tab with a left alignment and  one with a right alignment. We drag the left   alignment tab roughly to the position of 12.5cm.  And then the right alignment tab to the right page   margin. Like that, we can now start entering  content to the right of the “BILL TO” section   while keeping a perfect alignment. So, you click  into the first line of the “BILL TO” section,   press the tab key and enter the first title for  the invoice data section. I’ll enter “Inovice   #” as an example here. Then we press the tab key  again and enter the invoice number. And like that,   we can do this for all the other lines for  which we created the tab stops. These are   typically the invoice date – a reference number  (this can be the purchase order number from the   customer for example or the customers’ project  number) – and in the last line the due date.   After implementing the invoice data block,  let’s also make the titles of this block bold.   Now it’s time for the actual invoice  table. At the end of the “SHIP TO” block,   we add a 30pt paragraph spacing, to  create a bigger visual separation. Then,   in the “Insert” tab, we click on “Table” and  implement a table with 4 columns and 8 rows.   In the top of this table, we write the titles.  These are “Description”, “Price”, “Quantity” and   “Amount”. Then we will leave one line empty and  in this example we now have 3 lines which we can   fill with some dummy content. In the next line, in  the “Quantity” columns, we write “Subtotal” – one   line below, we note the sales tax – and in the  last table line we write the total value. Now   we have to format the whole table. So, let’s  start with the column width. We drag the column   borders to change the column width and typically  the description column should be the widest one.   Then we continue with the row height. We select  the first whole row, go to the “Layout” tab of the   table formatting tools and where it says height,  we enter 1cm. For the empty row below, we will   do 0.5cm – for all the content rows, it will be  1.3cm and then for the bottom rows 1cm again.   Then, we change the text alignment by selecting  the whole table and again in the “Layout” tab,   we choose the left horizontal alignment with  the center vertical alignment. For the price and   quantity columns, we will do horizontal center and  vertical center. And for the “Amount” column, we   will use horizontal right and vertical center. Now, for the colors of the table, we highlight   the first line, go to the “Design” tab, click  on “Shading” and choose the accent color 1. Of   course, feel free to choose any other color  from your palette. Additionally, we make the   font bold – font size 12pt - and the font color  white. And we repeat this for the total row.   And for all of our products, we could also use the  bold styling to lay the focus on the products.   The only thing left, is, that we remove the table  borders. So, we again select the whole table,   go to the “Design” tab, click on the “Borders”  dropdown arrow and select “No Border”.   By the way, if you need more lines in your table,  simply click into one of the product lines, go to   the “Layout” tab and click on “Insert Below”. Ok, so let’s implement the Terms & Conditions   section now. This one is fairly simple – we  write down the terms and conditions title   and then content of our terms. Here, we will  again make the title bold and we will give   it a paragraph spacing of 30pt BEFORE the  paragraph. And as a last detail, we will   also insert a thank you sentence. This one is  gonna be centered in the middle – size 28 – with   36pt of spacing before the paragraph – and I’m  gonna choose the font “Brush Script MT” here.   Alright, so this is the whole invoice design,  but stay with me for a few more seconds because   I want to show you something exciting. In the  next part of this video series, we will improve   this document A LOT. I’m talking about fillable  fields, an automatically updating date field,   automatic page numbers and in the end even  a custom calculation script which will do   the whole total amount calculation for you. Also, if this free content was helpful for you,   please consider supporting me by liking  the video and subscribing to the channel,   as the creation of this video was a bunch  of work and the subscription is totally free   for you with almost no effort. With that  being said, I see you in the next video.