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Invoice format for freelancers for Public Relations

So, like me, was tax season your nerve-wracking wake-up call, like, "Oh, I guess there's more to this whole freelancer thing than drinking a lot of coffee and being a digital nomad?" Well, you wouldn't be the first one to have had that epiphany. Keep watching for five tips for streamlining your freelancing biz to make it more profitable, rewarding, and more importantly, stress-free. (upbeat music) Working for yourself is great, right? You get to set your own hours, work whenever and wherever you want, be ultra selective with your clientele, and in most cases, you do get to do something you genuinely love. But, here's the thing. If you work for yourself, not only do you need to be great at whatever it is you're doing, whether that's copywriting, social media management, web design, marketing, and everything in between, you also need to be actually understand how the heck a business works in the first place. I know, shocker, right? (laughing) Taxes, managing your clients, contracts, invoices, expense tracking, incorporating, separate bank accounts. I mean, the list goes on and on. And when you're just getting started, all of this can feel a little overwhelming to say the least. And I get it, 'cause I was in your shoes once too and I remember feeling like this was all way over my head. But, deep breath. There is some good news. You don't have to have it all figured out before you get started. Remember that. In this video, I'm gonna share with you my personal tips and the best practices that I've picked up over the last 10 years of running my business. So that way, you can worry less about the operational stuff and focus more on expressing your true creative genius. And hey, while I am fully aware that this topic might not be the most interesting subject on the planet, it is no doubt incredibly important and necessary to talk about. So, at the end of this video, after all the boring stuff, I'm gonna spice it up a bit and share something that is way more interesting, my super-secret Monday morning notebook hack to help you have the most productive week ever. So, keep watching to stay tuned for that. Hey Posse, what's up? It's Alex and this week, I'm coming at you with a highly requested video from the Posse community. Tons of fresh freelancers approach me with skyrocketed stress levels and all sorts of questions about the not-so-fun aspects of running a business, and while I might not be able to give you expert advice, I can share my own experiences with you. So, give me a thumbs up below if this is the video that you've been waiting for. And if you're new to the crew, welcome. On my channel, you'll find over 100 tutorials covering the hottest marketing, copywriting, and freelancing tips in the industry today, so go ahead and hit that subscribe button below and don't forget to ring that bell to be notified when my next tutorial goes live. Now, before I dive into the tips I have for you today, I have a big disclaimer to make. Everything I'm about to share comes from personal experience and lessons that I've learned over the last 10 years of running my business. I am not in any means an accountant or a lawyer or an expert telling you what you should do or shouldn't do in your business. This video is only meant to help inspire you with ideas and things that you can then research and look into on your own to make your business a little less daunting and overwhelming. But please, always, always, always, always refer to an accountant or a lawyer for specific advice in your niche, market, and location. All right, remember that every area in the world has different laws and regulations, so in order to truly and fully understand your own business options and obligations, you really should be talking to an expert. So, use this video as a way to just start thinking about it and write down questions that you really wanna get answered. And trust me, at the end of the day, the investment in these experts is worth the money to get the peace and mind and confidence that they can provide. All right, now, with that outta the way, let's dive into the first super sexy topic on the list, freelancing and taxes. Ugh, yeah, started with the big one. This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions I get, so I'm gonna give you a few tips that I personally follow here. Now, I remember the very first year I started my freelancing business. I remember it very well because at the end of the year, I was hit with a big old tax bill to pay. My mistake was that I didn't put any money aside for taxes or I didn't make any quarterly tax payments to the government. So, what I should've been doing was saving and instead I was spending, and then at the end of the year, I had like a whole year's worth of taxes to pay. And then I had to take out a loan to pay it. The lesson I learned the hard way when it comes to making tax season a little less stressful, my number one tip will always be to make sure that you're making tax payments or at the very least, you're putting aside a little bit of money each month into a separate account that will then go towards your taxes. So that way, at the end of the year, you won't be like, shell-shocked when the tax bill comes and you're like, "I didn't know I was supposed to pay taxes." Now, for my second tip on handling your business taxes and reducing that end-of-year headache is use an invoicing tool. I know you guys like to DIY it sometimes, but honestly, using a tool like FreshBooks is a total game changer when it comes to tax season. It'll keep track of all of your income for you so that you can forget about triple checking your DIY spreadsheet and all of your loose invoices. All you have to do at the end of the year is go into your tool and then you can download a revenue report that is literally just like all the money you made that year and then hand it over to your accountant. Easy peasy, right? But that is not all you need to hand over to your accountant at the end of the year. You also, of course, need to keep track of and file your business expenses. Now, when it comes to keeping track of your business expenses, I have a couple of tips there as well. Firstly, I like to make sure that I use the exact same email address for everything business-related that I purchase. So, if I'm sending invoices, signing up for subscriptions, classes, purchasing materials, or anything else that's directly related to my business, I use that email address. Then, any monthly invoices or billing receipts that I get in that email are immediately tagged in my email account under receipts and they just sit there in their nice little folder. And so, when it comes to tax time, I just pull open that folder, download those receipts, and then hand them right over to my bookkeeper. And that's all you really gotta do, guys. Freelance taxes are really not that complicated. I know it can feel a little overwhelming when you're just getting started, but remember that all you really need to do is keep track of your income and expenses and that's it. And remember to learn your local regulations and best practices, so always reach out to your accountant. All right, now, onto the next one, contracts. Now, let me just come right out and say it, you don't need to have like 30-page long super huge, beefy contracts with your clients. But obviously, it's best to have some sort of written agreement in place. Yeah, even with that friend of a friend that you're writing a few Facebook Ads for, you should probably sign something before you do any work. So, contracts are important because they clearly lay out the expectations, deliverables, payment details, and responsibilities of your job, and that way, god forbid, should you ever run into any issues with a client not paying you or expecting work that was outside the original scope or breaking any other terms of the agreement, you'll have something that you can fall back on that will legally protect you. So when working with new clients, I like to send statements of work, which are simple contracts that lay out the key terms of the agreement. They aren't perfect, but they do have the bare minimum information and would offer me some level of protection should anything ever happen. And at the end of this video, you can grab a copy of my statement of work template that you can send off to your clients and get started right away. Now remember, this is just a starting place. I'd say it's much better to go the extra mile and make sure that you're protected with a contract, but again, this is something that you really should reach out to an expert for. You can pay a lawyer to draft detailed contracts for you or you can also pay for generic contracts online that would cover your bases. All right, now, the next topic on the list is making your business official. Now, a common misconception is that you have to register your business as an LLC or some sort of entity or corporation in order to do business. But that's actually not the case at all. The truth is that as soon as you start freelancing, you already are a business owner and you're operating under your own name. Either as a sole proprietor or an independent contractor and you can continue operating your business, AKA sending invoices and making purchases, under your own name. I, myself, didn't incorporate until 2016, so actually, like 4 1/2, five years after starting my freelancing business. Why? Well, for one thing, it costs money to incorporate. There's more paperwork, there's more tax forms, you have to file two tax returns, and it can be a lot of extra work if you're not making enough money to even leave money inside your company. With that said, as your business grows and you start generating more income, you probably should consider making your business official in terms of actually incorporating it. And your accountant or business lawyer can help you determine when the best time for you to do that is. So again, please, please, please reach out to your local expert to decide what's right for you and your business. Okay, now, I'm gonna keep this next one pretty short, but I really wanted to make sure I touched on it briefly. And that is this, tips for managing your clients and organization. When it comes to client management and organization, this is really something that can make or break your business. Taking the time to get organized and stay organized is probably the one tip in this whole video that will lower your stress level the most. What I like to do is have a folder for every client, have a folder for invoices, receipts, and contracts, have a folder for testimonials, a folder for referrals, a folder for ideas, you get the idea. I'm a folder freak. Find out your own system of organization and then really stick to it religiously. Not only does this make running your business super streamlined, but it also makes your life way more easier when it comes to paying taxes or pitching to new clients, 'cause you just have a system and you stick to it. Now, some of my favorite tools for managing clients are Zoom for calls and meetings, Email, obviously, for communication, Canva for creating statements of work and other deliverables, FreshBooks for invoicing, and for getting contracts signed. Simple and effective. All right, now, are you ready for the little bit of spice I promised you? I know you are. Here is my super-secret notebook hack. So it's no secret that I love notebooks. I literally have multiple of them on my desk right now and if you follow me on Instagram, then you've probably seen my posts about my MITs, or Most Important Tasks, that I write out at the beginning of every month. But I actually like to sit down every single Monday morning to map out my MITs for the week. I personally do this using a Moleskine planner. Let me just grab it right here. It looks like this, but you can use whatever kinda notebook you want. I use the planner because on one side, it's lined, and on the other side, it's got a day-by-day planner. Over here on the right side, I start out by listing all of my tasks for the week categorized by client or project. Then, over here where it's the day-by-day breakdown, I list down all of the critical tasks that I need to complete each day in order from top priority to lower priority. See, let me zoom in so that you can see what that looks like. So lined on that side, daily planner on that side. Hopefully you saw that. So I actually use both sides of the notebook religiously. But the secret part is this. The critical tasks, the ones that I need to get done, might not be the entire task itself but rather smaller tasks that build up to the bigger task. If you can break down your tasks into smaller tasks, it'll help you get momentum and motivation towards achieving your goals without getting overwhelmed and doing that thing that all of us freelancers love to do, which is procrastinate. All right, guys, I hope you loved my super-secret notebook hack and I really hope this video helped ease some stress and fears you might have about running your own business. I wanna stress one more time that you don't need to be doing all of these things right now, especially not to get started. Please don't let fear of paperwork or taxes stop you from igniting your business or fulfilling your passion. I promise that once you get going, it'll get a lot more simple and easier, trust me on that one. And always, always, always make sure you're getting advice from your local lawyers and accountants, of course. Now, as promised, you can grab your free statement of work template here in just a second. And until next time, I'm Alex, ciao for now. All right, guys, if you enjoyed that video, make sure to check out the next one from me right here. And you can click right here to get a free gift. So, you've watched a couple of YouTube videos and decided that you wanna give this whole copywriting thing a try. Yeah, you do. Well, let me tell you, you are in the right place. In this video, I'm sharing the first six steps you must take to start a freelance copywriting business and make money doing what you love ASAP.