Create Your Notary Invoice Template for Technical Support Effortlessly

Notary invoice template for Technical Support

and now another episode of the peak signing agents podcast welcome back I'm D Derek van Alton your host to teach you and help you become the best notary and signing agent you can be thank you again for tuning in I have the I'm in the mobile office I'm recording the mobile office I actually have the doors open spring has sprung here it's a little warm so I am opening up the windows getting some fresh air coming in so hopefully it doesn't get too noisy if it does I might have to close one of the doors so but anyway I'm am going I'm excited to be here just to give you a quick update on me I am Feeling Fabulous I am feeling fantastic I am looking fantastic I just finished my first week of radiation treatment so I'm attacking this scientifically and I'm also attacking it naturally I am eating mostly plant-based and taking the right type of suppl ments and just feeling good if you don't know what I'm talking about go to episode 99 and watch to the end anyway I hope you are doing fantastic I hope you are doing very very well that's what I want for you that's why I created this podcast is to help our notary and sighting agent Community if you feel like you get value from this please please please please make sure you are following subscribing sharing it telling people about it and I am releasing new episodes every Monday this is another episode now let's talk about getting paid who wants to talk about getting paid that's what we're talking about this episode is how do we get paid how do we send specifically our invoices when should we send our invoices how should we send our invoices I'm going to give you my tips I'm going to give you my opinion my suggestion on and share with you what it is that I do I'm going to be talking to everyone here newer signing agents current signing agents agents veteran signing agents whether you do General notary work or loan signings and if you're a signing service or planning on becoming a signing service how do I do my invoices that's what I wanted to share with you all on this episode so I hope it brings value to everyone well let's talk first about General notary work let's talk about that first or specialty notary work I should say whether you are officiating weddings things like that or if you're doing General noty work you're doing acknowledgements and jur and all that good stuff you know you someone's hiring you and I see this question posted and they're asking like how do you all invoice people me personally I will not invoice someone for any type of General notary work I am taking payment at the time okay that's just me I think it's weird if somebody finds you on Google or how or they someone referenced you or referred you to them and you do the job and then you start sending them an in invoice 15 days later a week later 30 days later I just find that a little strange they should pay you at the time of service for example if you go get service done service on your vehicle do you get an invoice or do you just pay when it's for service is complete you pay when service is complete what if you go and get a a massage you get a service of massage do you get an invoice for that massage no you go pay at the at the completion of service that's what we should be doing as as notaries once the service has been completed the stamp has been completed and the signatures have been signed take your payment now how should you take your payment is is however is up to you if you want to take cash take cash if you want to take uh a check you can take check if you want to take a card you can take card you can take electronic you can take venmo or zel set something up for all different aspects for me I have some type of electronic payment whether it's venmo or zel I have a business account for that I have a card reader whether you use square or QuickBooks or whatever you use for a card reader um you can also do tap some people have Apple pay Google Wallet if you accept those great accept those also and just be a able to accommodate them you never know what people are going to have or say hey this is how I pay hey great I don't accept cash and if I do I don't give uh change I'll just accept it as a as a tip but when I first started off and I was doing General notary work I did carry some loose bills with me in my notary bag that way if someone was going to pay me in cash for the service I would I would um have some loose petty cash that I can give them for a uh change I don't anymore I don't really do General notw work anymore to be honest with all of you but if I I did I would let them know up front hey this is what you know when someone call me for General notary work I would just say first of all what is it how many notarizations are we doing because it depends on your state right where are we where am I going you because you can charge by the distance you can also charge by notarization it just depends on your state laws always follow your state laws I know a lot of notaries get confused because they think oh for loan signings we're getting paid 75 100 125 50 whatever it is and they and then they get the a general noty work request they say howy much should I charge it's whatever your state allows because remember when we're doing loan signings we're not charging the signers we're getting paid a service fee from the title company the signing service the mortgage company whatever it is we're getting paid a service fee when we're doing General notary work we are the notary public and we are charging our state's laws so I always ask those questions when we first set up the appointment and I tell them upfront how much it will be and I'll just say how will and I even ask what id will you be providing and how will you be paying I always ask those questions as we as we set the appointment up so I'm asking where am I going how many notorized and what are we signing what am I notorized for you I'm asking those type of questions and then in fact I'll even um tell them beforehand as well like hey okay I'll be there at this time at this location but have everything filled out before I get there don't sign anything I tell them don't sign anything until I get there because I don't know if it's an acknowledgement or jurat and they most likely won't know if it's an acknowledgement or jurat so I'll say don't sign anything until I get there but have everything filled out before I go there because I'm not going to waste my time waiting for them to fill out a power of attorney I don't have time for that so I tell them fill everything out before I get there it must be filled up before I get there what id will you Pro be providing and how will you provide payment we accept and I'll tell them what I accept for payment so those are tips for all of you doing General notary work and then I accept payment at the time of service I do not invoice for General notary work now I get it if you're doing specialty notary work for example field inspections you're working with a field inspection company and they'll pay you at at a certain point I understand that that's different I'm talking about when you are charging them for the service okay now let's talk about loan signings when am I charging when am I sending my invoice I should say how do I send my invoice a lot of different ways to do it there are program like example I talk about QuickBooks you can do QuickBooks and that you can send invoices through there to your clients there are platforms like for example I am currently using signing order and I can send invoices from signing order there are tools for notor like notary Gadget where you can log all of your signings and closings for loans signings in general no work and from there you can send invoices from there so a lot of different tools that you can be utilizing to send your invoices now let's just say you're a loan signing agent you're getting jobs through signing Services make sure you go through and read all of their instructions because some signing services do tell you to send an invoice once you've done a job for them to send an invoice and you can use any of those things I just mentioned if you if you already are using QuickBooks for your bookkeeping then there's a invoicing section there if you are using notary Gadget to log and track all of your signings and closings and notorized for your Tax Repair you can send invoices through there right a lot of different ways to send invoices so if you are doing it through signing services that request you to send invoices then you can use those platforms another thing you can do is set up a template which is what I do and I I'll talk about that in more detail moment momentarily you can set up a template now if the signing service is not asking you to send an invoice because they already have their own program and they're using let's just say some I'm just going to pick up some some random signing services and signing service platforms snap dos one of the biggest ones okay you do not have to send an invoice from a job you do through snapdocs unless you are specifically getting asked I never been asked to send an invoice through Snap dos but I'm not saying it doesn't happen I'm just saying I haven't seen it and I've done tons on Snap dos but that platform has a way to keep track for the signing service or the title company to know when to pay and they're on they already have set payments set up big title companies that are using snapdocs they have they already have they're already in the system they have the they have the process they they'll send the payment when it's time for a payment big signing Services they they know when to send payments they're going to send the payments okay they're going to send it unless they specifically ask you to send them an invoice there's there's not going to be a need to send an invoice if you are working with signing Services if there are though if there are if there is a signing service or if there is a title company that says hey or a platform that says send send us an invoice and then we'll process your payment in net 30 net 60 then go ahead and send them the invoice I'll tell you what I put in my my invoices in a moment now what if you working with what if you're working direct and you work directly with title companies and mortgage companies again when should you be sending your invoices how should you be sending your invoices I don't have a cookie cutter answer for that because it depends on your client now I'll tell you what I do because I started off as a direct signing agent I work direct with my clients and I worked with them directly and I sent them invoices and then when I transitioned into a signing service I kept everything the same again I'll share with that in a moment what I do but this is what I do okay I'm not saying I'm doing it the right way I'm not saying I'm doing it the only way I'm just saying this is what I do and if you have a different way that works best for you please go to YouTube and comment in the put a comment in there and say what is it that you do because maybe there might be a signing agent in your area that says you know what actually this does work better for my area for the people that work in our area for the Professionals in our area this does work better so please comment on YouTube what you might do and maybe someone else can relate to that and say yes I like this better than Derek's suggestion that's okay I'm again I'm not saying what I do is right or wrong I'm just saying this is what I do and it works really really well for me and my clients I have a template and I I'm trying to break this down to make this make a lot of sense I have a lot of title companies and so what I have done to make it easier for me is I set up my own invoice number my invoice number starts off with the first three letters of the title company's name okay let's just say the title company is just making up I I grew up in the 80s and 90s with cartoons and Acme if you remember Looney Tunes Acme was a uh prominent business name let's just say Acme title work with Acme title so my in voices would be ACM the first three letters then the two-digit year an example we're in 2024 so ACM 24 then the two-digit month and the two-digit day again let's just say we're in April so ACM 24 then 04 for April and then whatever day 20 and let's just say I have a couple invoices for the the day from that title company I might put them if it's one with one escro officer I might put them on one invoice or if it's with a couple different ESC officers in that office but with the same title company I might do a different date it just helps me locate the invoice if there's questions and let's just say it's it's April 20 for example it's April 20 ACM 24 0420 okay that way if I get a question I know it's going to be around April 20th it might be exactly April 20th or around April 20th because let's say I have another invoice the same day I might do ACM 24419 if I didn't do one for them day before anyway I know this might sound confusing this is again what I do this is helps me and my schedulers so if we if there are questions we can look to around that date we use the weekend dates and I know there's you know 30 31 days of the month we'll keep going 31 32 33 it doesn't matter that just kind of helps us kind of get an idea of when about the signing took place okay now there's some programs that do automated invoice numbers that's fine do whatever works easier for you this is just the way that me and my team work this is how we decide what we can just look at the invoice number and okay we know exactly what title company this is we know exactly around the time frame this took place it just makes our lives easier and it was me and my schedulers that created this invoice system so it wasn't just me it was my it was my schedulers that helped me create this invoice system anyway my template this is how my template works out it has my logo on the top I'm always branding myself that's why I don't use other programs because they a lot of times don't put an invoice or a logo so I you I make sure my logo's on there and what it does is it'll say you know it'll list my address and my contact it's my personal email because if there's any bookkeeping or clerical or invoicing questions I want that to come to me specifically at this moment so it'll have my contact okay it has my has our business phone number and it has my personal email so if there's questions about invoices they come to me has my logo on it and then it has the title company so it says build to you know or Bill to or invoice to and it'll have my title company and then it'll have an attention because I might put attention to one of my escro officers or one of their assistants or the loan officer I might have put in attention to that or the real estate agents real estate agents want to pay you so I'll put the attention the real estate agent what I do for my clients is I put team and then the ESC officer's name team Jane team John whatever I put okay that's my attention then I put the invoice number and the date that it was notorized the date it was service was performed so the invoice number and then the date the date it was performed and then I structure my invoice so on my invoice it will say type of notorized refinance sale warranty deed deed of trust reverse mortgage whatever it is that we did I'll put that on there then I'll put the file number this is the escrow or Title Company's file number this is what I put on there because this is what they use they ref reference everything by file number so I make sure I put the file number you know what else they do they reference a lot is the property address so I always put the property address and then I put the clients and I'll write the names of the clients so again my invoice is going to say type of notorized is sale purchase refi whatever file number is the Title Company's file number now let's just say I'm invoicing the mortgage company I'll add an extra line that says loan number and I'll put the loan number in but then I always put the property address and then I put the signers or I put the I put client because the I always say their client is my client so I put client and I'll put the first and last names of the people signing and if there's a trust also I'll put the names of the people signing then I'll put the name of the trust as well in case whatever makes it easier for them to locate that file so they can process my payment and then to the right so that's on the left column and on the right column it's it's the fee it's you know $50 $100 $150 $200 whatever you're charging for that service and I put a grand total at the bottom and then at the very bottom I have a couple little boxes and it says to pay by check and I put how to pay by check name on the check and the address to send it to and then on the other side I put a payments this is the my this is my bank or credit union this is the routing number this is my account number so that way they know they can pay me by a or they can pay me by check whatever is more convenient I will say o 95% pay me by check and about 5% pay me by a whatever is convenient for them so I put that at the bottom so they know how they can pay me especially if it's a brand new client and they're saying well how should I pay you what should I when should I pay you how do you want payment and I can just say it's on the bottom of the it's on the bottom of our invoice or when they get the invoice they can say oh that's how I can pay them and so that's my template and I have the same template and all I have to do is make make a copy of that and I just fill in what needs to be filled in for that client and I save it as a PDF and I forward on so this is how I invoice my clients once we get the documents you know the closing disclosure or settlement statement I know what information I need to put on my invoice I download that as a PDF as soon as I finish the signing I when I was a when I was just a signing agent and I worked Direct I just I always had my invoice printed out so when I would go deliver my documents or drop it off at FedEx or UPS the very top sheet was my invoice and then behind that was the IDS and then the rest of the documentation so if I was dropping off documents or dropping off a FedEx or you piss I have clients that are in other states or they're they're far away in my state that's how I would put the documents I kept documents in the order I received them but on top was my invoice and then the IDS and then the documents and that's how I delivered it so my invoice was always on top or if I dropped it off at FedEx UPS my invoice was always on top that way it doesn't get lost okay we don't want our invoices to get lost it does happen our clients for the majority of time are not intentionally not trying to pay us they we it just gets lost in the shuffle of business and life we get it and so that's how I send my invoices okay now as a signing service how I do my invoices now is different let's just say I hired a notary in Las Vegas this is a real situation happening right now I have a notary in Las Vegas going to do a signing for me so I sent the documents to the notary I I I have the documents I know what to put on my invoice and I've saved that to my you know my desktop and once the notary says we're all finished then I can go to my client say all right our notary in Las Vegas let us know that they are all finished signing and attached is our invoice thank you so much I always this is me I always just include my invoice at the time of completion the way the way the reason why the reason why is when I first started the signing service because when I was a signing agent I would deliver the invoice with the documents okay I didn't wait till the end of the month I didn't send a week batch of invoices I just felt for me it could be a lot because there's some clients that I do a lot for right like I'm doing two or three a day for and if at the end of the week I'm sending them 15 invoice I just feel like that's a lot that's just me though or at the end of the day I could I there's nothing wrong with say at the end day here here are the two or three invoices from today appreciate your help but I don't like to over send emails also for me it just it just I just like the idea of saying hey let me give you the completion update and while I'm giving you the update here's also the invoice because a lot of times my clients would say great thanks for letting us know when will we get the invoice they would ask for the invoice because they wanted it they wanted to right away give it to their accounts uh accounting department and so I've never had an issue at the time of completion to send the invoice and all my clients just seem happy with that they all they all like that so that's what I do at the time of completion I give the invoice the moment I finish as the signing agent and I deliver documents here is our invoice thanks so much and a lot of times too is because I'll walk into their offices to drop off documents and no one's there they're either at lunch they're in a closing they're in a meeting whatever they're not at their desk so if I put it on their desk and they sit down they're what's this well right away they see my invoice they oh this is the job that Derek did for us okay we know because my because the invoice is on top they can know right away what this is sitting on their desk and that's what I continue to do now so as a signing service soon as we're done our notary let us know it's done here's the invoice and that's why I think it's so important that as signing agents as soon as you're done update the the signing service let them know you're done the moment you're done they know how long it takes to do a seller packet or a refinance we know it doesn't take two hours usually unless there's you know some issues and if there's an issues you should also be updating the signing service let them know that there are issues happening but we know how long it takes so if you go do the signing it takes you 30 45 minutes then you're driving home another 30 45 minutes and then you're doing the scans and uploading the scans and it's been now two hours we're like what's going on I think that's what set me apart from a lot of the local signing agents in my areas because I always kept everyone in the loop we're we're finished here's a copy of their ID they and I give it update they're going to wire funds today they said they're going to wire funds tomorrow I collected a cashier check I just gave updates the moment I was done that way the signing I knew the signing this is before I was a signing service I knew the signing service needed to communicate with their client the title company I think that's what set me apart I think if you want to set yourself apart do the update the completion update the moment it's done the moment I walked out of their house saying goodbye and I walked to my car I was going in and logging into the platform or or in emailing the client we're all done and here's the here's the status I collected a cashier check it'll be included they said they're going to send the wire today they said they're going to send the wire tomorrow morning I always gave an update the moment I was done even if it was my clients even if I was driving to my client's office like it was 20 minutes away I went I did a closing and I was going to drive 20 minutes to my client's office to drop it off it took me let's just say I did a I did a closing it took 20 minutes I was going to drive to my client which is that's 40 minutes that's not a long time really but I still said hey we're all finished everything went well I'm heading back to your office I'll see you soon I always gave an update they always knew where I was at in the process and that's why I think set me apart as a peak signing agent in my area and that's my tip to you to be a peak signing agent in your area that's how I do my invoic again if you do something different that works really well for you please go to YouTube and comment I would love to know maybe it might help me out maybe my clients might like that better I don't know put those comments in might help another notary or signing agent but anyway keep striving to be the best keep wanting to be the best in your area keep being awesome I'll catch you next episode bye