Discover the Retainer Invoice Example for Communications & Media

Retainer invoice example for Communications & Media

hey okay so i have been getting a ton of questions about this topic and this is probably one of the more overwhelming features that iris works has to offer and i'm hoping that by the end of this video you will be able to completely make sense of the options here and choose the best way for you to get paid and invoice your clients so a couple things we're going to chat about we're going to chat about again the difference between invoice setup and invoice templates and how my brain is going to explain this to you and then i'm also going to walk you through a couple of different options of how you can require retainers session remainders how you can set up payment schedules without it being completely overwhelming so um this is obviously a very important step of iris works because you want to get paid right we all do um okay so what i want to explain to you is that over here on the left hand side of iris works you have these two tabs um and they both say invoice and i know this is really complicated when you're first starting to use iris works but i'm hoping that i can simplify it for you so this top tab when you click on it it will show you a couple different options so it'll show you your payment processors some settings some integrations and then on the bottom it'll say invoice products and so what i want you to know and how i want you to think about that is your invoice products is every type of session you have to offer and any a la carte items prints or products or anything like that that you have that the client can add on to their session okay so this is gonna look very different for every single person okay and so for your products that's literally when you think of invoice setup i want you to think of i need a list out under products all of my session types and anything else i have to offer that's it that's all i want you to do is go add all of that in and then you'll be ready for this tab which is what we're in right now and that is called the invoice template now when you think about an invoice template i want you to picture a invoice receipt so all of the items that you're sending to one client to have to pay for okay so maybe maybe you do cake smashes or one year portrait sessions so you have a one one year portrait session fee and then maybe you have as your all a cart option that they can add additional money and you will provide the cake for them so i want you to think about it like that okay um maybe you have collections that people are going to buy from you if you do an ips model or whatever that might look like so it's gonna look different for everybody i don't want you to freak out but i'm going to show you how you're going to pull your products into invoices and a couple different options you have for how you can send that to your clients so we're going to pretend that i am making a invoice for my maternity session okay as for days do this is where it gets complicated because like i said it's going to be different for everybody now i automatically default to one day one day until due um and it's just the easiest for me but if you have a set payment schedule of like you require the whole thing be paid for a certain amount of days before booking then you're going to be able to in your workflow have an email that's going to send this invoice out to your client and it's going to explain to them that it's due on a particular date and then the due date so let's say you're going to send the invoice out two weeks before their session and they have to have it paid one week prior then if you know it's going to be sent two weeks before their session but you need it within seven days all you would put is seven days until due because the day they're gonna receive the invoice it's going to tell them they have one week to get it paid okay i hope that makes sense um if you don't really have a for sure schedule or if you're gonna manually send your invoices and not use a workflow just for whatever reason i would just default to one day okay do not overthink the days due it is really not that big of a deal one day all right um in the memo section it's totally optional uh i use it as a way to communicate with my clients send a reminder point out an important piece of the contract that they signed um and so this one just simply says this invoice covers your photography session the retainer is due within 24 hours of booking the remainder of the session is due one week prior to the session date the retainer is non-refundable okay before we get ahead of ourselves because again there's here's where we're going to give you choices the first choice i'm going to walk you through is if you don't require your clients at booking to pay their retainer but you plan on sending them an immediate confirmation email and then asking them to pay that retainer okay so this is option number one this is going to have both the retainer payment and the recession remainder so what i did was i just came over here and i added a random sample product i priced it at 400 and then i left it at that now you can leave that totally alone if you want to but for most of us we need to add a payment schedule if we want a retainer due first and then we want the rest of the session due one week before then we need to set up the payment schedule so that it will reflect that on the invoice okay so you're gonna click add payment schedule here and then you're gonna choose a plan again there are so many options here do not get overwhelmed okay it's so easy do you want them to pay a retainer and then one more payment so it's split in half do you want them to pay a retainer and then have a payment plan so you can have these are all the different invoices that you could potentially have if you wanted to do you want them to have multiple equal payments or do you want to do something custom i'm going to tell you the easiest option is to do a retainer and a balance okay um actually no it's not i'm sorry it's custom ignore me it's custom okay so here is what you're gonna do let's say that i require the retainer due within 24 hours of booking so they they booked their session and then they're gonna get this confirmation email that's like thank you so much for booking with me here's a reminder of what you booked um and here are some important things for you to know number one i require a non-refundable retainer to be due within 24 hours and that's when they're gonna get this and you can say hey the invoice is attached to this email if you'll just get that paid the remainder is not due until one week before your session but you're welcome to pay it whenever is convenient for you okay so what you're going to do is we're just going to say that we require 50 at booking and 50 later okay so then we're going to say um that we need it one week so let's do which we said 50 i'm sorry so we're going to put in 50 here i'm just playing around with numbers right now okay and then we're going to click finish so watch here's what it says it says when the invoice is received they're required to pay 50 of the total within 24 hours then one week later they're gonna have an opportunity to pay the other half all right so it's up to you like i said this is where it's gonna get a little tricky because you just gotta decide what's your policy and then whatever your policy is you're going to come in here and you're going to make it happen so then you can click save if that's what you want to do and you're happy with that you're going to click save and then you can head over to your workflow and make it a um an automatic email that will send out at a certain time okay i'm not going to walk you through that today i have other workflow videos that you are more than welcome to watch but um the other thing is let's say you don't want to do this let's say you're like me and you require um their retainer due at booking so one of the cool features of iris works is that in your booking calendar you can require your people to have to pay their invoice at booking so before they even get off the booking process they have to um pay that retainer and that's what secures their date that's what i do that's what i recommend you do it will save you so much headache so many cancellations so many nightmare clients in the future so i recommend you do that then what you're gonna do so if you've got that so let's say if we're going to do that then you are going to have a template that is called session retainer again 24 hours to pay it or ripen so just default it to one day until due and then what i like to do is i like to say this invoice covers your non-refundable retainer fee to secure your date on my calendar if you want to tell them when they can expect to pay the rest of it you can otherwise i like it short and sweet and i leave it right here and then what you would do is you can edit this here to go pull your session retainer product so again remember if you charge retainers you're going to go back to the products and you're going to add in session retainer and however much you charge okay and then that's going to go here and then you can have this automatically toggle on on your booking system to where they're going to get the retainer immediately and have to pay it so then what i do is i have one more type of invoice template called a session remainder so this invoice covers let's do the remaining session fee and is due one week prior to your session date okay so again you can default it to one day but if you know in your workflow that you're gonna have it send um two weeks before their session date okay then you're gonna put seven days because let me back this up i'm not confused but i just i want to make sure you're following let's say that their session date is happening on the 20th okay the third week of the month but you require it one week prior you're going to send it two weeks prior so that way they have an entire week to get it paid so you're gonna send it out on the friday before so that way they have a week until the friday it's actually due and then that way you are completely paid before their actual session date okay do not get confused it's just an example take it or leave it but i would just put seven days until due and then you would come in here and you would put whatever the session remainder is going to be and then you're going to come down here and you would click save and then you can head over to your workflows which i'll just do that really quickly so that i don't confuse anybody else um but let's say on your workflow let's go to my i'm trying to choose one let's go to my easter minis okay let's edit my easter minis so what you can do is up here we want to toggle on that session remainder i'm going to say send the email and then i would pick one that was all about the session remainder i actually don't even know yeah right here session remainder okay so send the email session remainder and i want it to send before the session by two weeks and then i would click add item that's all you have to do and inside of that email template i would have already added on the correct invoice and then boom they get it two weeks prior and you're good to go if you're still confused let me know and i will try to dumb it down a little bit more not that you're dumb but that i understand this is a lot to take in but i just wanted to to show you guys the different options you have in iris works that's the great news again we have so many options it's just up to you and your business and your policies and what you require um to figure out how to put all of that into a workflow in iris works but i hope that made it a little more simple for you um i hope that was able to at least take your overwhelm away and give you some options to think on and maybe you just want to test the water see what works best for you and then choose which one actually does work best for you so i hope that helps i will see you guys in the next video that i do for iris works and in the meantime i hope you're loving it i hope that you are diving into it and truly giving it a chance to work for you because it has completely changed my life in business and i literally could not run my business without it i'll see you guys on the next video