Explore Small Business Invoice Example for Customer Service that Drives Efficiency

Small business invoice example for Customer Service

this video is sponsored by project to payment more on them in a minute my favorite thing about this business is landing a new high-paying client my second favorite thing is getting paid by that client so in this video we're talking all about invoicing to make sure your business gets paid as fast and efficiently as possible and a little later in the video I have an exclusive offer to share with you so be sure to stick around let's get to it when you break it down business is pretty simple you provide provide a product or a service and your customers pay you for it many over complicate it but that's all it is and one of the ways me and my students consistently land high-paying clients is by being easy to work with people are busier than ever so being easy to work with is hugely important and this is especially true as more and more people value their time just as much as they value their money so what's that have to do with invoicing your cleaning clients Believe It or Not Your invoicing process is part of of what makes you easy to work with think of why so many people use Amazon it's easy you store your address and your credit card and you can literally buy anything with one click and one swipe and if you're watching this video 10 years in the future they've probably made it even easier by now so invoicing simply means documenting what a client owes you and then giving them options to pay you what they owe but how and when should you do this well here are some best practices and I'm breaking them down by the two of the most common client types residential and commercial in residential how often you invoice should depend on the frequency of the cleaning if it's a one-time cleaning obviously you should invoice them after the job is completed but if they are a repeat customer say weekly then you could offer to invoice them once a month why would you do that as I said earlier because this makes you easy to work with and this will keep them coming back I don't recommend this with brand new clients but once you've established they are trustworthy and once they have demonstrated that they can and will pay you on time then you might decide to offer this and here's two other benefits one creating less invoices saves you time just don't forget to charge them for a cleaning of course and two if they pay you by check or cash then it saves you more time from running to the bank as often and if your clients pay you by cash or check after every cleaning then you should still send them an invoice just mark it as paid as soon as you do this accomplishes a couple things first they may be able to write off your cleaning services in some way so they'll want a way to document what they paid you and second it'll help you track the earnings of your cleaning business but if you're sending an employee to a job then obviously you don't want them collecting payments for you or them seeing how much money you're making on that job so proper invoicing is definitely needed in those cases and one other quick note on residential is that some wealthier clients may want to pay you a retainer in other words a large upfront payment that you then work off of I have had many luxury residential clients over the years do that but it's up to you if you want to work that way since it can mean a little more accounting work behind the scenes and it takes self-control to not use those funds before you've actually earned them but this is a topic I talk more about inside my coaching program before we move on to invoicing commercial clients let me tell you about the sponsor of this video project to payment project to payment is my favorite tool for all things invoicing and getting paid I love it because its simple design makes implementing all of the invoicing tips in this video a breeze and on top of that it's super simple for your clients making you easy to work with in addition to all the great invoicing and payment features you also get an easy way to manage your customers send estimates receive project requests and so much more the team over there loves supporting small businesses which is why they set their cost at just $20 a month for as many users as you need and if you use my special link in the description below to sign up then you'll get 3 months free so be sure to check them out okay back to the video for my commercial clients I usually invoice them monthly usually on the last day of each month and this is very standard businesses have lots of monthly expenses so guess what invoicing them monthly accomplishes it makes you easy to work with and consider this some larger businesses might have to cut hundreds of payments every single month and even have an accounts payable department to manage that workload in these cases you're not the only one waiting for payment so you respecting this process shows your professional nature regardless of client type here's a few more quick tips to consider number one I always send out all pending invoices before the end of each calendar year many clients need this for tax filing purposes number two how long you give them to pay you depends on the client type but I have always allowed up to 15 days for residential and 30 days for commercial if it's a large commercial contract though it's good to ask this when you're working on the bid since some businesses could request more time and number three a question I'm sure on many Minds is should you take credit cards most commercial clients will pay by check or some other electronic means but most residential clients these days prefer using credit cards so it's up to you yes there are fees and I'm not going to get into the legalities of whether you can pass those fees on or write them off on your taxes especially since laws vary so much from place to place so do your research or ask your accountant but to many these fees are an acceptable cost of doing business for two reasons one for the sake of simplifying their own accounting and two hopefully you guessed it for being easy to work with in the end keep your invoicing as simple as possible and it will be one more little thing that will keep your customers loyal to you to learn more about how to work with me and accelerate your cleaning business then check out the links below thank you again to project to payment for sponsoring this video you'll find a link below where you can get 3 months free and remember you can build the business you want I believe in you so believe in yourself