Sole Trader Invoice Example for Engineering Made Easy

Sole trader invoice example for Engineering

in this video we are looking at how to create an invoice Paul here from small crown Productions welcome to the business of Art in this video we're going to create an invoice based on the Australian tax rulings now if you're in America they are actually good practice okay so we're just going to jump here onto the ATO website so this is ato.gov dot a u and if you just type in ATO invoice requirements this page will pop up so you can see there it says if a customer asks for an invoice a tax invoice you must provide one within 28 days unless it is for a sale of 82.50 or less now despite that I thoroughly recommend that you send an invoice for any amount so that's just me but you can see here for sales under a thousand dollars these are the requirements that you have to have on the document the document is intended to be a tax invoice you need the seller's identity which is your identity the seller's ABN the date the invoice was issued the brief description of the item sold including the quantity if applicable and the price the GST amount if any payable which we can get to in a minute and the extent to which each sale on the invoice is taxable okay so this is the invoice template that I use that I set up for myself and it's pretty straightforward so my logo in the top left corner you don't need a logo if you don't have one yet just use your name it's totally fine my ABN my phone number my email and my postal address goes in the Box on the other side the word invoice to indicate that it's an invoice not a tax invoice which is what it would be if I was registered for GST but I'm not a unique invoice number now I use an invoice number system by the financial year that I'm in so for me currently I'm in the 22 23 Financial year so at the beginning of every Financial year I restart my invoicing off with a 22 23.01 then the second invoice will be O2 uh you don't need to do that you could just start from one and go to forever if you're using any kind of software you can generally like in xero or mild or something like that you can can actually put in your own prefix and it will number it based on that prefix so it's entirely up to you how you do it but I do recommend that you maintain a system of unique identifiers that doesn't ever repeat so don't start at one every Financial year make sure that you've got some kind of prefix before that so that you know it's that particular Financial year or that there's just a sequential number that goes on to forever so unique identifier invoice number the date of issue then down here just a little bit of an attention this is who the invoice is to this is who I'm charging their name and some contact details for them and that might also include their ABN if it's over a thousand dollars then I just put down a bit of a scope around the work so the date of the work the type of work that it was the type so that might be project daily so what type of fee essentially am I charging is it a day rate is it a weekly rate is it a project rate is it a flat rate and then that rate will be the actual amount so um and that rate might be say 750 a day and it might be three days and then I'll put the total in there which will be three seven to twenty one so sir 22.50 the other thing that I will do here is um I sell a little one-off projects little shows that I've created that go into vacation care groups and that kind of stuff I know what I should be charging for that per day so or per session rather but often some of those groups particularly the small ones they don't have the budget to pay for that and I come to an agreement with my actors who are happy to work for a little bit less so that we can continue to get that work and build our reputation through there so if there is uh someone that I'm discounting or I'm doing some mates rates I tend to do this for anybody that I know that I'm not charging enough for because of their budget but I'm interested in the work because it's helping me out you know sometimes you don't take the work because they're not paying enough but you know if it's something that you're interested in what I will do is do all of that and calculate it and then I will anchor the price up here at its full rate and then I will add a line down here that is a discount and I will often spell that correctly and then I'll put you in some kind of discount that brings the total down to the amount that we had discussed that we agreed on so say you know they have fifteen hundred dollars and I'm going to be okay with that for that particular project I I'll still cost it out at full rates because what I'm doing is I'm anchoring my market value and then I'm giving them that discount and I'm doing that on paper because it shows them what I'm actually worth what they should be getting charged and it sets up a sense of reciprocity in a way not with everyone some people don't care and they just won't take any notice of it but what I've particularly found is when I say look this should be 750 bucks a session or you understand that you don't have the budget for that so we have come to an agreement where we're willing to do that a bit cheaper so let's talk about what you can afford I tend to find that it helps them come up higher and get us a little bit closer as opposed to them going well we've only got you know this much money it just helps you anchor your market value in their mind so they feel like they're getting a great deal you're being a great person because you're giving them an excellent deal but it also means that at some point you can say Hey look we're just getting a bit too much work right now so for some of you clients that are not able to actually meet us at the rate that we we should be at we're going to have to actually just let you go we can't work with you at the moment because we're actually able to get enough work at our full rate we've been doing you a favor we're actually at a point now where we just can't afford to do that favor for you because we're actually getting too many bookings at the actual rate that we need so unfortunately you're going to be the first one to go it's never a fun conversation to have but it gives you the ability to do that because you have set your market rate and then of course the amount owing I'm not registered for GST you only need to charge GST or be registered if you are earning 75 000 or more or if you're a not-for-profit 150 000 or more so I always put this invoice is exclusive of GST I'm not charging it so I'm not collecting it and passing it on to the government amount payable within seven days of invoice dates 14 days is probably more real I might put 30 days depending on kind of what we know is going to happen depending on how much of a process they have to go through but just set your pay dates on there because that gives you the ability then to follow up if they haven't paid you can send a little invoice from one and going hey this thing you know this invoice is still unpaid we need to need to get this sorted out and then my direct deposit details down there for my bank account so that's my template that's what I use every time I will pop a link to that in the description below so you can just download it and manipulate it to your own liking I like to produce them in word and then export them out of word to a PDF so that the the document that I send is the PDF they never get a version in word it's always a PDF so that's how you create an invoice if you are someone that engages other performers or creatives to work with you you may need to pay them superannuation because the superannuation laws recently changed if that's you and you're not sure how to set that up yet then click on the video that will pop up at the end of this one and it will take you to a video I've recently made about how to set yourself up to pay superannuation it's a pretty important thing to make sure you get right because there are fines that that can be applied if you don't so head on over have a look at that video and I will see you there