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Write an invoice for R&D

there's nothing like finishing a big project sending your first invoice to a client and finally reaping the rewards of your hard work and when sending that invoice there are a few tips and tricks that you can follow to get those payments faster so you're not sitting around wondering when is this money coming in [Music] this video I'll show you step by step how to create an invoice that gets you paid fast hi I'm Brant and this is Indy a productivity platform to help you manage your freelance business from start to finish you know those gurus who want to charge you thousands of dollars to try to turn you into a freelance expert well we're doing it for free because we know how challenging it can be out there and we want to make freelancing simple so if that sounds like the stuff you want to know more about hit that subscribe button and turn on that notification Bell so you never miss out on any of these tips now invoicing is one of those things that can easily fall through the cracks when it seems like you have hundreds of other things to do each day so it's important to have a system in place that makes it easy to get paid here are seven steps for how to write an invoice add the invoice numbers set the due date include your personal information provide the client's information list your line items State the payment method and send that email so let's create an invoice together so that you know exactly how to create your own invoice template so up at the top of the invoice is a place where you can add your own business logo now you don't have to have a business logo but it does make your invoices look more professional and it's also super helpful when you're trying to build your own brand and make yourself stand out in front of clients from other Freelancers so if you do have a logo I definitely recommend you adding your own logo it also gives your clients an easy way to remember your invoices which is great for building long-term relationships the next most important thing that you should have in your invoice is an invoice number this keeps all of your invoices organized for yourself and also your client in case that invoice gets lost in their emails you can just tell them which invoice number it is and they can easily find it back now there's a few different ways you can number your invoices there's sequential numbering which is how I like to number invoices to me it's just the simplest way to do it like for instance your first invoice could be zero zero one the next one would be zero zero two and so on but there's also alphanumeric numbering which mixes the client's name with the numbers so for instance if your client's name was John Paul your invoice would say J paul001 you can also go by client and project name so if the client's business was XYZ designs you would say x y z design zero zero one there's lots of different ways you can number your invoice like I said there's no best method it's just whatever works best for you for me I like to go by sequential numbering I just keep it simple zero zero one next one of the most important parts of any invoice is the due date this is going to directly influence how long you have to get paid as you can see right now it's set for one month this would be net 30 payment terms which unless you have a steady buildup of clients that's a pretty long time to wait to get paid and if a client happens to pay you late it's going to be even longer than 30 days so you're going to start to risk being able to afford to pay your bills so I recommend dropping that number down to no more than two weeks and if you really want to play it safe you can make it one week again there's not really a best practice for how long you should give your client to pay you you can make it even less than seven days if you want to just make sure you're giving your client enough time to pay you while also keeping the cash flowing in for your own business next you want to add your personal information here you want to put your business name your address your legal name job title your phone number and your website again if you want to you can add a business logo if you have one but if you don't don't worry this is more than enough information to let your client know who you are after that is all about your clients information you'll want to add the client's name the company name and their address now one important question is do you have to put the client's address now it makes a lot more sense when you're sending a paper invoice but when it comes to digital invoices it's still best practice to put the client's address if only for the fact that if you did have to take a client to court worst case scenario it's going to make it easier to State your case so now we're getting to the meat of the invoice and that is the line items this section gives a clear and detailed breakdown of everything that you did for the client it also lets them know exactly how much each item cost so they know how much to pay you so let's say you did a landing page and then like whatever price you want to charge we'll just put 500 then you can add another line item and you just keep adding everything up let's say you did an about us page and it costs we'll put 250 and as you can see at the bottom it totals everything up you can even request a deposit if you wanted to and it's also great to add a date besides each page for when you finish the project and whether you're making your invoices through software templates or some other way it's the same basic principle you just add your line items up and then you will just tally it up yourself another thing you can't forget about is the payment method for best practice you want to be able to accept as many payment methods as you can this just makes it very easy for the client to pay you especially if they're used to paying Freelancers in a certain way like through PayPal you don't want to have to make them switch it up and have to pay you in a different way now there's a lot of different ways that you can accept payments you can accept through stripe with your credit and debit cards you can use PayPal you can use Zell wire transfer mail check when it comes to clients and you wanting to be paid as soon as possible it just makes it a lot easier if you can give them a list of ways to pay you and they can just choose the method that works best for them and once you've finished everything up you can take a look at what your invoice looks like make sure all the information is correct and then it's time for the last step which is to send the email so when you're going to email your client you want your subject lines to be very short and direct for instance you can put invoice001 for landing page due on December 15th 2022 if you want you can personalize the subject line a little bit by throwing your name in there but the most important thing is to just be concise and direct so they know exactly what this email is about and then inside when you're writing the email you'll want to summarize the important information in the email message so you can personalize the greeting and then let them know how much you enjoyed working on the project thank them for the opportunity and then let them know that they can find that invoice attached with the email you can even add some links to where they can pay you which I think is a great idea because once again it just gives them easy access to give you payment as quickly as possible and at the end of the day that's exactly what you're wanting so that's it that covers everything you need to know when preparing invoices and once you send it off you're that much closer to getting paid as a working freelancer if for some reason your client doesn't pay you can check out this video on how to politely ask your client for payment and for more invoicing tips you can check out our articles on this top Topic in the description box below you can also find a link in the description to endy's free invoicing tool that'll help you create an invoice template in minutes and if you're just starting out in your freelancing journey or you're looking for more advice hit that subscribe button and turn on that notification Bell Indy is a company of Freelancers just like you and we want to give you the tips that we wish we knew along the way to help you grow your business so let us know in the comments what you want to know more about and I'll see you next time