Master Writing an Invoice for Freelance Work for Customer Support Effectively

Writing an invoice for freelance work for Customer Support

what's up you guys and welcome back to my youtube channel in today's video we are gonna be talking about how you can create a professional freelance writing invoice that makes you look like you actually know what you're doing instead of just looking like an amateur we're also gonna be breaking down terms like net fifteen and net thirty we're gonna be talking about how you can keep track of your business finances and I'm gonna show you a screenshot of an invoice so you can see what an actual professional invoice looks like and exactly how to create that invoice in a way that gets you paid on time as always be sure to hit that like button if you enjoy this video because it really helps my channel out and if you want to follow along with the blog post we are gonna be looking at today go ahead and click the link above my head right now and or in the description box I'll go ahead and share my screen with you and we will get started alright so like I've said here in the blog post I used to be a complete mess when it came to my business finances I literally didn't know how much cash was going out how much was coming in how much profit was anything like that for the first several months I was seriously just winging it and that's not good when you're running a business you need to have your financial together and you need to know how to appear professional when you invoice a client an invoice in a way that gets you paid on time but I wasn't doing any of that at first I was just kind of throwing together whatever kind of invoice I could in PayPal and hoping for the best well eventually I decided to get serious about invoicing and that is when I started using fresh books and no by the way this is not a sponsored video I do have a link for them which I'll throw above my head right now and down below in the description box but you don't have to use that if you don't want to the tips we're gonna cover today will work for pretty much any invoicing software so you use whatever you want to use but I'm gonna show you fresh books because that is what I personally have used and enjoyed the most as a freelance writer it's super easy and it will show you your financial situation at a glance which is super awesome if you're a words person and not a numbers person which I'm assuming is probably the case since you're watching this video so back to the blog post here you can see I've got some screenshots that show you what the inside of fresh books looks like you get a really nice invoices and expenses kind of chart here at a glance so you can see exactly what's going on you can see all of your outstanding invoice all of that but I said you don't have to use fresh books to use the tips in this video today so don't feel like you do it is a really really great solution and my top one that I recommend for freelance writers invoicing but these tips will apply pretty much no matter what kind of invoicing software you want to use so I'm just gonna scroll past all this other stuff in the blog post if you really want to see the fresh books tutorial part of it go ahead and click over and read the full tutorial but what we're gonna look at right now is this actual invoice that I created for the purpose of this blog post slash video so you can see here we've got the client and the invoice number and date of issue I believe automatically populate in fresh book so you don't have to worry about that we've got the project what it is the item sell blog post you could put white paper case study there whatever it is you're writing the description so for that I would usually put the title of the blog post right here and then the unit cost or the cost per item so one blog post here at two hundred and fifty dollars so this is pretty standard as far as how you'll want your client and voices to look as a freelance writer and then fresh books in particular as well as probably a lot of other invoicing software's has this little terms and notes visible to the client thing here at the bottom of the invoice so let me show you what I do for that what I would do is I put the payment terms net fifteen which simply means that the client has 15 days to pay once they receive the invoice so I put the payment terms there for them as a reminder and the actual payment due date because let me tell you sometimes clients need all the reminders they can get and if they see it right there there's no excuse for them not to pay it it's clear as a day when that actual payment is due and they've got no excuses so you can fill this out in whatever way makes sense for you for example if you want to give the client 30 days to pay you would put net 30 right here by the payment terms and then whatever your payment due date is and then I always put thank-you at the bottom just because it's nice to build a little bit of rapport with clients there so if we scroll down now you can see that the full invoice in fresh books is gonna look like this you're gonna have everything that we mentioned before the item the description and then you had other items you would just add them here I like to do each blog post individually with the title so it's really really clear and I can keep track of exactly what I've done and exactly what I'm getting paid for so that is what I recommend you do as well and then make sure you put the terms here the payment terms and the payment due date it should all be available for your clients to see when you send an invoice so in the blog post you can see I've got more instructions on how to use fresh books specifically you just send it to the client by email and fresh books automatically makes this nice professional-looking invoice for you you can see mine has a logo on it and it just has everything they're all set up for you so they pretty much automate as much of it as they possibly can you're really just entering in the basic stuff what did you do how much are you getting paid and what are the payment terms and in fresh books you can also look at your recent activity to see when a client viewed one of your invoices and all of that good stuff so that dashboard that I showed you guys at the beginning it has a lot of really vital information that can really help you get under control of your finances instead of wondering when you're gonna get paid and wondering if the client saw your invoice the information is gonna be right there so now let's break down how to create a really professional invoice a few really quick but important tips that you need to know when you are invoicing your clients first of all you want to brand your invoice I'm not saying you need a hire a graphic designer and spend like two weeks making the most beautiful invoice in the world that's gonna be pretty much a huge waste to your time if you do that but do make it look professional do put your logo on there if you have a business logo if you don't that's okay again don't spend weeks and weeks designing one for no reason just send the invoice and make sure that it looks clean and professional so you can see here in fresh books you can just simply upload your logo and then throw it at the top of your invoices they make everything really really easy and it adds a professional and personal touch to your invoices really helps you come across as a business owner not just the clients employee which is really important for how you want to be positioned the next step is to break down the details so I talked a little bit about this when we looked at that invoice but here's something else that I used to do when I was charging by the word side note there you want to be charging by project the vast majority of the time not by hours or by word but just to show you as an example this is how I would break it down when I was charging by the word 1000 words at 20 cents per word so the client can see exactly what the project was not only do we have the item the cost the title we have approximately how many words it was and what the rate of payment was which was 20 cents per word here so if you work on a copywriting project you could just break this down by the page instead of by blog post so maybe you have the home page as one item the contact page is one item the services page as another item and then you would put the fee for each page separately splitting it up like this really helps the client see a breakdown of exactly what they received and it helps you keep track of exactly what you've done and how much you are getting paid so you may not need a breakdown to everything all the time but if it makes sense for that project in your business for whatever project whatever client you're working with it can definitely be a good idea to have those details right there for you to see the next tip is to state your policies upfront this is so incredibly important and I know I've said it a couple times in this video but I'm gonna repeat it because it is seriously key to you getting paid and your client knowing what's going on you need to make your policies crystal clear upfront the client should not be surprised by your payment terms and the due date and your rates and all that stuff you want to send that in your quote before you even start writing for the client they should know hey this person invoices with net 15 payment terms this is what their rate is this is how much I'm paying them that way it's no surprise when they see that on the invoice and yes again it should be on your invoice so you can see here I've said when I start working with a new client I typically send them a sentence like this in my quote before we work together I invoice with net 15 payment terms upon project completion and then and this is so important something a lot of freelancers screw up and it gets them in a lot of trouble I've also gotten in trouble this way so listen up if you're zoning out a little bit because this is something you will want to remember you need to clearly define what project completion is if you're saying you invoice upon project completion what is project completion well maybe it means they get up to two rounds it maybe they get one round of revisions or whatever it is your project completion definition is for that certain client and project make sure you put that in there because it'll save you a whole lot of trouble before you work with the client you may want to also mention a late fee policy how you accept payment etc just anything the client needs to know so they know exactly how to work with you and you can avoid conflicts down the road so let's back up a little bit here and talk about late fee policies a really good tip for you getting paid on time is to come up with a late fee policy that incentivizes clients to pay you on time so for example maybe if they are X amount of days late they start getting charged X dollars per day for each additional day they are late paying you there's no quicker way to get someone to pay on time than to set up a late fee like that and get them to agree to it in your contract and the next tip here is to proofread and double check your math every single time it only takes a few seconds to do this and it's really important because you don't want to accidentally call the client the wrong name or send an invoice for three thousand dollars instead of three hundred dollars that's not a good look you want to check every time again so you can send an invoice that you're proud of and more importantly an invoice that is correct there are so many times where I have saved myself from potential embarrassment or just sending the wrong invoice altogether just by going back and giving it that one final quick glance one more time doing that math one more time just to make sure that everything is good to go so definitely do that next time you create an invoice and to wrap up I do want to let you know again that I do have a link for fresh books you guys can try it for free if you click the link above my head right now and below down in the description box again you don't have to use fresh books but I gotta say it is my number one recommendation for an invoicing software if you are a freelance writer because it does give you that really nice financial dashboard it makes it super easy to send professional invoices and it really just helps you track everything and stay on top of your so you don't do waste time worrying about it every day or freak out when tax season is just around the corner so it is definitely worth it go ahead and check that out if you are wanting to create professional invoices and that is all for today's video my friend I really hope you enjoyed it if you did be sure to hit the like button because it actually does really help my channel out and subscribe if you want to see more videos about how to make money freelance writing and blogging as always thanks so much for watching and I will see you in the next video [Music]