When you select an invoice template for invoicing in your business, you must consider the services or supplies, the client’s expectations, and your company’s objectives.
Finalising an ideal and effective invoice involves selecting a suitable format that lets you bill for supplies and receives payment within the due date.
Choosing the ideal format of an invoice for business
A suitable invoice format is made with your requirements, allowing you to track the invoicing up to payment collections.
A business can raise invoices on clients for supplies or sales. They can also arrange account details, get paid correctly, and have all of the information they need, including tax details, with the help of a professionally formatted invoice.
Both aspects, such as charging for supplies and receiving payment from clients, will be easy using the suitable invoice format. But they must first choose the format and customise the fields of their invoice to meet their business and industry requirements.
They should format invoices with all the necessary information for accurate and faster payments. These details will not only guide their clients to pay the business but will also help in organising the company finances. Their invoice would be better structured and streamlined if they used the correct invoice format.
The organisation must also abide by the GST laws and e-invoicing rules, wherever applicable, apart from the business and customer preferences.
An ideal GST invoice created on an invoicing software is as follows:
7 Elements of an Effective Invoice for any business
Seven key elements commonly used by businesses are given below. These help you send accurate invoices while also positively impacting the company’s cash flows, growth, and profitability.
- Company Name, logo and contact details
Imagine your clients receiving an invoice but not familiar with its terms or have some doubts. You should have included your address and contact details in every invoice. It will make the process easier for customers to reach out to you. They may also scan the invoice and contact someone from your team or instantly identify the contact details.
Make sure to print the business’ name, logo, address, phone number(s), email address, business hours, and other related information. Contact details to include are the address of the business, address of warehouse from where goods were dispatched, if applicable, mobile number of primary contact, an alternative landline number, email address and the company’s website.
Also, providing statutory information such as GSTIN, PAN, CIN, etc., allows the clients or customers better insight into your business’s tax compliance.
Hence, do not let an unprofessional or incomplete invoice slow down the business processes, especially where a client has doubts but cannot reach out to you due to a lack of contact information. Switch to ClearOne, invoicing and payment collections software and app for creating professional-looking and customised invoices.
- Client or customer details
A business will find it difficult to track the payment of invoices if the invoice does not mention the client or customer information. It is essential to fill in this information for your business and the client to raise the invoice.
Information includes physical address, email ID of client, and their contact details. These must be in a pre-designed invoice template generally available on your e-invoicing software for Saudi Arabia for small-sized businesses.
You should include the customer’s name or the contact person’s name and designation on the business invoice. You must also add alternate contact information, including the customer’s email address, physical address and phone number.
ClearOne helps create a master list of clients and customers as a one-time activity. You can raise invoices quickly and accurately by selecting the correct or relevant client or invoicing.
- Invoice number and date
Every invoice must have a unique serial number to allow easy tracking of invoices. It is a distinctive number essential for completing invoices for accounting and tax compliance.
Businesses that give each invoice a unique number can stay organised and help their customers refer back to invoices. Use a unique identifier for each company to distinguish between customers and product lines.
Online invoice solutions such as ClearOne helps you auto-generate a unique invoice number, unique for a financial year. You can decide the structure or format of the invoice number you wish to employ. For instance, you can designate invoice numbers chronologically, such as INV/21-22/0001, INV/21-22/0002…..INV/21-22/0034 and so on. You can also use a specific format for every customer or buyer, such as INV/21-22/TATA/0012, INV/21-22/TATA/0013 and so on.
- Invoice due date and payment terms
A business must include an invoice due date for every invoice by printing it prominently and, if need be, multiple times. It should be mentioned in bold font type and more prominent in size. Also, note the payment terms such as any late fee charged for delayed payment and preferred payment modes such as instant money transfer, cheque, credit card, etc.
Instead of mentioning the number of days vaguely to the due date, every business should precisely mention the actual due date. The due date should be set at regular time intervals.) to avoid any confusion.
Although a business cannot force its clients to pay for an invoice within the due date, it also matters what you mention on your invoices. It will affect how fast, on average, the clients pay up.
- Purchase Order (PO) number and references
Purchasing demands become varied as your business grows. It results in fresh communication challenges. A seller may forget to mention specific details. Purchase order number or PO will help avoid any confusion and reduce unnecessary delays.
The PO number refers to the point of reference allocated to a particular proposal to buy a product. The PO number can be internally used to coordinate inventory, sales and match shipments with purchases.
- Breaking down the invoice value, taxes and other charges
A customer does not want an invoice or bill with only the amount mentioned with a note asking for payment at the earliest. Therefore, one must add sufficient details to the invoice by breaking it down.
Begin by arriving at cost per unit and how much you can charge while still meeting profitability goals. The seller should ensure that he is imposing or fixing the correct prices for the products.
After that, provide line items for every product and charge on the invoice, including descriptions of services or goods provided. Line items in invoices help break down the products or services and any extra charges with taxes. One must not miss to give a breakup of taxes and mention the shipping and handling costs or any other expenses that the buyer must incur.
- Payment status, advance received, and amount due
Amount due is the most apparent element of an invoice that concerns any seller. A seller must mention the total amount due for every transaction on the invoice. It acts as an apt reference point for both seller and customer and helps in faster and undisputed settlements.
Amount due is arrived at after adjusting any advance received from the customer on the transaction or project. If the seller mentions the payment status in the invoice, it will not give rise to any disputes.
Author Bio – Ombir is a SEO Executive at eRank Solutions. He is a SEO and writer who has 2 years of experience in these respective fields. He loves spending his time doing research on different topics.
