Designers are very interesting professionals! You do what you love and love what you do. The projects that you take up and complete are top notch, but then when it comes down to the invoicing process, you might flip out. Anytime a money matter comes into the picture, it does make you go a little crazy inside.
The competency of the invoicing process is integral in order to maintain a healthy and balanced cash flow and hence it is very important for the designers to deal with their nightmare in the best possible way. Smart invoicing will help you manage your clients and collect payments in an efficient way. You may have a system set up for your invoicing process, you can yet take the following measures and correct them.
1) Map out your invoicing terms –
As a designer you have to deal with a lot of clients and keep an account for all of them and it is very much possible that you might dodge some of the financial matters. In order to minimise such errors and confusions, you must map out your invoicing terms beforehand and should always highlight them.
Few of the most important things that you can highlight can include :
- Number of days you will require to complete the task
- Determine your advance fees
- What should be the mode of payment
- How much is the charge for a re-do
- What are the charges in case of late payment
There might be cases where you might have to bend the rules but that’s fine as long as you have your conditions put right out.
2) Automated Invoicing vs. Manual Invoicing –
Salaried designers don’t have to pay attention about invoicing because:
1) It is done by their employee
2) They don’t have to involve themselves in the process
Since, invoicing is an important task for you, it is crucial for you to decide if you are going to do it manually or if you are going to go for automated invoicing.
You can go for manual invoicing if you are just beginning your web design career since you have fewer clients to deal it.
But if you are someone with many clients and have to manage all these accounts at once, then automated invoicing is something you should look into. An interface which helps you manage all the customers is something that will make your life easy!
Resellerclub provides you such a control panel (https://www.resellerclub.com/login) that will help manage all your customers at once under one roof. You can sign up as a reseller (https://www.resellerclub.com/domain-reseller/signup-now)and even sell products at a cost that you desire!
3) Provide choices of payment –
If you are planning on becoming a full time freelancer and becoming a successful one then you must be flexible about your payment terms. You must offer your clients various methods and modes of paying you. This is your standout factor that will help you survive competition in the freelancing world. This factor can also be client dealing, special discounts, marketing techniques, or the various value added services that you provide.
Provide flexibility with the modes of accepting finance from your clients and more importantly let your clients be informed about the same!
4) Avoid Surprises in your bill –
When you are preparing an invoice for your client, make sure that all the details are mentioned in the bill and that there are no surprises for the client. Hence, always provide a comprehensive detail of charges to your client. You must inform your client as to how much and for what service are you charging them.
If you do not roll out the exact charges in one go and keep creating different invoices, then not only will your clients get confused and annoyed but it will also become very difficult for you to keep a record and track of all the invoices and finances and you may end up losing revenue.
5) Follow up –
Last but not the least, keep following up. As a freelance web designer who wants to convert and become a full time web designer, you must follow up with your clients. Now there are clients who pay immediately once they receive the invoice but there are also clients that do not. When it comes to successfully going through the invoice process, it is very important to take up the follow up procedure very seriously and do it as and when required.
We suggest, as mentioned earlier,to list down the terms regarding the consequences that they may have to face in case of late payments. If the payment date has passed away, then make sure that you do a rigorous follow up until you get paid.
Finally,
Invoicing can be a very problematic and hectic task but if you want to survive in this business, you got to take it up and face it. Just make sure that the communication between you and your client is clear so that there is no scope for confusion.
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