Do you have a startup and need to send your customers an invoice?
A vast majority of businesses close each year due to financial hurdles. Problems sending an invoice is one of those issues. All it takes is a few errors in paying your employees or billing clients for them to quit and cause a disruption.
We’ll discuss the top five most common issues that new business owners still take below. We’ll also talk about what you shouldn’t do when you’re sending out invoices. Read on to learn what they are and how to avoid them.
1. Forgetting to Create the Invoice or Parts of It
As a business owner, it’s your job to create invoices to send to your customers. Even if your business is online and you collect from customers online, you need to issue invoices. Never forget or overlook the invoice of the customer.
2. Sending an Invoice With the Wrong VAT
Some common invoice mistakes that new business owners make include excluding the correct VAT.
Your value-added tax, or VAT, is the tax used to pay for raw materials up until the final retail tax. One tip when you create invoice details for clients is to use a free invoice template. This way, you never forget to include the VAT.
3. You Use Vague Language
A big mistake when creating an invoice is being unclear about your terms.
The vague language can lead to your clients abusing you by avoiding payment as much as they can. It’s always better to be clear with item descriptions, prices, and quantities.
Your customers also need to understand their timeline of paying. Use “days” instead of the term “net.” Be clear when you state the consequences of breaking these terms, too.
4. Including Unexplainable or Surprise Costs in the Final Cost
When sending an invoice, make sure you can explain and break down the total of the product cost. Never make the mistake of adding extra fees or fees you didn’t discuss with the client or your employees. If you must add extra charges, be transparent and upfront about it.
Otherwise, you risk creating distrust and confusion with customers. Remember, it costs 5-6 times more to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. If you don’t want to spend extra to find new customers, be honest with the ones you already have.
5. Not Backing up Your Invoice Data
Last but not least is failing to create backup copies of your invoice templates and data on a cloud. Computer crashes are often the reasons behind slower customer service and invoicing. They may even be the reasons a business gets stuck in a pickle.
The good news here is that most invoicing programs create backups of your invoices. The tasks already occur on automatic, so you don’t need to remind yourself of them. They often store the data on a cloud to make it accessible in case of emergencies.
Send Invoices to Clients the Right Way
That ends the common errors business owners make when sending an invoice to clients. We hope you enjoyed reading our guide on invoice errors with us.
Don’t stop here because there’s a lot more to discover. Feel free to go over our other guides and posts now for more content discussing business. We also have a wide range of guides covering fashion, marketing, and entertainment!
