Nothing can be more intimidating for a start-up business than to see how small they are in a sea of similar enterprises. It may seem daunting to upgrade small aspects of your neophyte business, perhaps because you’re thinking that your older and bigger competitors have already got it all.
But the simple truth is that ramping up your small business can easily and effectively be done in small ways. You have to focus on key aspects of your business, the ones that will greatly affect both your customers and your enterprise itself.
Perhaps you’re already thinking of the usual advices that small business owners often get: Put your customers first, ensure your products are of high quality to satisfy their needs, create a portal of communication in case there are disputes over products, services, or finances. But did you know that effectively managing your finances through accurate invoicing is a tiny yet often overlooked key to properly managing your business?
Why Effective Invoicing Matters
Financial management is among the important keys to a successful start-up. It is also imperative for the growth of your small start-up business.
Proper invoicing is the first step to managing your finances. This is true no matter how much money you’ve invested and gained from your small business. Invoices let you track several things, among them are the following:
- The amount of money coming in from your sales
- The products that are driving sales to your business
- The methods and terms of payment that your customers are using
Tracking sales transactions through invoices will greatly help you plan how to turn your finances around. Invoices are actually a solid record of transactions between you and your customers, so it is indeed worth monitoring.
How to Start Invoicing Properly
Invoices are typically prepared after a product or service has been shipped to a customer. The following steps will show you how to start invoicing your customers:
- Properly identify your customer. Simple enough, but this is a crucial part of proper invoicing.
- Add related document numbers related to this sale transaction to the invoice, if there are any.
- Write down the name/s of the products or services you delivered. Include the quantity and rate per item for products, or the time and rate per hour for services.
- Calculate the total for all the items.
- Add information about any deposits, payments, or discounts applied to this transaction. State the accepted payment methods as well.
- Indicate the shipping information for products that are delivered.
- Clearly indicate your terms of sale.
Once you’ve prepared the invoice, you may send it to your customers via mail, fax, or email.
Now, when your customer completes payment for your products, you must clearly indicate the invoice number on the sales receipt that you’ll be issuing to him. This is so that you can clearly match the invoice against the receipt on your accounting software, indicating that the sales transaction is fully paid and is completed.
Conclusion
Implementing a proper invoicing system is one key activity you need to boost in order to rise higher than your competitors. Excellent invoicing systems can start from a simple blank invoice template filled up with vital information about your sales transaction with a particular customer.
You’ll see that as you get better at invoicing, your customer’s trust and confidence in your business will remain high, and that will set you apart from other similar small businesses in your niche.
0 kommentar(er)
