Help! I Need To Generate Some Invoices, And I Have No Idea What They Should Look Like.

[nellypope]

Long story short, I'm self-employed as of last Thursday, was very lucky got a pretty lucrative job in through the door, finished the work on Saturday, but the firm want the invoice by this afternoon to add on to August. No idea what it's supposed to look like, I dont charge VAT and the work was a service, graphic design. Was hoping that someone could recommend am good invoicing app for a Mac, either free or cheap?

[Canary42]

Why get an app - just put a word processed doc together.

Heading: Invoice

Date: dd/mm/yyyy

Followed by line describing the item charged and amount due

Followed by "Please pay to ....[name and address] etc."

Plus any comment you think appropriate.

[grasscarp]

There are free templates on the internet - here is one
http://www.aynax.com/freeInvoiceTemplate.php

[Psybbo]

http://www.freelanceadvisor.co.uk/invoice-templates/

[Canary42]

They look a step or two ahead of my suggestion - go for one of them.

[pixie373]

We got 60 day free trial with Microsoft Office. All the templates are there. We put together and printed all the forms we needed and then photocopy them. You must have a date and invoice number on it.

[KristalB]

A graphic designer asking how to design an invoice? How odd.

[factor-fiction]

Doesn't seem odd to me, Krystal. Nellypope's probably asking about the content.

[bednobs]

i know im probably too late but it's worth asking the company how they like invoices formatted. Where i work, unless they are in a certain format they won't get paid

[Skyline D]

Which Bednobs is an utter piece of nonsense and a ridiculous tactic almost always used to delay paying usually smaller suppliers by usually bigger customers who know the supplier cannot afford to tell them to "do one".

An invoice should clearly state your name and address, and business name if that's different. If it's a company it should name the directors and company registered number. It should have a date and an individual number, a VAT Registration number (if applicable) and if it relates to work carried out on a specific earlier date then that should be noted in the detail. If the customer gave a purchase order number then quote that on the invoice. Include a brief description of the work done and the price thereof. If VAT registered then a clearly separately identifiable VAT charge and then a total. If not VAT registered then it should make it clear that the business isn't VAT registered and no Input VAT is included in the charge. It should state the expected payment terms ie within 30 days or by end of calender month following, whatever you agreed or believe appropriate.

That's it. It doesn't need anything else and if all that is included then it's nobody else's business but yours how it looks, though of course in practice if you want paying by some companies you will have to fit in with their demands. You may or may not want to give it some colour or a business logo.

[pixie373]

It also has to have an invoice number. You can format it how you like. Individual customers can't all ask for different versions!

[Trevor1234]

try microsoft office to download invoices