Drafting an Invoice for Any Freelance Project
Recent dealings have reminded me that it’s important for freelancers to know how to create an invoice. An invoice is an official document that breaks down the different parts of a project, listing how much you require to accomplish each of them. It’s clear record for a client, showing what he will pay for what.
The look of an invoice (layout, formatting, etc.) will depend on the freelancer, but should have the following:
Invoice Number: Invoice numbers let you or your client quickly refer to a specific project. It doesn’t really matter what kind of numbering system you use, but it keep it consistent! Personally, I use a number followed by the name of my client.
Provider Info: That would be you. Who is providing the service, and how can you contact them?
Customer Info: Your client. Who is paying for the service, and how can you contact them?
Name of the Project: What is the project? A brief description like “Product Photo Shoot for Company X” will do.
Itemized List: Basically, this is a list of what you’ll be doing for a project, as well as their corresponding costs. A total should be included at the bottom.
Payment Details: How can the client pay you?
You’re free to make your invoices as simple or as polished as possible. In the interests of professionalism however, make them as clear and readable as possible. Stay away form any spelling or grammatical errors, get all the details right of course, and submit an invoice in a file format that your client can easily open, such as a Word document or PDF.
Am I missing anything?
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POSTED IN: Freelance Finances, Useful Info, Useful Tools
3 opinions for Drafting an Invoice for Any Freelance Project
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Sumit
May 23, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Quite nice information. You can use “Simple Invoices” which is a web-hosted php script to do this. It provides you with all the above requirements and you provides with pdf/doc export of the invoices and various reports.
Sumit
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