9/13/2010

How to get paid

If you work freelance and deal with individuals instead of companies, it can sometimes get awkward to ask for your money.

Turns out that there is an easy way: invoices.

The old-school invoice is on a little piece of paper that you give your customers at the end of a session, but those don't look so professional anymore.

The best way to do this nowadays is online, on free websites like Billing Boss.
  1. You get to create a list of customers, so all the info stays on the database and never have to enter the info ever again. 
  2. You get to send invoices straight from the website to your customer's email, or save it as a PDF, with options of professional looking styles and fonts (including your logo if you have one). 
  3. The great thing then is that instead of having to keep track of a bunch of papers (or not send invoices and struggle to get paid), the website keeps track for you of who you sent invoices to, what due date you wrote down, and whether people did pay you or not. So it's a great system to keep track of people you need to contact again for payment. 
  4. The website also saves all invoices sent so you can always go back and take a look if you think you've made a mistake or if you're in disagreement with someone. 
  5. You can also create a tax report relating to your invoices right on there. 
It's a win-win because you even help your clients in keeping track of expenses for their budget and taxes! 

Those websites are great because they're free, they avoid you having a possibly uneasy conversation, they keep you organized and they make you look very professional.



Picture from http://www.btdtsolutions.com/brokers401k/getpaid.htm

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