No matter what type of business you run, it's important the invoices you send to customers not only reflect your business but detail everything the customer needs.
Branding docx invoice templates in Xero accounting software from Xero on Vimeo.
Branding
We live by the rule at Growthwise - brand everything! You never know who will be looking at the Invoices you send to customers. Your invoice is an opportunity to showcase what you do.
Your logo is a given but did you know you can customise your font (as long as it's a standard web font), you can add colour blocks, watermarks, headers etc etc.
As always we recommend you work with your graphic designer to build out these templates. If that isn't your style you can certainly give it a go yourself or there are a few websites who have customised some template packages for you already (note we found these with a simple google search and haven't used them ourselves):
- Xeroism
Creativity aside your Invoice is also a great opportunity for you to direct customers to your social media channels.
You can have a link for your facebook page with "Don't miss an update on new arrivals!"
Or perhaps you are trying to increase signups to your newsletter "Subscribe to our weekly news here"
Or gain traffic on Instagram "Need some #motivationmonday? Join us on Instagram"
You can have links to your website, do you know we also do x, or you could put an upcoming event you are hosting with the links to join.
Have some fun with this. But just note, branding your invoice is important.
The details
It's also really important that you include as much detail as possible on your invoice. You don't want customers having to search for details on how to pay you, on what your terms are (ie the due date of the invoice) or what the invoice is about. The more information you include the better.
Here are some of our favourite things to include on your Invoice Template:
- Your Terms and Conditions. This is super important, especially for those of you in the building trade. We recommend putting your detailed terms as a seperate page on your invoice template
- The Due Date. This should be bold and in a bigger font.
- The Total Due. I know this sounds strange but this also needs to be in bold and in a bigger font.
- How to pay. The more options the better. You should have your Bank Account details as well as something setup with the Pay Now button
- A good description. The better the description on the invoice the easier it is to ensure there are no questions about what the invoice is actually for!
Of course you also need to have the standard things like your ABN, the words Tax Invoice etc.
Customize invoices with Xero cloud accounting from Xero on Vimeo.
Pay Now
Every business owner understands "Cash is King". So the quicker you get paid the better.
Xero a while back introduced the Pay Now button which means your customers can click straight from the Invoice to a screen where they can pay you via Credit Card straight away.
You can apply payment services to all branding themes or only the ones you want to. Meaning you can disable methods of payments on some invoices.
Don't have Pay Now setup? Don't stress we have a step by step how to guide here.
OK but how do we do this?
There are a couple of options.
Xero has a few easy to copy templates to get you started.
You can grab one of the customised templates as mentioned above.
We can help upload the templates for you (Note we are accountants not designers!).
Or, if you want to try customising the template yourself here is a really indepth video showing you the how to.
P.S You can customise statements, credit notes, purchase orders and quotes as well.
