It’s super important you’re precise and to the point when you write your invoices to your clients. The more ambiguous you are, the more questions you’ll have to spend time answering from your clients.
Depending on whether it’s a project invoice, a monthly invoice or an ad-hoc task, your invoice needs to be described differently.
Let’s get into it.
Key Takeaways
- Always use numbers in your invoice naming convention.
- Describe what number the invoice is if it’s a partial payment.
- Be consistent in the naming of your invoices to avoid confusion.
Why Your Invoice Naming Is Important
When you start freelancing, or you start on a new project, and you finally reach the point where you need to send out your invoice. It’s such a good feeling because you’re done, and it’s time to send your professional invoice.
But before you go ahead and do that, you need to ensure that everything is in order with your invoice.
Check the following details are in order:
- Payment terms (The payment date)
- Contact details on you (Including Email address)
- Contact details on your client
- Terms for late payments
- Payment options
- Invoice number
- Payment Methods (Credit cards, PayPal, bank transfer)
- Invoice date
- Invoice number
- Subject (Invoice name)
Read this if you want to learn more about how you send out a legal invoice, which will hold up anywhere in the world.
It’s so important you name your invoices so it makes sense for multiple reasons. If your invoice is a partial payment, you’ll have to name it something like [Project name] 1/3.
There is nothing worse for a client receiving an invoice just named: an invoice or a freelance invoice.
Your client needs to be able to go back in time and ensure all invoices are paid, and they need to know the difference when they do their bookkeeping.
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Be Consistent When Describing Your Invoice
Once you start sending invoices, it’s important you stick to a format for so many reasons, but primarily for your client.
As an example, if you’re working on a project for a client and you’ve agreed on splitting the payment into 3 parts, then it’s important all 3 parts are sent with the same invoicing name.
So not only does it need to be a professional-looking invoice, you need to ensure the name of the invoice is consistent and stays the same.
Here is an example, let’s say the project is a personal website:
- Personal website invoice 1/3
- Personal website invoice 2/3
- Personal website invoice 3/3
By following the same format, you ensure that your client can find all your invoices when you invoice for freelance work.
But it also makes it easier for you to ensure you’ve invoices for all the work you’ve done.
You can take it a step further and use a freelance invoice template to make it easier for yourself, and that, in the end, makes it better for your client as well. It’s lowering the error rate significantly.
Use Conventions To Ease Your Invoice Work
Now let’s get to the meat of the article. I’ll give you some examples of how I invoice, depending on whether it’s an hourly rate, projects or other work types.
When I send out freelancing invoices, I always use an invoice generator through my invoicing software, and I’ll recommend you do the same.
Pro-tip: By using invoicing tools, you don’t need to ensure your invoices contain all relevant information. You’ll have the contact person saved, the business address, payment details, and so much more. All you have to do is fill out the invoice, ensure the invoice name is correct, and then send out the invoice.
I use Dinero for my invoices because I’m in Denmark, but I can easily recommend Quickbooks if you’re outside Denmark.
A great idea is to name your invoice title, invoice file name and subject on your email the same.
Depending on your freelancer invoices, I’ve collected some different templates as examples that you can get inspired from for your freelancing invoices.
Pro-tip: If you’re using a time tracking tool, you can sometimes automate this entire process, but be aware that sometimes the naming is off, so you’ll have to adjust this.
Hourly Rate Invoices
This is my favourite time of work, and this is the majority of my freelancing invoice, so here are some examples:
- Invoice for [MONTH] from [YOUR COMPANY NAME]
- Invoice for June from Startlancer.
- Invoice for August from Startlancer
Partial Payments Based On Steps
If you’re doing projects, the larger they are, the more convenient it is to split them up, even though it’s more work for the accounting department.
Here are some examples:
- Invoice [PROJECT NAME] [STEP]/[TOTAL STEPS] from [YOUR COMPANY NAME]
- Invoice Personal website 1/3 from Phillip Stemann
- Invoice Personal website 2/3 from Phillip Stemann
- Invoice Personal website 3/3 from Phillip Stemann
Partial Payments Based On Phases
The last option is based on phases, and this works well for projects where you’ve split up the payments in milestones.
Here is how I’ve done it previously with an effective invoice:
- Invoice for [PROJECT NAME] – [PHASE] from [YOUR COMPANY NAME]
- Invoice for Personal website – Initial setup from Startlancer
- Invoice for Personal website – Contact page from Startlancer
- Invoice for Personal website – About us page from Startlancer
This is a very simple example, but you get the idea. Always use an invoice template with your invoice software to ensure you remember all the invoice details.
Wrap-Up: Being Consistent Makes You Professional
That’s it, and now it’s time for you to level up your invoices. Use a freelancer invoice template which you often get with invoicing software, and then use a naming convention for your invoice titles.
Ensure to align your invoice title, email subject and invoice PDF file name to make it easier for yourself and your client through the payment process and for historical data.
It’s all about making it easy for your client and yourself, and you do that by following these examples to create an invoice for freelancers whenever you need to send an invoice.
If you want more information on how to write the body of your invoice, then read about how to invoice as a freelancer.