Policies and Procedures

Discuss the importance of policies and procedures in your virtual assistance business.

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Old 06-21-2007
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Default How do you invoice your clients?
Every professional VA has their own style of doing things, including invoicing. I know some use software to track their time, I use a good old fashioned .txt doc and Paypal Please comment back with your own methods and examples of what works for you. )

I invoice every other Fri on net 14 terms. This means that I give the client 14 days (from the day I send the invoice) to make payment. When I total an invoice I send a copy of the invoice document to the client via email. I also send a payment request via Paypal with the basic breakdown of the invoice in the 'notes' section.

I also keep a running XL sheet of ALL invoices with columns for
Date sent
Total
Client name
Payment method
Due date
Notes
Running total
Monthly total
Yearly total

When I send a fresh invoice request I note the information on the XL sheet and highlight it in yellow until it is paid. I have too many clients now to keep in mind all the invoices I have out at any given moment and the XL sheet makes it easy to check who owes what and when.
It also makes it really simple for me at the end of the year when I want to calculate taxes as well as lets me quickly compare how I'm doing this year compared to last year at the same time or this month to last month, etc.

As soon as an invoice is paid I remove the highlight from that line of info on the XL.
Also, every single invoice I send includes my late payment policy:

Anyone else care to share their own strategy for invoicing?
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Old 06-21-2007
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Thanks!!

Very informative !
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Old 06-27-2007
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This is a great example of how to be organized when invoicing and I'm really going to adapt this to use some of the way it's set up for my own invoices. Right now I invoice based on what my boss expects which is all handwritten but I like this digitized and emailable way much better.
Maybe I'll try to get him switched over and see how that goes.
I was thinking if I can just make the working situation more tolerable and more evenly balanced toward my own preferences.
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Old 09-11-2007
KatroGlobal
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Default Re: How do you invoice your clients?
This is great, I am glad I found this post! These gives me a few tips on how to improve my invoicing.
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Old 09-11-2007
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Default Re: How do you invoice your clients?
Rose, I can't imagine writing out all of my invoices by hand! This way is actually quite 'old fashioned' - when you consider all of the great time tracking software out there, but I like the fact that this is easy and flexible. It's worked well for over two years, and 20+ clients

Virtua, I agree with the use of a PDF for the client (non-editable on the receiving end) but I can't imagine a time that I'd ever switch over to actual paper billing via the post - too much work! Although, if you're working with big companies as you said then it sounds like you don't have much choice if you want to get paid
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Old 09-12-2007
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Default Re: How do you invoice your clients?
I use QuickBooks (duh, eh? see'ins how I do books for a living? ) to do my invoicing and tracking (all 2 clients ). I print the invoices to .pdf format and email them to my clients monthly on the 1st w/a net 15. I run an A/R report prior to invoicing to verify that there aren't any outstanding invoices.

I put my payment terms/penalties, etc. in the original consulting agreement and put NET 15 on the invoices. Obviously, no problems with payments yet!
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Old 09-12-2007
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Default Re: How do you invoice your clients?
Quickbooks is on my list of absolutely-must-learn ASAP
My little XL sheet is getting awfully BIG! It works well enough for now, but....
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Old 09-13-2007
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Default Re: How do you invoice your clients?
What a great thread..

My invoice is similar to Tess'..Mainly, because she gave me some great tips to add to my invoice. Thanks Tess. I've found tha the more thorough my invoice is, the less problems I will have in the future. It is spelled out. Completely. I agree with Tess.. Quickbooks is on my list of to do's!!
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Old 09-13-2007
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Default Re: How do you invoice your clients?
Ummm... Is this where I plug that I do QuickBooks for a living
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Old 09-13-2007
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Default Re: How do you invoice your clients?
Definately plug... Thats one of the reasons I love this forum so much.. We are all good at different things!! In the same way, with any new clients coming in, I would much prefer to send them over your way, knowing you do Quickbooks for a living
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