How do you handle your clients invoicing?

[LaGraves]

Hello. I am a newbie. I will be offering Invoicing as a service once my business is launched. How do you all handle your clients invoicing and what accounting systems are you using?

[interactive]

I use quickbooks for my business. I currently only do invoicing for one client and they use an Excel.

[eXPERT Business Support]

Hello, LaGraves, and congratulations on launching your business. There are a few invoicing programs out there, the most popular I believe is Quickbooks and Freshbooks. I provide invoicing to only one client, which is a very small-scale deal compared to what I am sure other skilled "invoicers" provide. And my particular client only accepts company checks, which makes my invoicing job extremely simple.

For my own business, I am only at a minimal invoicing level and have solely been using PayPal for my invoicing needs.

I noted that you mention that you are going to provide invoicing as a service. Have you done this before?

The great thing about being a VA is that you can always expand your learning. There is always so much to learn! Take the time before launching to take a bookkeeping class, attend tutorials in Quickbooks, etc. Become as skilled as you possibly can so that when a client asks for help with invoicing, you will be more than capable of assisting with their needs. But until you have that skill down pat, I would not offer it as a service unless you let your client know up front that you are new at it.

With that said, we all have to learn somewhere. And sometimes the only way of learning is to do it. Just be honest with your clients. Ahhh, I rambled. And I'm not even an invoicing expert.

[accurateAccounting]

Hi Aspiring,
check out Billing Boss. I haven't tried it yet but it looks great. Awesome thing about it is that you (client) can accept payments to your paypal account. And of course, best thing about it is that it is free!

[cindyaleli]

I have been using FreshBooks and I love it. Very professional and user friendly.

[It's Your Time]

Hi - I do invoicing for several clients and depending on their needs and desires the format changes. I have a client with multiple contractors and a bookkeeper who lives out of town (so tracking Accounts Receiveable has been a nightmare) and ensuring she bills all billable hours has been problematic for her. I've got her onto Freshbooks - so now all of her contractors track their time and it can be automatically pulled into an invoice for her clients. Further more she doesn't need to wait for her bookkeepers reports to find out who owes her money still.

I have another client who has limited capacity or desire to take part in any of his invoicing for him I use Quickbooks.

For another client who is very brand conscious - we invoice using word.

Personally - if it works for your client - I love Freshbooks. Sometimes, I find small biz's get too hung up on the "look" of their invoice rather than the importance of getting money into the bank.

Good luck!

[cyndijorgensen]

Hi,
I use quick-books for my own business accounting so I send my invoices through email via the Intuit Payment network. It is only $.50 per transaction.

[ginamkd]

I also use Quickbooks for my business. I was planning on using remote log-in in order to be able to use their current software, if they have none I will recommend Quickbooks since that is what I am most familiar with. You should figure out what you're comfortable with and then recommend that software to your clients. If they already have software that they use, take some time to learn it. Most software is pretty similar and serves the same basic purpose, so once you get familiar with one, it's easy enough to learn new programs

[Chisholm]

Ok, I am a bit confused.. I like Freshbooks from what I can see but is it only and invoicing program or does it do accounting for my business as well?

[BrightBooks]

For some of my simplier invoicing clients I have been using Bill.com. They offer a payables side as well. It is all cloud based so it makes it easy for my clients and myself to know what is going on at all times. All the information entered in Bill.com also exports directly to QuickBooks so no double entering.