How To Write and Send an Invoice
Understanding how to write an invoice is a crucial skill. Equally as important is learning how to send an invoice.
After all, not only do invoices help when a customer has a problem with their purchase, but they also make it easier for businesses to internally stay organized and keep track of their records.
There are both traditional and digital invoicing methods that you could utilize. However, if done through an online platform like jSign, writing and sending invoices can be as cost-effective, fast, and seamless as it gets.
Keep reading this article to learn more about how to write an invoice, how to send an invoice, what an invoice number is, and what invoice number examples look like.
Why is knowing how to write and send an invoice important?
Businesses of all sizes and professionals across various industries use invoices to record their transactions, ranging from legal and accounting firms to health care and insurance providers to grocery stores and retailers.
Knowing how to write an invoice is important for many reasons. Here are a few of the main ones:
- An invoice shows a buyer or client the products or services that they’re paying for, including a breakdown of the cost of each item.
- Invoices can be referenced in the event that a transaction is disputed or a buyer requests a refund.
- They may be used to review accounting and pricing practices.
- In certain industries and situations, sending a customer or client an invoice is legally required.
Since a lot of business owners and professionals don’t know how to write an invoice, you can find many brick and mortar and online providers that offer invoicing services.
Traditional vs Digital Invoicing
The rise of technology and digitization made the process for writing and sending invoices quick, simple, and cost effective.
How To Write an Invoice: Online vs Offline
Under the offline methods, businesses could either manually write down the billing information on an invoice sheet or use a machine that prints out receipts.
The former technique is time consuming and prone to errors, while the latter is certainly among the most expensive ways for generating invoices.
On the internet, meanwhile, you can customize your own reusable invoice templates and modify them whenever you want to send one to a buyer.
How To Send an Invoice: Digital vs Traditional Methods
In the same vein, to send an invoice the traditional way, you would have to either pay for it to be mailed (and wait until the recipient views the invoice and makes the payment) or scan it (which requires you to own a scanner and spend some time on scanning and uploading individual documents).
With all that being said, there are plenty of online platforms (such as jSign) that allow you to upload reusable invoice templates, customize receipts for each buyer or transaction, and send them to as many recipients as you’d like by making a few clicks.
How To Write an Invoice and What To Include
There are a lot of websites and platforms that give you access to a variety of invoice templates. Once you pick the template that suits your industry and organization, you can customize it by adding the relevant transaction details.
How To Write an Invoice That’s Complete and Comprehensive
Before you finalize your template, you want to make sure that your invoice includes the following information:
- Your organization’s logo and branding (if applicable).
- The billing party’s details (you or your company’s name, address, and contact information).
- Your buyer or customer’s name, address, and other information (for example, their account number).
- The date of the invoice. You want to place the logo, billing party’s details, buyer or customer’s name, and the date on the top of the invoice document.
- A breakdown of the products and services that they’re paying for and their individual costs, including the quantity of each item (if applicable). This is commonly placed in a table in the middle of the document.
- Any taxes, fees, discounts, and/or promotions.
- The total amount that’s due, which should be displayed at the bottom of the table.
- How the customer or client can make a payment.
- The payment due date (if the buyer already paid you, note the amount, payment method, and a confirmation number in your invoice).
- Whether the amount on the invoice is the final balance or an estimate of the costs.
- Terms and conditions (if needed).
- The signature slot (this may be required for professionals and organizations in specific industries) at the bottom of the page.
Above all, every invoice must have a unique and identifiable invoice number that enables you and your recipient to track or reference the transaction in the future.
What is an invoice number?
An invoice number, as its name suggests, is a number that usually consists of 3 to 10 digits and is assigned to each separate transaction. You can also find invoice number examples that contain a combination of numbers and letters.
What is an invoice number used for?
Invoice numbers allow you to easily pull up past transactions when you need to. The transaction’s invoice number can be referenced in case any issues or disputes arise like, for instance, when a buyer requests a refund.
You can organize your receipts by date, product/service, or location, as well.
What are some invoice number examples?
Invoice number examples that are arranged by date start with the day, month, and/or year of the receipt (such as 0223#### for invoices that were issued in February 2023). Certain invoice number examples are sorted by a firm’s location or a code for a product or service, but it’s also common to have invoices that are made up of random digits.
How To Send an Invoice
You can send an invoice to your buyers in many ways. Unlike the traditional and offline methods, digital invoicing is fast, simple, and much more cost effective.
Here are your options for how to send an invoice online:
- Some payment processing apps like Stripe and PayPal automatically generate invoices and send them to your buyers for you.
- You could email them to your customers after you design and edit your own invoice through using Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and similar platforms.
- With an electronic signature services provider, such as jSign, you can easily send invoices to as many recipients as you’d like, track the status of each message, and organize your receipts. All of this can be done from a single dashboard.
Benefits of Sending an Invoice with jSign
With jSign, the process for generating and sending invoices couldn’t get any easier. Alongside being able to upload your own templates and reuse them for every purchase or transaction, here are some of the other benefits that you’ll enjoy with jSign:
- Customize and send invoices from multiple devices (including desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones) and from any location (as long as you have access to the internet).
- Directly integrate your jSign account with your cloud storage platform.
- Utilize a user-friendly dashboard to manage your account, send receipts to multiple buyers, and track the status of each invoice.
- Upload, customize, and send documents in multiple file formats (.pdf, .doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, .jpg, .png, and more).
- Rely on blockchain technology, which stores information in decentralized locations and prevents your invoices from being tampered with.
- Track the status of individual invoices, including those that need to be signed or paid.
- Set deadlines and send out automatic reminders before the due date of a signature or payment.
In short, jSign’s tools allow you to attain all of the benefits and conveniences of online invoicing, ranging from the ability to modify and reuse your own templates to letting you send and manage invoices from a user-friendly dashboard.
On top of that, you will enjoy the cloud storage integrations, blockchain features, and other advantageous tools that come with your jSign account.
Start Sending Invoices Today
jSign makes your invoicing processes as simple as possible with our straightforward, yet technologically enhanced, features.You can start using jSign at no cost with our free 14-day trial. After that, you can decide if jSign is the right choice for your invoicing needs.
