I"m doing last months invoicing today. It’ll take most of the afternoon, plus folding invoices and stuffing envelopes. When I started out I would print the invoices for the day before I went out, but when my business grew I switched everyone to invoicing at the end of the month. It seemed to me I could save time by just doing my invoicing once a month. It works out ok, but sometimes I think I’d like to have some of that money sooner than later and I’ve been thinking of switching back or at least switching to invoicing once a week. I do mostly commercial work, but I’ve even switched my residential customers who have had their windows cleaned 3 times or more to invoicing at the end of the month, so there’s less paperwork to keep track of. I don’t know if it makes a bit of difference at all. What do you do?
We don’t necessarily [U]collect[/U] at the end of each job (especially with commercial.)
But I do invoice as soon as we finish.
I invoice on all jobs when we are done (collect payment, leave with customer) unless it is a commercial job that goes through the accounting department. If its mailed that way I can rest easy knowing it landed in the right hands. I personally would rather get it done and over with day by day. Commercial is probably a different story since all you have to do is send someone to a job location. Bill out 4 services (weekly jobs) would be easier to keep track of. Another reason I do it on a daily basis is that some of my guys arent the best when it comes to submitting their paperwork.
Steve
I have no employees (well, sorta. I have a PT employee right now from a temp agency.)
For residential, I invoice and collect at time of service. There are, of course, always occasions where the customer will mail a check after I depart.
For commercial, I invoice monthly.
On my commercial work. I invoice at the end of the job. Well kind of. I send them the invoice before we start the work once the contract is signed. I let them know that the invoice is due on receipt of the work. Once the job is done and the client is happy, they sign off on the inspection sheet. I head home and send them the invoice again. I invoice via email, through quickbooks. Tells me when people are late. The other nice thing is you can request a delivery receipt and read receipt of each message. It also gives you another reason to get additional contact info for marketing. I like to do things when they happen. I dont pick a certain day that I set aside per month or week. I work each account and everything that needs to be done with that account asap. For me I like it this way, because I know at the end of the job all I really need to do is one last email. After that its up to them to pay. Most of the time, what happens, is because I have emailed them the invoice right after the contact is signed. They will have a check waiting for me. If that is the case, when I get home I email them a receipt. Job is done.
I tried invoicing thru quickbooks last year and then had problems. I’m thinking I’d like to start doing it this way, I know a few customers would be willing to go with it. What percentage of your customers would you guess you email? It’s obvious you like it, because you are doing it. When did you start? Do you have a problem with any customers losing your invoice thru junk mail filters? Sorry, lots of questions… wish I would have thought to add this to the poll questions…
I’ve had problems of customers not receiving my invoices when they are sent through Quickbooks. Doesn’t happen too often, but it definitely happens from time to time.
We actually stopped sending estimates through Quickbooks partly because of this reason. Now I email the estimate to my office admin and she sends the estimate through our regular email as an attachment. This way she can customize any message we want to say to the customer.
But for invoices I still email through Quickbooks if payment isn’t received when the job is completed. It’s best to be on top of your accounts receivable and follow up regularly until you get paid.
i give them an invoice when i finish and they pay.
after thinking about it dosent invoice mean they owe me money. i should probably give them a recipt.
When I do it through qb I bcc myself so I know if it goes through or not. I have never had a problem. I’m using 2010 pro. I did have issues with 2006 pro and did not use it after those problems. But once I upgraded I figured I would give it a try. I upgraded last year in Jan. And have been using it since. I dont have an exact figure but it’s mostly used for my commercial clients. We only did about 20 mid rise this year and all of those were emailed. I did use it for some of my resi clients who wanted me to send it to their work email. I have also used it to send follow ups to phone estimates and it worked well. Makes the company look highspeed. I’m pretty sure I have gotten some gigs this year because I was able to beat the others to the punch with a phone quote and email estimate. Some of those clients did not have time to take off work just for an estimate. I have a big client with the department of justice and after I emailed him he quote he sent me over 3 other laywers with the DOJ. They all loved that it was all done via email/blackberry. Nice sized jobs to boot.
What you can do is write on the invoice “Paid” and sign it. That’s what I have my employees do with the resi clients. I was printing out receipts for the jobs. But I found the employees would bring back the signed receipt. lol. So I just left them both as invoices. One has to be signed by the employee and one the client. The employee brings back the one signed by the client. Because it says paid on it, they dont really require a receipt.
good idea, im just gonna pick up a PAID stamp and pre stamp all the invoices for resi customers
is your avatar a scanlife icon, jk
+1
I invoice at the end of every day. Usually email them out. If they gotta be mailed, I mail them out the morning of the job. I NEVER wait a month or even a week to send any invoices. I gotta get paid as soon as possible:)
+1
It’s interesting to see the different terms we use…
To me:
[INDENT]Residential = houses/apartment complexes
Commercial = office buildings
Storefront = storefronts
Snaking = fanning[/INDENT]
Hey Seth, there is an option to either use Quickbooks to email it or send it using outlook. You can do that all in Quickbooks, it sends it directly to outlook and thats where you put the read reciept on it…
For route and resi.
I type out the invoices thru QB the night prior. Sometimes I’ll do the whole week. Batch print 2 copies and send in a big yellow envelope (We call our packets) with my guy. For route we usually have between 20 and 35 customers. He does one of three things after each job.
- Marks their invoice paid, collects and folds our copy over twice with cash/check inside.
- Marks both invoices “due” leaving one with them and our unfolded copy back in packet with customers signature.
- For the small percentage (15%) I invoice quarterly, I only print one copy from QB. He gets a signature from customer and puts unfolded invoice in packet.
When I receive the packets back (Mostly on the weekend or whenever I feel like it) I go thru and input all paid invoices in QB. I staple the paids and due invoices together, mark on the front of first invoice which wk/day it is, then file them in order they come in. If a customer requests the invoice it’s very easy to find.
The invoices which we bill quarterly I put in rolodex and attach them to combined invoice every 3 months.
I used to use the little receipt books keeping track of everything in a note book. Then I evolved to little receipt book and quick books. Then QB batch printing the invoices. I love QB!!
I’m sure there are more streamline ways than what I’m doing. This is faster and more effecient than the way I started though.
I do mostly resi and I bill those out when I’m done with the job or if no one is home I just leave it there, trying to get some commercial but none yet those I’m sure I’ll bill monthly…
Our work is primarily residential. We invoice at the time the work is completed and payment is due at time of service…Occasionally our customers are not home during the appointment time, so we leave an invoice and call them later in the day to make arrangements to either mail us a check or to pay by credit card. Hasn’t been an issue so far. On the flip side if we let it go til the end of the month and then sent out invoices our cash flow would be a month behind and in most business cash flow is very important…(Plus Ive found through trial and error that its easier to bill a customer while it is fresh in their minds.
As most of you fellow window cleaners know it’s kind of a pain to use an invoice template do a save as .pdf then open your email attach the invoice find the contact and send the invoice. I came across a really neat free invoicing solution that I think works well for my business and could work well for others on this site. It’s called GratisLite and its all web based so I can invoice, access my customers information, have a sales history and reports whenever I need them. And don’t worry it’s not that 30day trial crap or limited use. It’s by a software company in my town [URL=“http://www.agilx.com”]Agilx that likes to make usefull software for small business.
Mike
MAC Window Cleaning
