Making an invoice can be very confusing. What must be included? ![]() Are invoices legally binding? Should I charge tax? What kind of invoice do I need? It isn’t that there is no help online; it’s that there is too much. An internet search for “how to make an invoice” returns more than 85 million results – some helpful, if you can find them, and others not so much. Enter Definitive Guide to Invoicing. We talked to legal experts, studied authoritative publications, and made our own extensive independent research, all to make invoicing clear and simple for you. We also painstakingly prepared 144 professional invoice templates to give you a head start on creating your own, and all for free! ![]() ![]() You can also. An itemized list of goods shipped usually specifying the price and the terms of sale: “The distinction between these two words is actually more a matter of custom and the business being transacted”, a professional editor with expertise in etymology, lexicography and dictionary construction. For example, an attorney charges for billable hours. Work that is commissioned often comes with an invoice. At a restaurant, you get a bill for items already delivered and for which payment is immediate. From a supplier, you get an invoice for goods ordered or received and for which payment is expected. How does an invoice differ from a receipt? What are these other charges on here? Be clear and concise in labeling shipping, handling or other fees as well as sales tax or if applicable. Include a sales tax for taxable items sold to in-state buyers. It’s legally required but complicated because, as well as what is considered a, vary by state and even by cities within a state. The, a bill that would change that ambiguity by requiring remote (online) sellers to collect and remit sales taxes, has been languishing in the U.S. House after being passed by the Senate in 2013. Modern day lawyers agree. “An invoice in and of itself is not a “legal document,” according to attorney of the St. Marie Law Firm Co., L.P.A. “It is simply a request for payment, no different than if you asked someone for money,” he said. The following steps cover how to make invoices in Word 2003. You can also access invoice templates for Microsoft Word and Excel directly from the Microsoft. Download a free invoice template for Microsoft Word. Also find other invoice templates for Excel that automate calculations. “An invoice is not legally binding because it is not a contract,” Todd C. Scott, an attorney and legal ethics expert with, agrees. “An invoice is simply a correspondence from the business to the client informing the client what services were performed on their behalf and/or what goods are being provided.”. But just because they are not legal documents it does not mean there is no recourse for non-payment., an attorney, author, public speaker and the president of Big Ideas for Small Businesses Inc., said, “An invoice is a reflection of the terms you agree to in a. If the invoice goes unpaid and you, you’re really suing for breach of contract.” Inother words, in order to be a legal document, it has to fulfill the requirements of a and therein lies the rub. The legality of contracts is so difficult to interpret there is a branch of law called. There likely will come a time when you have to correct an error you made on this first invoice. Whether you forgot to charge for something or forgot to issue a credit, you can send out a. Make it clear to your customer that the original bill has been changed, and keep your own records in order by doing these things: • Change “Invoice” to “Revised Invoice”. • Change the date of the revised invoice. • Give it the same invoice number but add an “R” at the end. For instance, invoice 2928 becomes invoice 2928R. • Highlight what charges have changed or have been added. You can do that by changing the color of the font, increasing the size of the font, boldfacing it or underlining it. • Change the “total amount due” and extend the due date if necessary. • Include a cover letter explaining what has changed. Proforma Invoices A proforma invoice, also known as a preliminary invoice, is a quotation of what the proposed goods or services will be and what they will cost. It includes all the details of the buyer and seller, as well as descriptions of the goods involved in the transaction. If everything in the proforma invoice is agreed upon, the commercial invoice that will follow will be the same. If the amount or cost of the goods or services is renegotiated, the commercial invoice will reflect those changes. Continue to see. Freelance Invoices A freelance invoice is designed to be used by people providing work in fields such as graphic design, photography, copywriting, computer programming, website design and development, consulting, video production, and translation. Although it is much like a service invoice, it offers ways to charge for services arrived at through different measures. For instance, freelancers could charge by the word, by the number of images, or by the length of a finished product. Continue to see. Description This spreadsheet features a new clean and crisp design with the default color scheme set to grayscale for more ink-friendly printing. It's a piece of cake to change the color scheme, though. You can go to Page Layout > Themes > Colors, or edit the fonts and background colors to whatever you want. The table includes a QTY (quantity) and a UNIT PRICE column so that you can enter labor charges as hours and rate and still list individual service charges. You can include a discount by entering a negative value in the UNIT PRICE column. If you happen to live in a state that charges sales tax or gross receipts tax for services, you can use the second worksheet (the tab labeled InvoiceWithTax) that lets you include tax. A Few Tips If this is your first invoice, start with an invoice number of 1042. You probably don't want your client to know that this is the first time you have ever billed anybody. Mail it or send a PDF: When sending an invoice to a client, either print and mail a paper copy, or send a PDF. It is not as professional to send an invoice in an editable format like an Excel or Word document. It is extremely easy with Excel 2010 or later to create a PDF - Just go to File > Save As and choose PDF. Date Due: Including the phrase 'Net 30 Days' in the TERMS field means that the invoice is due 30 days after the goods are received or the services have been performed. If you think your client may not understand that, you could change the label to DUE DATE and enter a date. Customer ID: If you are only billing a few clients, you may not need a Customer ID field. You could change the label to QUOTE # to refer to a previous quote, or you could just delete the label and leave the field blank. Creating a Receipt: If you need to give a client a receipt after they pay the invoice amount, you can just change the label at the top in cell H1 from 'INVOICE' to 'RECEIPT' and add a note below the Total saying something like 'Paid in full.' We've automated this for you. In this template, all you need to do is select 'RECEIPT' from the in cell H1 and a note will appear below the total that says 'Paid in full. See Also: • - This article explains how you can organize your invoice files and store copies of the invoice for billing repeat customers. Related Content.
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