If you're a freelancer or small business owner, quickly creating professional invoices can take time and effort. Luckily, Quickbooks online makes creating accurate and organized invoices easy with its user-friendly interface. It streamlines the invoicing process, allowing you to craft invoices quickly that look professional and are free of errors.
You can also access sophisticated financial reports to better manage your business's finances. Quickbooks also simplifies managing customer information and tracking expenses, sales, and more. Furthermore, Quickbooks online is cloud-based, so you can access information from any device with an internet connection.
Are you a freelancer, online business owner, or entrepreneur looking to create professional invoices using Quickbooks? If so, you’re in the right place! Here are 10 tips to help you get started. However, before we get into that, let's take a quick look at what Quickbooks is.
What is Quickbooks Online?
QuickBooks is an accounting software tool developed by Intuit. It is designed to help small business owners manage their accounting and financial operations more efficiently. QuickBooks has various features that allow users to track expenses, create invoices, manage accounts payable and receivable, generate reports, and more. Businesses can customize the software to meet their specific needs, such as setting up payrolls, tracking employee time and attendance, creating project estimates, and creating budget reports.
With its intuitive interface and array of features, QuickBooks makes managing a business’s finances simple and efficient. It can give business owners insights into their finances, allowing them to make more informed decisions regarding their business operations. Furthermore, QuickBooks can be integrated with other applications, such as online banking services and payment processing solutions, to provide businesses with a more comprehensive accounting solution.
According to a Statista report, 64.4% of small and medium-sized enterprise owners in the United States used software to help them in their accounting, highlighting the importance of Quickbooks. Another report by Accountancy Age shows that 78% of small businesses relied on cloud accounting in 2020.
10 Tips For Creating Professional Invoices Using Quickbooks
Understand your business needs
Before setting up your invoicing process in Quickbooks, take the time to understand your business needs. This includes understanding what services or products you’ll be providing, how much they will cost, and when they need to be paid. Understanding your business needs will help you create accurate and timely invoices.
Knowing who your customers are and when they need to be billed is key to effective invoicing. Additionally, you want to ensure your invoices comply with any legal or tax regulations that apply to you. By taking the time to understand your business needs, you can minimize errors and ensure that your customers are billed correctly and on time.
Doing this research early enough will help you establish your invoicing process in QuickBooks Online more accurately and effectively. When you have established all the plan details, it will be easier to set up invoicing and other processes in QuickBooks. This will save you time and energy in the long run and help you maintain a successful business. Therefore, it’s important to take the time to do your research, plan, and understand your business needs before you start setting up invoices in QuickBooks.
Set up your business tax settings
Ensure you set up your tax settings correctly in Quickbooks before creating an invoice. This will ensure that you are charging the correct amount of taxes on each invoice and that these taxes are properly reported for tax time. Setting up your tax settings correctly can save you time and stress when filing taxes.
It can also help you avoid any penalties or fees that come with filing taxes incorrectly. This is why it is important to take the time to properly configure your tax settings, as it will save you from dealing with any issues that come from incorrectly configured taxes. Taking this step also helps ensure you comply with all applicable tax laws in your area.
This can also help you stay on top of any changes that might come along in the future, as these changes can affect your taxes. Properly configuring your tax settings can help ensure that you are up-to-date and compliant with all the latest laws and regulations. Furthermore, correctly setting up your taxes can make filing your taxes significantly easier, as all the information will be easily accessible and ready to file.
Create a standard template for your invoices
Creating a standard template for your invoices in Quickbooks Online will help ensure that you include all the necessary information on each invoice, such as customer name and address, itemized services or products, and payment terms. Moreover, it can streamline the process for you and your customer and ensure that the correct bill is sent out in the correct format each time.
This helps to ensure that the information on each invoice is accurate and consistent so both you and your customers are on the same page. Furthermore, standardizing invoices can help you to keep track of your accounts receivable more easily since they will all look the same.
All in all, creating a standard template for your invoices can save you time and energy. This way, you won’t have to create a new invoice every time you send one out, and you can be sure that all the necessary information is included.
Add relevant information to your invoices
Ensure to include relevant information such as discounts, shipping costs, delivery dates, taxes, and other charges on each invoice. This will help ensure that you accurately bill your customers for their services or products. Including all relevant information will also help prevent any discrepancies that may arise.
Furthermore, including all fees and taxes will help protect businesses from legal repercussions if a customer files a dispute. When creating an invoice, it is vital to ensure that each invoice contains all the necessary information. Doing so will help to reduce any potential issues that may arise in the future.
This information should also include any applicable discounts that may have been applied. Additionally, shipping costs, delivery dates, taxes, and other charges should be detailed on each invoice. By providing customers with an accurate breakdown of their purchases, they will have the necessary information to review and confirm their invoices.
Utilize automation and reminders
Quickbooks offers various automated services that can help streamline your invoicing process. These include automatic reminders when payments are overdue and automated recurring invoices for regular customers. Utilizing these automation tools is important for any business, ensuring that invoices are sent out on time and that payments are collected quickly and accurately. It frees up time that would otherwise be spent manually creating and sending invoices.
Automation also reduces the risk of mistakes, such as incorrect billing or double-billing, since the software does the work for you. Finally, automation allows for easier tracking and management of payments, which helps to ensure that your books are balanced and up-to-date. This provides a more accurate view of your business’s financial health, which is essential for making sound decisions.
Calculate sales tax automatically
Quickbooks allows you to automatically set up sales tax calculations so that the correct amount of taxes is included in each invoice. This will help ensure that you correctly collect the appropriate taxes from your customers. It is also important to remember that it is the business's responsibility to collect taxes correctly.
Setting up an automatic calculation can help reduce the risk of errors due to manual calculations. Including the correct amount of taxes on invoices can help ensure that customers are given accurate information about the total purchase cost. This will help maintain a trusting relationship between the business and its customers.
Any collected taxes are then the business's responsibility to remit them to the appropriate authorities. Keeping accurate records and having good communication with customers can help ensure that taxes are paid on time and that you can quickly resolve any discrepancies.
Use credit card payments
Quickbooks makes it easy to accept credit card payments for invoices. This can be a great way to get paid quickly and securely and can save you time by eliminating the need to enter credit card information into your system manually. Accepting credit card payments also allows you to make more money, as more customers will be encouraged to purchase from you when they know you accept credit card payments.
It can also help build trust and customer loyalty as customers feel confident that their payments are secure and will be processed quickly. Ultimately, using Quickbooks and credit card payments can help you save time and money on bookkeeping and paperwork, as all transactions will be recorded automatically.
Moreover, having the ability to accept credit card payments can help simplify the process of getting paid and can be a great way to build customer trust and loyalty. It can also help you increase sales because customers are more likely to pay with their credit cards. With Quickbooks, you can easily accept credit card payments and benefit from this feature's advantages.
Follow up on late payments
Quickbooks allows you to easily set up reminders when payments are overdue so that you can promptly follow up on late payments. This is important because when payments are not made on time, it can disrupt cash flow and be difficult to manage.
Following up on late payments promptly demonstrates to customers that you take your business seriously and can help to create a positive relationship. Documenting the communication around overdue payments is also beneficial in case legal action becomes necessary. By following up on late payments, you can help maintain good customer relationships and ensure all accounts are kept up to date.
You can also use the reminder system to track any payments that have been requested but have yet to be received. This can help you quickly identify any payments that may be lost in the mail or forgotten about.
Bonus: Read more on how to followup on late invoices.
Track your invoices
Using Quickbooks, you can easily track all of your invoices in one place so that you always have an accurate record of who has paid and how much they owe. By keeping your invoices organized and up-to-date, you can ensure that you are always aware of your cash flow and that all your customers are paying on time.
Tracking your invoices provides greater security and protection against fraud, as you can easily identify any discrepancies and take action to rectify them if needed. Invoice tracking also makes it simpler to identify any patterns or trends in your customer payment behavior, which can help inform your future business decisions.
Overall, tracking your invoices is an essential part of running a successful business. Not only does it help keep your finances organized, but it also gives you the ability to anticipate and plan for any potential problems.
Use reports to monitor your invoices
Quickbooks offers various reports to help you track and monitor invoices, such as the Sales Tax Summary and Accounts Receivable Aging Reports. These are helpful for businesses to keep track of their finances and provide an organized record of all activities. These reports are beneficial for tax filing purposes and can provide helpful insights into where to focus efforts on cost reduction or increasing sales.
The Sales Tax Summary Report offers a comprehensive view of all the taxes you owe and have paid on sales to customers. In contrast, the Accounts Receivable Aging Report provides a detailed chart of how long customers have had unpaid invoices so that you may better plan when and how to collect those payments.
Both reports are essential for keeping your finances in order and can be accessed quickly and easily through Quickbooks. This allows you to easily assess the amount of money owed and compare it to the purchase orders associated with those invoices. It is important to use these reports to ensure that all invoices are paid on time and that any discrepancies are noticed and rectified.
Summing Up
Creating professional invoices in Quickbooks Online is easy and efficient! With its user-friendly interface, automated features, and reporting capabilities, Quickbooks is a great choice for freelancers, online business owners, and entrepreneurs who need to generate invoices quickly. The cloud-based version of Quickbooks allows users to access their invoices and financial data on any device, anytime.
The software also contains helpful tutorials and customer support to ensure a smooth experience. Quickbooks is an effective software to help individuals and businesses create invoices easily and accurately. These 10 tips will help you create professional invoices. Good luck!
On the other hand, if Quickbooks seems far-fetched, you can learn more about creating professional invoices that get you paid using the IntaSend invoicing system.
Cover Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
