What is the Best Time to Send an Invoice Online?

Option 1: Send Invoice Before Starting the Work

When you send an invoice template before the beginning of a job, it suits you perfectly for small-scale projects, and there are a few upsides and downsides to sending an invoice before service. First, you can start sending invoices with the help of readymade invoice templates to your clients using our modern online invoicing application. Invoice templates help save time and effort.

Improved Cash Flow

Receiving money before you even start the project helps your business a lot in easing the cash flow. Not only you could buy supplies and resources required for the project from the sum received instead of buying on credit, but it also increases your chances of bidding on other projects simultaneously. Moreover, strong cash flow brings stability to any business, especially freelancers and startups.

Sincerity towards the Project

It is evident that if your project or services are paid in full before even you have started working on it, you have made a legally binding commitment and shown your sincerity to complete the job in the required time. But, more importantly, it can harm the reputation and ruin client-customer relationships if the work is not delivered on time.

Indecisive Clients

Many clients are indecisive about the invoicing and get anxious as they have paid in advance for the goods and services they have yet to receive. Small field service business operators suffer from the same conundrum as they have received the money for the project beforehand. Anxious clients add stress to already stressful projects.

Port Clearance

The client often sends an invoice online before service, known as a proforma invoice. Proforma invoices are more like the proof of the service or purchase deal between the client and the seller. It is also known as a preliminary bill of sale. For example, a Proforma invoice template is essential for port clearance during an import and export deal. Hence, you need to have an online invoicing application that can help draft quick proforma as and when required for your clients or customers.

Option 2: Send Invoice After Completing the Work

Secondly, you must read this section when you are worried about when to send an invoice online. More often than not, invoices are sent after the job is completed. Generally, field service businesses are also involved in sending invoices once the work is done. You can start sending invoices using our online invoice creator.

Unsure of Payment

This is a bit tricky, sledge. In most cases, after you finish a project for one of the regular clients, the incentives for customers to pay you to decrease. Often, sending invoices after completing the job may also leave you nothing for the efforts if there aren’t any strict payment terms.

Meet or Exceed Customer Expectations

The purpose of sending an invoice before or after payment is to get you paid faster. Hence, once the job is done and invoices are sent, it may or may not help you manage your cash flow depending on the client’s payment schedule. Also, you try to convey to clients the incentive to meet or exceed the quality expectations by waiting to bill customers.

New Clients or Short-term Project

Invoice before service implies the one-time or short-term projects where you are unsure about the payment. Hence, you need to send an invoice template after delivering the work details or the initial task. For example, you can ask the client to pay you right after submitting the overall work summary or the first draft if you are a writer.

Option 3: Best of Both

Still, confused about when to send an invoice online? Invoice before service? Invoice before or after the payment? Here is one more tip to conclude using an online invoicing application.

The best way to attain a margin is by taking advantage of getting paid before and after the work. For the same, you can make sure to request an upfront payment of 25 to 30% of the project’s total cost. This should suffice you for purchasing any equipment and materials, to begin with the task. Then, stipulate a final payment that covers the completion of a project.

Whether you send an invoice online before or after the work, make sure that the payment terms and conditions of the project are mentioned in a legally binding contract. Moreover, you can also use online invoicing software to help you with the time and expense tracking of the project. Invoicing and billing software can also help you manage the project, recurring invoices, customizing invoices, and other features.

Concluding Note

In the end, transitioning to the online invoice software is a viable option and a big step, but on the contrary, it also helps save you time and money. If you are considering simplifying your accounting and invoicing process and getting rid of tedious paperwork, then the best option for you to consider is Moon Invoice.

Following are the quick ways a business can benefit from Moon Invoice and could avoid a financial backlog.

• Schedule invoicing
• Direct invoicing
• Invoice any time, anywhere
• Organized invoicing system
• Ease cash flow management
• Manage multiple businesses
• Quickly import, export, print, and sync
• Create and manage your custom settings
• Save invoices offline
• Manage multiple payment options and many more.

All this might sound expensive, but in reality, it is not. The online invoicing application from Moon Invoice comes with a 7 day free trial period to give you first-hand operational experience and the functionality feel of the app. So, we do not see any reasons for you to hold back from giving this much-awaited momentum to your business.

So, stop thinking about when to send an invoice online or how to send an invoice; you have a perfect invoicing solution to take care of different invoice templates.

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