Invoice correctly and avoid customer disputes

One of my main concerns leading up to Christmas and with credit tightening is that businesses can and will make any excuse to delay payments or even not pay invoices at all. Simply by not putting the words “tax invoice” can give rise to a dispute.

We come across many small business owners who do not have enough experience in dealing with large customers, they often take short cuts and don’t use proper software like MYOB for accounting which leaves themselves wide open for huge delays in getting payments in on time.

One of our accounts managers jobs is to make sure that invoices look correct and that the correct customer is being invoiced. The account manager does a very thorough job which makes our clients very happy as their invoices start getting paid back quicker than what are used to.

Some suggestions are to simply use a template, a good source is from Microsoft found here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT101172551033.aspx?ofcresset=1

Otherwise using an array of templates found all over the internet or through your accounting software will make a world of difference.

If you think about it from your customers point of view, they are seeing a huge amount of invoices every day and the easier and clearer you can make it for them the faster they will pay that invoice. A good idea is to put in a quick phone call and ask them how they would like to be invoiced.