WORKING SMARTER EVERY
DAY
|
|
|
|
7
WAYS TO CUSTOMIZE INVOICES IN CLIENTS &
PROFITS
1. Change
the heading "Invoice" to "Billing" or "Summary" or
some other title that's clearer to your
clients.
2. Pick a cool font (but use trial-and-error to
find the one that looks best).
3. Change the invoice's margins to fit your fancy
letterhead.
4. Paste any PICT file (or .BMP file in Windows)
into the invoice's logo field. You may not need to
print on letterhead!
5. Rearrange job tasks into easy-to-understand
categories (i.e., Creative, Production, Out side
Costs, etc.) by using the Group and Sort
fields.
6. Combine several tasks together using the Roll-up
option.
7. Combine different job billings onto the same
invoice using the multi-job billing invoice type.
It's especially useful for clients with dozens of
small jobs billed together.
How to make these changes: The invoice heading,
logo, and disclaimer are system preferences, and
are changed by choosing Report Options from the
Setup menu. Group and sort are task settings, which
are copied from a job ticket when it's billed.
They're customized on invoices by double-clicking
on an A/R line item. To change the invoice's fonts,
choose Report Fonts from the Utilities menu.
|
|
|
By Mark
Robillard
Getting paid should be easy, but it's one of the more
troublesome jobs in agencies today. The solution is having
the right information at your fingertips when you need it.
With a tool like Clients & Profits, it's easy to see
which invoices are late or which clients have the highest
balances.
Fortunately, Clients &
Profits tracks unpaid invoices and client balances
automatically, so no manual spreadsheets are needed. It
prints reports showing who owes you money, then prints
statements listing each client's unpaid invoices. You can
even reprint invoices quickly and easily for those clients
who seem to always lose their copies.
As long as the invoice has a
balance, it appears on client aging reports. There are two
A/R aging styles: the invoice aging and the account aging.
The invoice aging report shows unpaid invoices in detail,
sub-totaled by client. This report is helpful to see how
many invoices a client hasn't paid. The account aging shows
only client balances. It's a better "snapshot" of your
clients' unpaid balances since it doesn't show invoices. You
choose the aging periods, so you'll see aged balances in
30-60-90 day (which is customizable) intervals.
|
|
Client
statements help remind them that they owe you money.
Statements show overpaid invoices as well. They can show
unpaid invoices only, or list all of the client's invoices
and payments for a period of time (it looks similar to your
VISA bill). As an option, the invoice's job number can
appear on the printed statement to help jog the client's
memory.
A statement can also be used
as a cover sheet for a client that has dozens of invoices
each month. Print the statement for the selected client,
then staple it to the batch of printed invoices. It saves
the client time, since the statement shows the total amount
due.
Entering a client's payment is
easy. Clients & Profits automatically applies a payment
to the oldest invoices first (which you can change). When
the payment is posted, invoices are removed from the aging
report and the client's account balance.
Mark Robillard
developed Clients & Profits and is a co-founder of
Clients and Profits, Inc.
|
