Branding your Invoices

Why customise your invoices?

Customising invoices is something a lot of small business owners neglect to do, not realising the opportunity for what it is. Customised invoices are an excellent opportunity to brand your business. Just as you would have brand consistency between your business cards, letterheads, marketing materials, website and more, you also need to brand your invoices.

As a bookkeeper and small business owner, it has gotten to the point where I can tell you exactly what software that business is using to maintain their books. For me, I find this sad and boring too. Why not take the time to add your logo? Why not take the time to add your website details? Why not take the time to get rid of that ugly Times New Roman font and use the font from your logo or the style guide for your business?

Lets think about the purpose of an invoice. It’s to ensure you get paid promptly and on time. If your invoice stands out from the others and is easily recognisable, it stands to reason that you will be paid more promptly. I have a client who has designed her invoices to look like a utility bill. The idea behind her reasoning is that if it looks like a bill it will be paid more promptly to ensure services are not disconnected.

To customise your invoices you simply do the following:

MYOB
•    Click on Sales and then Print/Email Invoices
•    Click on Advance Filters and then on Customise
•    You can now edit the invoice and save with a new name

QuickBooks
•    Click on Lists and then templates
•    High light the form you wish to customise and then right click and edit
•    Make your changes and save

The bonus with each software package is that you can have multiple invoice templates for the same business. For example, Tilda Virtual Services is a sole trader. But I also own Tilda Hosting. I have a separate website, branding and domain for hosting to the virtual assistance website. For income tax purposes, my accountant will lump all my income together regardless of which trading name earned it and for that reason I also decided to keep the records for both in the same data-file in QuickBooks. Through using two invoicing templates and classes (talking about classes is a discussion for another day…) I’ve managed to cut down my bookkeeping time and have everything together for the accountant.

So think about your invoices and how they represent your business. Can they be modified to suit the brand you’ve built for your business or do they need a total makeover?

First published in the Business Mums Network Magazine. Click here for more details!