Streamlined invoicing can help speed up the billing process – and get you paid faster.
When you perform a service for a customer, it’s obviously nice to get paid for that work as quickly as possible. Late or slow-to-arrive payments can be the bane of a small-business owner’s existence. Meanwhile, delinquent accounts represent one of the biggest economic hardships that entrepreneurs face — a significant impediment to proper cash flow.
The most important thing you can do to get paid promptly is to invoice promptly. Too many small-business owners drag their feet through this process, waiting days or even weeks to send an invoice. And that’s not difficult to understand: Invoicing can take time — time that you don’t always have.
Yet without invoicing there’s no way you’ll get paid on time. The solution, then, is to streamline and automate the invoicing process — to ensure that it takes you minimal time and that it is done with consistency.
There are a number of apps that can help you with this. For small-business owners who work in service or home improvement professions, these apps can be lifesavers: After completing a job you can spend just a minute or two on your phone or tablet, create and send an invoice, and ensure that a proper record is kept.
But what are the best invoicing apps out there? A handful of contenders spring to mind.
The best app for Windows users
The best of the bunch is arguably BizXpert, an app that truly makes invoicing seamless. After you spend a moment watching the demo, you’ll immediately know how to use this intuitive app. You can import information about your company and your clients, and from there you’ll be ready to go. Using BizXpert, you can create and then either print or email an invoice in literally a minute’s time. It doesn’t get more streamlined than that.
BizXpert offers a number of other features, too, including inventory management, appointment setting and more. The best part: The app is free! The only downside: It’s available only for Windows users.
Options for the Apple crowd
There are a few alternatives to recommend, as well — especially for the Apple users out there. Invoice by Wave, for example, is another free invoicing app that allows you tosend unlimited invoices to your clients, and to track them as you go. The app also ties in with other Wave resources, like its credit card payment app, so you can potentially develop a whole suite of Wave small-business solutions.
Hours is another app worth looking into: Though it’s not actually an invoicing app, it does offer some robust features for tracking your time, which can prove invaluable to those who charge by the hour for their services.
Finally, Invoice2go offers an array of invoicing features and is available in both a limited (free) and plus (paid) version and is also available for Android.
For small-business owners, it is worthwhile to check out the features lists on some of these apps, shop around and compare. An invoicing app can make a world of difference in the ease with which you run your company — and it can ensure that you get paid as promptly as possible.
About the Author
Amanda E. Clark is the president and editor-in-chief of Grammar Chic Inc., a full-service professional writing company. She is a published ghostwriter and editor, and currently under contract with literary agencies in Malibu, California, and Dublin, Ireland.
Since founding Grammar Chic in 2008, Clark, along with her team of skilled professional writers, has offered expertise to clients in the creative, business and academic fields. The company accepts a wide range of projects and often engages in content and social media marketing, drafts resumes, press releases, Web content, marketing materials and ghostwritten creative pieces.
Contact Clark at www.grammarchic.net.
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