Awesome Designers’ Guide to Float through the Invoicing Process Successfully

Designers are one of the most interesting professionals of the world. They love their work and do it at their best; however, most of them absolutely freak out when the project comes down to the invoicing process. Basically, all creative professionals find it difficult to handle the money matters, however, money is what they work for and money is what runs all the business. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial for designers to deal with this nightmare in order to run a thriving business.

The efficiency of the invoicing process is integral in maintaining a healthy cash flow of your business. Smart invoicing enables you to streamline the payments from multiple clients and enables you to get paid in time and according to your desire. No matter what your current invoice process is, you can take steps to help improve both timely payments and customer relations.

Automated Invoicing vs. Manual Invoicing

If you are a salaried designer, your invoicing and billing is taken care of by your employee, however, invoicing is actually a menace for freelance designers who constantly have to generate invoices for their projects. Since, sending quotations and invoices is an important part of your work; it is important for you to decide whether you want to go for automated invoicing or just do it manually.

According to the data management company Formscan as per their recent survey, 48% of UK’s businesses still use entirely manual invoice processing systems. This is very typical of orthodox organizations to have strange hesitation towards automated processes, however, these days a lot of software and online tools are available to make things easier for the people (like freelance designers) who handle multiple responsibilities at work. No matter you opt for a server-based invoicing or a computer-based online invoicing, finding the right one is your task and with some good research it is not really that hard.

First Thing First, a Background Check

In order to conduct a smooth invoicing process, you should be careful in the very first place. Before getting into a legal contract with a certain client, it is suggested that you conduct a background check of the client’s payment habits. You can do so by doing a little research about the client’s reputation in the market regarding payments.

Moreover, (though companies don’t usually share their financial information with outsiders) if possible, you can ask your client to provide you with information regarding their outstanding bills and payments. A background check will enable you to figure out how seriously this client is going to take you billings.

Map out Your Invoicing Terms

When you are dealing with different clients at the same time, chances are that you may easily get dodged when it comes down to the financial matters. Most of this dodging happens when certain confusion arises between the two parties. Therefore, in order to minimize any confusion what so ever, it is good to map out some invoicing terms and present them to the clients beforehand. Some of the most important things to highlight can be:

• • Determine your advance fee


• • Number of days you would need to complete the task


• • What is going to be the fee which you will charge in case of late payments


• • Whether you will deliver the completed project before or after the complete payment


• • What will you charge in case of re-do


• • What should be the mode of payment

Although there will be situations when you will have to bend a few laws, however, try to stick to these principals as much as possible.

Detail of Charges

It is always a good idea to avoid any surprises in your bills. Therefore, provide a comprehensive detail of charges in your invoice i.e. you have charged the X amount for the XYZ service etc. If you don’t give the details and roll out a lump sum invoice, there are chances that the client gets confused and resulting in an unwanted payment delay. Although you can do it in the manual invoice as well, however, almost all invoicing systems have this feature by default or allow you to customize your bills accordingly. Remember, that the clients have all the rights to know what services they are being charged for.

Provide Multiple Modes of Payment

In the world of cut-throat competition, the standout factor is what vouches your success. Especially, if you have plans to convert part-time freelancing into a full-time freelance career, it is important for you to discover and develop your standout factor that will enable you to survive in the freelance world of growing competition. This standout factor may be your client dealing, special discounts, a unique way for marketing or some value added service (on-spot delivery, professional copywriting or printing services etc).

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, your clients should be aware of all the modes though with you can accept the payments. Making transaction easier for them and communicating clearly is always a good thing for increasing the likelihood that you will be paid on time.

Follow-up your Outstanding Bills

There are only a bunch of clients in the world who pays their vendors immediately after receiving an invoice from them. A follow-up is thus an integral part of the invoicing process. As your invoices reach their due dates, take out some time to follow-up with the client regarding its status.

As suggested earlier, if you have already mentioned the due date of payment in the invoice, start a gentle follow-up a day before the due date. Once the due date passed, start a rigorous (but not annoying) follow-up till you get paid. Also, keep reminding them that they will owe you some extra bucks for late payment.

Send It to the Concerned Person, Only!

Many designers face the issue to late payment merely due to sending the invoice to the wrong person. This is particularly the case when you are dealing with a large organization where your invoice mostly ends up generating no response when it’s not sent to the concerned person. Therefore, before initiating the invoicing, be sure to know the name and other contact details of its right recipient. This will result in a smoother and faster invoicing process at your client’s end.

Final Thoughts

Although invoicing is a bit difficult and problematic process, nevertheless; as a designer who is making a livelihood through his freelance business, it is absolutely unavoidable. Make sure to be clear in your communication and avoid all kinds of confusions as much as possible. Always remember that invoicing process doesn’t involve sending the invoice only; you need to take different careful steps to ensure its seamlessness.

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Awesome The Dangers of Flexibility: Should You Stand Your Ground With Clients?

Okay, freelance designers. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: you’re working on a project for a client, and all of a sudden there’s a discrepancy with your payment. Perhaps it’s because of scope creep, or maybe the client just went over budget for some reason. Either way, you’ve been informed that you will not be getting the full amount agreed upon in your contract, and the client is asking you to be “flexible” on the exact amount he or she initially agreed to. You’re already several dozen hours into the project – to back out now would cost you more than it would to simply accept the lesser amount being offered.

What do you do? Do you simply agree to take what you are offered? Do you keep this client as a repeat client in hopes that things will improve with the next project? Why do clients think they can rack up charges with designers and attempt to weasel their way out of paying the full amount? More importantly, why do designers let them? Even more importantly, how do you, as a designer, identify trends common to this type of client behavior, so that you can avoid them completely in the future?

Culture of Service

The key to avoiding situations where you might be called upon to be “flexible” with your fees is educating your clients about the true value of your services as a designer. If your client falls asleep in a taxi and the taxi driver drives past their house and up the street for five more miles, he’s going to charge your client for those five miles, despite the fact that he or she didn’t “mean” to fall asleep. And your client would expect to pay it, as well.

Design is a service, just like being shuttled about in a taxi cab is a service. I’m always surprised – not at the number of clients who don’t understand this, but at the number of designers who also fail to make this connection. You aren’t creating some esoteric work of art that is completely subjective in value and which your clients should feel apprehensive about paying you for. You are providing a service that will help them improve the functionality of their brand, whether that’s through a website, an identity system, a brochure, poster, CD cover, flyer, or anything else you design. Yes, it’s creative work, but ‘creative’ doesn’t equal ‘exempt from standard pay agreements.’ The only way clients will get this thought out of their heads is if designers get it out of their heads first.

No With the Flow

This is going to come off sounding a bit like a rant, but the frequency with which clients avoid paying designers the fees they initially agreed upon is very unsettling to me. Some people simply “go with the flow,” accepting that some clients are going to be unreasonable about things and that there’s nothing you, as a designer, can do about it. But why is that? Why should designers simply be expected to be ‘flexible’ when it comes to payment? I’m just going to come out and say it: there’s something really wrong with the nature of this industry that people can get away with thinking this kind of thing is normal. It’s not normal; in any other industry, it would be called theft, and making a fuss about it could be construed as attempted extortion, if you mess with the wrong kind of litigious service provider. You get a service, you pay your money.

If a client is unhappy with the service you’ve provided, that’s another issue. Designers should always be willing to work with a client if something isn’t right and do their best to make the client happy. But clients trying to get out of paying altogether, or trying to sweep hours, days, weeks, months of work under the rug with some absurd plea about ‘flexibility’ is just wrong, and it has got to stop. The only way freelance designers are ever going to earn any kind of respect for themselves in the industry at large is if they collectively start educating clients about the true value of their services.

When All Else Fails, Become a Psychic

So, after saying all this, you might be wondering whether I’m going answer my own question. Should you, in fact, stand your ground when re-negotiating the terms of your prior agreement with a client? It’s easy to stand back from a distance and proclaim “of course you should! It’s only right, after all.” But the reality of the situation is not always so simple. Perhaps it’s a huge client who’s causing you trouble – the biggest client of your career so far. Is it worth it to argue and possibly get yourself blacklisted by other clients in the same industry? Ideally, you’d be armed with an iron-clad contract and a lawyer at all times, but we all know that sometimes things are less than ideal. Sometimes your client will force you to reword your contract before he or she agrees to work with you, and you have no choice but to comply if you wish to get paid at all. And well, lawyers can get expensive.

So what do you do? I won’t pretend that I know the answer to this very old, very persistent problem. What I will say is that it’s entirely possible to drastically reduce your likelihood of finding yourself in these types of situations in the future, by positioning yourself in a more high-level position within your niche industry. Knowing what makes your clients tick, and how best to serve the markets they serve will make you a much more highly valued service provider, which in turn will drastically reduce your chances of being taken advantage of.

There’s something very strange that happens when people are confronted with a designer who can seemingly read their minds – they show you a level of respect and trust that you would have thought they’d have shown only to their spouses, friends, or cat. It’s a very fascinating thing to watch. Designers aren’t too keen on most clients assuming that they’re mind-readers, but if you make it part of your job to study the habits of your client base, as well as your clients’ customers, users, audience, or other markets, you can arm yourself with this near-psychic ability relatively easily.

What Do You Think?

What do you think designers should do when asked to be ‘flexible’ with their fees? How have you dealt with this kind of situation in the past?

Image Source: The Complete Encyclopedia of Illustrations via Shutterstock.

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