11 Response

nathan — You are absolutely correct about the SSN on invoices, and I am sending an e-mail to the editor asking that small part be fixed. It should be noted that if you do not have an EIN, a SSN will still be required for a W-2.

I also understand that this article is based on the “American system” of business. I am writing from my experience, and would welcome further articles with a more international theme. But barring a few acronyms, I feel many points remain valid in any country or culture.

Thanks for the great feedback so far.

posted at 07:21 pm on August 10, 2004 by Kevin

12 Gr8

Gr8 Article, Keep up the Good work :-)

posted at 09:31 pm on August 10, 2004 by Amit

13 Aussie requirements

Here in the United States of Australia we have other requirements, mandated by the Tax Office. If you’re in Oz, contact them and get their handy booklet.

I take it that the EIN is the equivalent of our ABN, just to muddy the water some.

I’ve found keeping invoices in Filemaker Pro pretty darn good, and with Filemaker the layouts of the page can be very prettily designed. I’ve got mine to auto-generate lists of outstanding invoices, lists of invoices due to recurr, and so on. Generating the invoice and sending it via email is now a one-click trick for me.

posted at 01:10 am on August 11, 2004 by eric scheid

14 call back

Early on in my career as an entrepeneur, I may have lost an important client due to invoices. After not having received a payment for one and a half month (what’s normal differs per country), I sent them my standard reminder.

It turned out they had actually tried to pay me, on time no less, but that I had printed the wrong bank account number (preferred methods of payment also differ per country), and that the money had bounced. I made a bad impression with that bounce, but probably more so with my uninformed reminder.

Everybody can make mistakes, so now I phone late customers. I tell them that I appreciated the cooperation, and ask them if they received the bill OK. This way, any potential problems can be resolved by polite dialog.

(It has happened once that a client started shouting at me when I did this, but it turned out later he never had any intention of paying me anyway.)

(Also, but this is hearsay for me, there seem to be companies whose policy it is to always pay late, and who will tell you so after you delivered your service/product. I can imagine that this might make the phone conversation a little awkward.)

posted at 05:32 am on August 11, 2004 by Branko Collin

15 EIN/SSN/W-2

Translated into Canadian:

- EIN = GST registration number

- SSN = Social Insurance Number (SIN)

- W-2 = A form which reports an employee’s annual wages and the amount of taxes withheld from his or her paycheck. I think it’s a T-2 form, but I could be pulling that number from my ass.

posted at 05:55 am on August 11, 2004 by Frank

16 Anything for the PC?

After looking at iWork, I was wondering if there was anything similar for the pc. I have used microsoft money, but found it is very bad at creating invoices, especially if you are self-employed.

posted at 07:30 am on August 11, 2004 by Sam Oldak

17 I have been lucky...

All of my clients pay me on time or at least let me know payment is going to be delayed. If you have become ‘friends’ (I use the word very loosely) with your clients they will feel obligated to pay you on time.

Try joking with them or getting just a little personal. I find sending links to pictures of a recent addition to my home helps out greatly. Also giving them heads up when you are leaving town for a couple of days is appreciated.

This only works if you are a small business (or single person shop) working with another small business.

posted at 10:07 am on August 11, 2004 by Urban Clothing - FOS

18 Great article!

Like everyone else… great article. I was also wondering about PC software…

posted at 11:43 am on August 11, 2004 by marko

19 PDF Invoices

This might be of interested to some. Written a while ago now and getting a bit old it’s a quick example of using XML to create PDF invoices with Formatting Objects. Saved me a heap of time.
http://www.zype.co.nz/resources/tutorials/invoice/

posted at 12:50 am on August 12, 2004 by Josh

20 Many points valid for all business communication

Thanks for an excellent article. What we may want to add is that a lot of these points apply to all business communication (contracts, proposals, reminders, etc.). We find that the easier you make it for the recipient to review, process, and store a communication, the more efficient it is for everyone. The question we like to ask before we send out a communication is “If I received this communication will I be able to review, process, and store it without making a phone call?”

posted at 11:54 am on August 12, 2004 by iProceed.com