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What goes on an invoice
The fields that make an invoice payable, and the ones that only look official.
Quote or estimate?
One binds you to a price. The other doesn't. Knowing which you sent matters.
Getting paid on time
What actually shortens the gap between sending an invoice and seeing the money.
Numbering your documents
A numbering scheme you won't regret in eighteen months.
Fixing an invoice you already sent
Why you issue a credit note instead of editing the original.
Quote guides
How to write a quote that wins work
A quote is an offer you can be held to. Here is how to make one you are happy to be held to.
A quote template you can reuse
The parts that stay the same job to job, and the parts that must never be left in.
How long a quote should last
Why every quote needs an expiry date, how long to make it, and what to do when it lapses.
Estimate guides
How to write an estimate
Pricing a job whose scope you cannot see yet, without writing yourself a trap.
An estimate template you can reuse
Build it once with your assumptions and tolerance already in place, and stop rewriting them.
When the final bill differs from the estimate
How to handle the gap, what to show on the invoice, and how to avoid the argument entirely.
Proforma Invoice guides
What is a proforma invoice
A priced document that is not a bill, and the confusion that causes when it is treated as one.
Proforma invoices for customs
What border authorities look for, and the fields that cause delays when they are missing.
A proforma invoice template
Build in the fields customs asks for, and the line that stops it being treated as a bill.
Purchase Order guides
How to raise a purchase order
Your written instruction to a supplier, and the reference everything afterwards is checked against.
A purchase order template
Fix your details and approval rules once, and raising an order takes two minutes.
Three way matching, explained simply
The check that stops you paying for twelve when eleven arrived.
Receipt guides
How to write a receipt
What a receipt has to prove, and the fields that make it stand up later.
A receipt template you can reuse
Set it up once with your details and payment methods, and issuing one takes under a minute.
Receipt or invoice, and when to send which
One asks for money. The other confirms it arrived. Sending the wrong one causes real problems.
Credit Note guides
A credit note template
The one field that makes a credit note useful, and the one that makes it useless.
Credit note or refund
One is paperwork, the other is money. Confusing them leaves accounts that never balance.
Delivery Note guides
How to write a delivery note
The paper that travels with the goods, and why it carries no prices.
A delivery note template
Set it up once with the signature block on and the prices off.
Delivery note or packing list
They overlap, they are not the same, and shipping the wrong one causes avoidable delays.
Job Card guides
How to write a job card
The record of what you were given, what condition it was in, and what you agreed to do.
A job card template
Built so the condition section gets filled in, because that is the one that gets skipped.
Approving extra work on a job
The authorisation limit, the phone call, and why a text message is worth more than a nod.
Goods Received Note guides
What is a goods received note
The record your own team writes when a delivery arrives, and why the supplier's note is not enough.
A goods received note template
Designed so the person holding it has to count, rather than tick.
Short and damaged deliveries
What to do in the ten minutes while the vehicle is still there.
Statement of Account guides
How to write a statement of account
A monthly summary of an account, sent alongside invoices rather than instead of them.
A statement of account template
Set up the columns once and a monthly statement takes five minutes per customer.
Open item or balance forward
Two ways to lay out a statement, and which one your customer's accounts team can actually use.