Comments on: Invoices Suck

By: Graham Reed

Graham Reed — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:01:13 +0000

I’ve been using http://www.invoicesontherun.com
Used it for sometime now and what’s best it’s free.
I’m a designer so it’s important my clients receive a half decent invoice

By: TroyV

TroyV — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:13:44 +0000

Here’s the answer to your invoicing dilemma In fact, the first step in this solution might bring total harmony to every area of your life: 1. Convert to Mac. 2. Buy iBiz time management and invoicing software. http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibiz/
The company’s tagline says it all: Beautiful, intuitive, powerful…the way Mac applications should be. Great post, it’s always a pleasure to listen to your story.

By: Daniel Roberts

Daniel Roberts — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 22:52:23 +0000

Ever had a boss that basically tells you not to waste time planning? That’s pretty much my boss. Little planning, no documentation, no planning for reusability, advocates copy and paste, against seperating view and data access, etc. He can get stuff done quickly but of course his way of going about it shows. Kind of frustrating. I would much rather have a boss that pushes planning and good practices.

By: Phillip Kerman

Phillip Kerman — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:24:30 +0000

You say ‘haste makes waste’ in your code… I’d say, yes. But there’s also a point where you can over-engineer. That probably doesn’t apply to your 5 month project… but both points (haste/waste and don’t over-engineer) apply to invoices. Personally, I’m so low tech it’s silly. I keep a text file and add to it every time I work on a project. I usually include notes as to what I did. Often, if the project is getting gnarly or close to crunch time, I’ll make a simple table in which I track all bug fixes and revision numbers.

When it’s time to send a bill, I just copy the hours into excel–really for no other reason than to check my addition.

In any event, a contract MUST build in time for invoicing as well as down-time… prospecting… keeping up on technology… and networking. It’s so easy to get one job and become 100% booked–but it’s important (to me anyway) to never let that happen. It’s tough to justify sometimes but those other things keep you sane and keep your business moving. A key goal is to smooth out your activity–that is, avoid hills and valleys. Anyway, close to your #1 priority must be getting paid. I mean, sure, it’s nice to take on projects you believe in… and those that help you grow. But if you’re not getting the money you need then you’ll never make it to the next step (of growing etc.)… you’ll just burn out and move on to something else.

Hope it helps.

By: dman

dman — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:39:56 +0000

Welcome to what we call ‘overhead’. You’ll learn to love the invoicing. Invoices mean coin. Coin means food. More coin means shelter. More and more coin means toys. The bigger your business gets, the more overhead you incur in the way of business processes.

Quicken for Small Business or Microsoft’s new small business accounting package are both good.

Don’t be crazy — no administrative assistants needed until your generating invoices every couple days and need to track down unpaid bills. For now you set aside time every Friday afternoon to do invoicing and other business paperwork.