Technology has opened the doors to better freelancing opportunities. There are no limitations, and you can get clients from all over the world. As a freelancer, you often have a lot of responsibilities and deliverables. The bigger your graphic design freelance business becomes the more clients you need to deal with, and the more deadlines you have to comply.
The good thing about new technology is that there are innovations that help make your job easier. Messaging apps can help you communicate with global clients straight from your phone. You can use tools that allow you to create graphics faster, and you can also take advantage of the new sites that can help your productivity.
Having a globally-competitive mindset requires automating even the smallest of tasks so you can do more with less time. Automation benefits both the freelancers and the clients because it allows faster and more secure transactions. With that said, using a graphic design invoice template will help speed things up for both you and your customers.
Benefits of Using Graphic Design Invoice Templates
If you’re using an invoice template for graphic designers, you can expect the following benefits:
1. You reduce time filling up invoices
The essential advantage of using models is saving time to fill up the necessary information. Time is the most critical asset of freelance graphic designers. You might take around 15 to 30 minutes when you’re creating one from scratch in Word documents or spreadsheets. That’s the time that you could have spent doing graphic design or finding new clients.
Having a template will save you time altogether. Even if you’ve already saved a design, you will still need to review the information you wrote appropriately. It’s better to spend time studying your invoice than creating it because the premade invoice will already do the grunt work for you.
2. Your invoice automatically looks professional
A professional-looking invoice is hard to attain. Even if you’re a tenured graphic designer, there are specifics in designing documents like invoices that you may not know about. Other times, you get too overwhelmed with creating for other people that you often neglect your invoice style.
Using a template allows you to maximize the function while improving the design with your elements. Since most models are updated from time to time, your style can become better with more use.
3. You can bill clients faster
You could be going after so many deadlines every day. Some clients have a particular billing window. You wouldn’t want to miss timely billing the client, just because you had to create your invoice manually. We all have 24 hours in a day, and we would prefer spending that time to rake in more cash.
With the various time zones and time differences, every minute delay on your client’s billing could mean that your invoice gets paid longer. Having a professional invoice template will help you quickly fill in the details, so you don’t have to spend a half-hour on it. You type in the relevant information, then bill your client in less than five minutes.
4. You won’t miss any information
Not missing any info is one of the most important benefits of using invoice templates for graphic designers. Invoices have specific data required, so it’s essential to use a model that already has the fields that you only need to fill out. You might miss out on crucial data like contact numbers, addresses, and other financial areas. It’s understandable because it’s not in your line of work to deal with invoices day in and day out.
Having a template enables you to fill out all the necessary fields without the expertise or accounting background.
5. Automatically sends payment reminders and charges late fees
One advantage of using an invoice template is that it reminds the client that he or she needs to pay you on a specific date. When you’re dealing with multiple clients at a time, it might take time to send each of them reminders and charge fees for late payment. There are invoice templates that are updated as the account remains unpaid.
When you create an invoice from scratch, you need to manually update the late fees or just scratch it out altogether. Invoice templates allow you to remind the client without sounding too desperate because the software will do the reminders for you. The payment reminder and late fees help you get paid quicker.
6. Track invoice payments
The primary purpose of the invoice is to ask for remittances. When you do manual invoicing, you might be able to send and make invoices on time, but you will have to encode once they made payment. Using a freelance graphic design invoice template will allow you to track the fees as they happen seamlessly.
7. Invoices are accountant-friendly
As a freelance graphic designer, you often deal with company accountants. While you send your invoice to your immediate supervisor or manager, both forward your document to the accounting department. Using a certified invoice template guarantees that the accountants will understand what they’ve received and that the design style does not interfere with the function.
If your design is too extravagant, the accountants may not know what to do with it immediately. There are also possible design flaws like numbers that look too small or elements that look too confusing. If you have a design that’s not accountant-friendly, you could get paid the wrong amount, or the invoice could be sent back for clarifications. Both of those consequences could waste your and your clients’ time.
Conclusion
Freelance graphic designers approach jobs with creativity and resourcefulness. To help enhance professionalism and trust, you can use invoice templates and software. It’s easier to keep tabs on your billing if you use a template instead of just relying on spreadsheets. If you’re looking for invoices, make sure that you are using those that are specifically for graphic designers so that they will have the appropriate data to fill up.
