- Welcome to the second video in my series
on how to get paid on time as a freelancer.
If you haven't seen the first video yet,
click here for advice on setting up a payment schedule.
But right here on this video,
I wanna talk to you about invoicing and receiving the money.
Once the client has agreed to your terms
and signed the contract,
the next step is to send them an invoice.
Now even if you're just getting started with freelancing,
you have to be sending them a proper invoice.
A simple email with the amount
and your payment details is just not gonna cut it.
If you wanna be treated like a professional
and get paid on time,
then you have to act like a professional.
There are many different ways to create an invoice.
Some people use the invoicing features built
into accounting software like Xero, or FreshBooks, or Wave.
Other people use specific invoicing tools
like Cushion or Harvest, perhaps.
But you can also just send a simple PDF
that has all the right information on it.
Here's what you need to make sure your invoice includes.
Your details, your client's details, and just a note,
they'll often ask you to put their address on the invoice,
description of the work and the amount charged,
today's date, and the date the invoice is due
with information on how to pay you.
You should make the due date on the invoice the date
that you need to start the work
in order to meet the deadline.
And give yourself a bit of leeway in there as well,
if you can do, that's always a good idea.
If that date is tomorrow then put that.
You don't have to give your clients two weeks to pay.
If they need to meet that deadline,
then they will pay you when you need to be paid.
I will say though that you need
to make absolutely sure you're communicating
really well with your client about this.
We will cover communication in more depth
in the next video but for now,
I'll just say that when you send an invoice to your client,
you should be pointing out key details
like the due date and your preferred payment method.
So, that those important things
aren't accidentally skimmed over.
And you can make sure you're both on the same page.
Let's talk more about payment methods.
Because the key to getting paid on time
is to make it really easy for your clients to pay you.
So, that there's no friction, no excuses.
If you live in the same country as you client,
then a bank transfer is pretty easy.
But that's not so great once your clients are international.
As many of mine are.
When you're working on projects
where you're charging more than a simple hundred dollars,
then PayPal and Stripe fees get pretty astronomical.
And international bank transfers
are definitely a bit of a nightmare.
I had one go missing recently.
That took about two months to sort out.
So, I definitely learned my lesson there.
And that is why I prefer to use
a service called TransferWise,
who are the sponsor of this video series.
TransferWise is a service you can use
for sending money internationally.
I get paid using TransferWise every two weeks
from my contracting job in the US.
And it's always hassle-free.
What makes them better than PayPal or a bank transfer,
in my opinion, is that they charge a really low fee.
And they use the real mid-market exchange rate.
So, you end up getting more money at the end of the day.
Banks can be a bit sneaky.
And they'll often say they charge a low fee,
but then they'll add a mark up to the exchange rate.
So, you end up getting less than you should.
Just as an example here, let me show you.
If a client is paying me a thousand dollars,
and actually that's not the tip,
I always charge clients in the currency
of the country that they live in.
Because that way that's one less step for them
to have to do the conversion,
to work out what the value is.
So, anyway, a thousand dollars.
I can see here that TransferWise
will charge an eight dollar fee,
which is pretty great for a transfer of this size.
And then I use this compare prices option,
and it shows you how much you would get
if you did this through a bank.
And as you can see, it's sadly much less.
Let's check out PayPal as well.
Doing these calculations again,
I'd get much less if the client paid me through here.
Thanks to both the fee and the exchange rate.
From looking at these numbers,
I actually worked out that by the end of the year,
thanks to TranferWise,
because that's the way that I get paid,
I will have save about two thousand pounds
from being lost to fees, which is practically a raise.
So, it's definitely worth caring about this stuff.
So, check them out, it's a payment option.
There's a link in the description
where you can go and do that.
I definitely recommend them.
Like I said, this is what I use for my clients
and a million other people use them as well.
So, they're very trustworthy.
I also find them much easier to use than a bank too.
Because the site is so nicely designed.
And as a designer, I appreciate that sort of thing.
What I do on my invoice, is I put a clickable link
to TranferWise in the payment section.
And that way the client just has to click there
to log into their account or create one,
if they don't have one yet.
'Cause you can set up either a personal
or a business account.
And then they can make the payment to me.
So, I'm making it easier for them by including that link.
To make it even easier,
you can also include the request money feature.
Where you put in all the details
and the amount on your end,
and send you client a link to that.
And all they have to do is pay it.
Making it really simple.
To sum up, when it comes to invoicing and receiving money,
you wanna remove as many barriers as possible.
To make the process really easy for your client.
They're much more likely to pay on time
if the process isn't a hassle.
So, doing things like including a link,
and making sure the information is really easily readable
and displayed in a well laid out invoice.
It is definitely going to help your chances.
And not only that but it's definitely
gonna show you're professional, as well.
In the last video in the series,
we're gonna talk about client communication
and how to handle any objections
that you might come across in the process.
So, click here to see that.
And I guess I'll see you over there.