In the world of advertising and marketing, it’s essential to always be on your toes when it comes to invoicing – especially if you’ve just closed a deal with a potential client. Promoting a brand or sponsor is hard work. It takes a lot of time, resources, dedication, and even more to get the job done. That’s why the last thing you want is having trouble invoicing. Fortunately, this is what the article is all about, helping you create an advertising invoice.
Creating an advertising invoice is crucial to ensuring that you get the most out of your advertising efforts. Once you learn how to create an advertising invoice, you can use it for all transactions. Having a ready-made advertising invoice template will ensure that you are ready to send it to your clients quickly and effectively.
What is an Invoice?
Before we delve deep, let’s first discuss what an invoice is and why it matters so much to your business. Many things define an invoice; however, the simplest one explains that an invoice is “a formal business document sent by a business to a buyer or customer to serve as a reminder about the payment they owe to the company.”
In most cases, the business transactions are done via credit, which means the customer agrees to receive the goods or services before making payments. Once the customer gets all the goods or services, the company will send them the invoice containing all the information about their purchase. It will also reflect the total amount the customer will need to pay to the company.
What is an Advertising Invoice?
An advertising invoice is a type of invoice commonly used by marketing or advertising agencies. These companies do business by making promotional planes for other entities like businesses, brands, events, individuals, and more.
Advertising agencies work as a third party to another company, where they will work to come up with new and unique marketing plans that will help present or introduce new products to the market. Advertising agencies also make commercials on media platforms like local radio stations, television, or even online.
These are the core services that an advertising agency offers. Once they deliver these services to their clients, they can send them an official invoice document containing all the necessary information about the service and their corresponding charges. The advertising invoice will remind a client that they owe money to the company to have the time to make payment.
Usually, an advertising invoice is a single paper. However, if the entire advertising work involves tons of other services, it may include a second or even a third page to fit all of the items that the client needs to pay for.
Benefits of Advertising Invoice
Sending an invoice isn’t just for formality’s sake. It also provides many benefits to the company. Some notable advantages of having an official advertising invoice include the following:
Give Your Customers the Official Heads Up
With an advertising invoice, you will remind your clients about the money they owe your business. That way, you can ensure that they will pay on time since you’re informing them ahead of time about their payment.
It Serves as Proof
An advertising invoice serves as proof of the products or services you provided to your clients. At the same time, it also legitimates that the company that your company has delivered and deserves to be paid.
Use It During Legal Disputes
Your invoice can also include a clause for delayed or non-payments. If your client refuses to pay the money they owe your business, you can opt to sue them and use their invoice records as evidence to the court.
Easiest Way to Get Paid
An advertising invoice is the best option to receive payments via secure options like electronic bank transfers. At the same time, it also gives your clients the urgency to pay you unless they want to pay late fees.
Use It As Reference
You can use an advertising invoice for present or future references, especially in the event of a misunderstanding with the client or the agency.
How To Create an Advertising Invoice
Before we discuss creating an advertising invoice, keep in mind that there are free templates available online. Just head over to your preferred invoicing platform and download their free advertising invoice template. Once you do, you can then start editing it on any word processing application.
You can also choose to create your unique invoice from scratch using platforms like ReliaBills. With ReliaBills, you can create, edit, save, and send your invoice straight to your clients’ emails. You can create a FREE account to get started today. If you want to make your life easier, you can upgrade your account to ReliaBills PLUS to access our recurring billing features.
For only $24.95 per month, the ReliaBills premium version will give you additional features that will help make your invoicing tasks more accessible than ever, like its recurring billing feature.
Now that we have that out of the way, here’s an easy step-by-step guide on how to create an advertising invoice:
Step 1 – Download the Invoice
Download your preferred template on platforms like ReliaBills and open it on a word processing application (MS Word, Adobe PDF, Google Docs, and more).
Step 2 – Add the Necessary Details
Start working from top to bottom. Enter the following essential details regarding your advertising agency and its services:
- The name and logo of your advertising agency.
- Reference number or a serial number of the advertising invoice for later queries.
- Date of when the invoice was created and issued from the agency.
- Your service terms and conditions for which the customer has agreed upon.
- Detailed information of all payments — including or excluding the GST.
- Name and contact information of the customer.
- The previous date of when the actual products or services were rendered.
- A copy of the purchase order or a reference number.
- Mode of payment available.
- Payment due date — the deadline for which the customer will need to make payment before incurring penalties.
Step 3 – Service Details
Once you’ve entered all the necessary information on your invoice, the next thing you need to do is enter the details of the services. Don’t forget to add terms to your advertising invoice. For example, you can add ‘Net 30,’ which indicates that the customer has 30 days to settle their account.
Step 4 – Cost Breakdown
List down the services rendered for the job. You can also include a brief description of each service, the number of services done, and the corresponding fees. Include taxes and other applicable fees. Add the ‘total amount’ at the bottom of your invoice.
Step 5 – Due Date and Additional Notes
At the bottom of your invoice, enter the number of days from the issue date that the invoice will be due for payment. You can also place a ‘thank you note to show appreciation to the client for choosing your advertising company.
Wrapping Up
There you have it — a quick and easy guide on creating an advertising invoice. Use this to reference when you’re ready to create an invoice for your advertising firm. Try ReliaBills today to make invoicing ten times easier and more convenient for you.