I serve as treasurer for my two sons’ cub scout troop. As part of that responsibility, of course, I need to pay invoices. As I prepared to pay a fairly large invoice today, I scanned the invoice to find the invoice number, so that I could include that on the check. I found that the invoice itself has no invoice number. Nor does it have a remittance stub. Nor does it have an option for paying the invoice online.
So my question for you is: Does your invoice have the information it needs printed ON the invoice? Are you making it easier, or more difficult, for your members and customers to pay?
Small details like an invoice number can slow down payments, especially if you’re dealing with very large companies (big companies are notorious for paying slow to begin with, and a missing invoice number is just the excuse they need to slow down payment even further).
So look at your invoices and make sure you have a complete address, phone number, website address, invoice number, and any other details your customer may be looking for.
Too often, that information is only on the tear-off portion and not on the portion you keep. Put it on both.
Here, here! After my son was born, we received an invoice from a billing service in Florida that never said *what* the payment was for … and included a sentence that read, “If you have any questions about this invoice, call 1-” with the rest of the number left blank. The return address given was a PO box. We assumed it was some kind of hoax and didn’t pay it.
Eventually, we heard from a collection agency about it. I told them, “Look, I’ll fax the invoice to you. You tell ME if you would have paid it.” Once they saw it, they agreed with me!