Are you a creditor or business owner that has problems with invoices, and currently struggling with several issues with your invoices that you don’t know how to solve?
If so, this is probably a rough time in your business and it’s very easy to begin to feel the pressure of such a predicament.
Invoicing can be a difficult but vital task to master and keep closely managed.
This is because a large part of being paid for your product or service is invoicing properly and, without invoices, you won’t get paid at all!
This is why it is vital that you are able to efficiently and effectively recognise issues within your invoicing and resolve them before they get out of control.
In this article, our debt collectors in Australia will discuss 4 common problems with invoices that people have when it comes to invoicing and how your business can go about resolving them.
Problems with Invoices 1 - Missing Invoices
The first problem with invoices that you may have with your invoices is that when you send them off, they are not reaching your clients properly.
As we have previously discussed, for your clients to make payments they need to have your invoice accessible to them quickly after the product has been received or the service has been completed.
Without this invoice, they will be unaware of both how it is that they should be paying you and some other key details about what you provided them with and the payment.
If you are not sending these documents out efficiently or if they are not reaching your client, they will be unaware of these key details, and you will be unlikely to receive payment.
The first thing that you may wish to do to ensure that clients are effectively receiving their invoices is to purchase software that automates the process.
This way, you do not even have to think about your invoices, and you can instead focus on the more important things.
If this is not a viable option for you, a great alternative may be for you to simply focus on sending out your invoices quickly and keeping track of whether or not they are arriving at your client’s residence/business.
You can use the Australia Post ‘track an item’ service to do this!
Problems with Invoices 2 - Confusing Invoices
Another problem with invoices is the common issue that business owners and creditors have with their invoicing is that they are confusing to debtors, and they don’t understand what they should be doing with them.
This can be for one of several reasons, but it can be very damaging if you do not resolve this issue. People do not love to be confronted with things that they don’t understand.
This is an especially prevalent idea when it comes to the world of responsibilities, specifically those that relate to money. Whether it be for fear or pride, some people will choose to ignore an invoice that they don’t understand rather than contacting the sender to discuss it.
This is quite an irritating quality, and you cannot, of course, tailor it to every one of your client’s knowledge areas and understanding.
What you can do, however, is try to make your invoices a little easier to understand.
There are several ways that you can do this. You should limit the use of business lingo and stick to things that any ordinary person would understand.
Not everyone has an advanced understanding of the English language, either, so keeping complicated language in general to a minimum is probably best.
Simply being a figure that people trust to answer their questions can also be great for improving understanding.
Problems with Invoices 3 - Mistakes in Invoices
Another problem with invoices is the common issue that business owners and creditors can have with their invoices is that there are mistakes within them.
As a business owner, you are still a human capable of making mistakes.
As much as you may wish for this to not be true, it is a simple fact of life, and you just can’t be perfect all the time!
Mistakes in invoices, especially if the invoices are sent to more than one client, however, can be detrimental, depending on the nature of the mistake.
Spelling mistakes and grammar issues can be avoided and are not that big of a deal, although they do make you look a little unprofessional.
This can be solved using online spell and grammar check services such as Grammarly.
However, the issues that truly matter are those with the content of your invoices, or the payment or product details.
Making errors with how much a debtor owes you, how they should pay it back, or what products or services they are paying for can be quite damaging and extra precautions should be taken to avoid such circumstances.
You may, again, wish to use automatic invoicing software or simply meticulously check over your invoices before you send them out!
Problems with Invoices 4 - Missing Information
Another problem with invoices is the common issue that some business owners and creditors can have with their invoices is accidently leaving out or missing important information.
The more information you provide your debtor with, the easier the process will go.
Extra information that may not be entirely necessary can be great and help your clients to pay quickly and easily.
However, forgetting to include some of the more important details can cause a lot of issues within the payment process.
Something that you can do to prevent this issue from arising is to have a basic template for your invoices that you simply fill in with the relevant client information.
Not only will this make it much harder for you to forget to include the essentials, but it can also make life a little easier for you!
Consider Using a Debt Collection Agency
You can eliminate problem with invoices if you use a debt collection agency to manage your accounts receivables.
Have you tried various strategies to improve your invoices, just to find that your clients are not paying on time anyway?
If so, you are probably feeling quite irritated as you’ve put in all of this effort for little to no result. If this is the case, it may be time for you to consider debt collection.
Debt collection is a process conducted by professionals that will recover your debt with expert techniques and resources.
They will usually be much more successful with debt recovery and can utilise their tools to help you with the specifics of your matter.
A great example of this is a process that debt collectors can conduct called ‘skip tracing’, which can help you if you are unable to contact or locate your debtor.
Try debt collection today and submit your debt online!
Advance debt collection is an Australia-wide commercial debt collection agency and credit and accounts receivable management. We can recovery your debts, conduct skip tracing, and manage your accounts receivable. We collect your debts for commission only. This means no collection, no commission. We are professional debt collectors with combined 20 years of experience to help you collect your debts. We are partnered with expert litigation lawyers with years of experience in debt recovery, enforcement, and insolvency. Under the Agents Financial Administration Act 2014 Advance Debt Collection Pty Ltd hold authority number 4583821 to act as a debt collector. ADC Advance Debt Collection® is a registered trademark.
