Broadly speaking, invoice means an invoice or billing document issued by the seller to the buyer that shows the amount and cost to be paid after buying something or after an agreement is made on the purchase order. Usually invoices are made in triplicate. The original is the company file, while the three copies are given one for the buyer, one for the seller, and the last one for the financial records.
For companies, invoicing is very important, because with an invoice it can make it easier for the company to operate its business and serve as evidence of all transactions on the books. The benefits or invoice function for the company:
- As a company document
- As evidence for tax returns
- As evidence if something goes wrong
- For information on bills that must be paid
- Maintain sales records
After understanding the functions or benefits of Invoice, as a business actor you must know the types of invoices that can be used, such as:
Read more: Tips to avoid fraud that could be happened in your sales team
Ordinary Invoice
This type of invoice is most often and commonly used when making simple transactions. It is called simple, because the contents of this invoice only contain details of the items and the amount, as well as the unit price and the total price of the items to be purchased.
Proforma Invoice
A proforma invoice is a temporary invoice. This time will be given to the customer before the seller sends all the items ordered. In other words, this proforma invoice is a replacement invoice when the goods are sent in stages.
Consular Invoice
Consular invoices are often used for trade of an international nature. In the consular invoice, there must be approval and approval from the representatives of the importing countries, consular offices and embassies of the importing countries in the exporting country.
Over time and the development of technology, invoicing has changed so far from manual to online invoicing. Historically, invoices were paper documents sent to buyers, but nowadays sellers can request payment online by simply sending electronic invoices or online invoices.
Online invoicing will make it easier, especially for the finance department or finance department, in managing finances. At this time, online invoicing can be used as the most important investment for storing data and information on a transaction. Following are the benefits of online invoicing. Here are the benefits of online invoice
Complete Audit Track Record
All data in online invoicing is guaranteed security and is neatly stored in the existing system. The tracking of invoices can be done anytime and anywhere without spending a lot of time, such as when you have sent the invoice, whether the payment is made by your customer on time. You can track all of this data easily when you use online invoicing.
Making Good Business
The manual method will certainly make it difficult for you to manage proof of transactions with customers. Unlike when you take advantage of online invoicing, you don’t need to spend time calculating one by one whether the customer hasn’t or has paid their bill. You don’t need to check payments manually from bank account statements because the status and notifications will be given. Through online invoicing, you can control the status of the invoice whether it has been sent, has been paid or has not been billed. Not only that, the reminder feature is also available on online invoices that can remind you to send billing emails to customers before or after the due date arrives.
Read more: 4 reasons to choose online invoice than paper invoice
Management Improvement
To be able to manage your business well, you must have an effective and efficient system for creating, sending, or tracking company invoices. By using an invoice or online invoice, you will have no trouble managing invoices, because there is no need to confirm payment manually. Notifications will be sent automatically and the status is real time. You can more easily create and send invoices anytime and anywhere, and it’s easier to track invoices.
To make it easier for you to create invoices and bookkeeping in your business, you can use accounting software for a better work process. Paper.id is a solution for making digital invoices and can be sent via messenger applications starting from Whatsapp, LINE and various other applications. Feel the convenience by registering yourself for free here.
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