Why You Shouldn't Use Word for Invoices

Freelancer, entrepreneur, contractor, business owner -- whatever you want to call yourself, at the end of the day you're a professional.

And as a professional, you need a quality tool you can use to create professional invoices.

If you're still using word processing tools like Microsoft Word to create invoices, then you're hindering your professionalism.

There are several reasons why businesspeople should use a platform over Word invoices.

Ready to learn why?

Then let's get started!

Quick Access to All of Your Invoices

Ever had to look high and low (in your online folder hierarchies) to find a misplaced client invoice?

Maybe it's tax season, and you have to find all of your invoices to calculate your business income accurately.

Or maybe a client lost theirs, and they need you to resend the invoice so they can pay promptly.

Well, now your invoice is in limbo and so is your payment. If only you invested in an invoicing platform like invoicely to manage all of your invoices.

With Word, you have to be an organizational genius to keep track of hundreds of invoices each year (or thousands if you're a high-volume worker).

Problem is, you have a business to run and projects to complete. There's no time to sort through all of your invoices to ensure they're where they're supposed to be.

The best way to resolve this problem is to eliminate it in the first place. Like signing up for an invoicing platform where you can keep all of your invoices.

What's even better is that you can access these invoices from a mobile or desktop device with an internet connection.

Quickly Search for Invoices

You're contacted to work on a project for a client you helped last year. So to help determine the rate in your proposal, you look for their past invoice to see what you charged before.

It's a similar project and will help you give a quote that's within their budget.

However, finding the invoice becomes a hassle because you decided to use Word for invoicing.

If you didn't set up individual client folders you could easily search for, then you're going to have to sift through a long list of invoices from the past year.

Not efficient.

This is one of the reasons savvy business owners are switching to an invoicing platform. This will organize all of your invoices, making it simple to search and find them.

You can look by client name, invoice number, and date.

Know Which Invoices Are Still Pending

When you create a Word invoice -- that's all you get. A document with the details of a project.

There's no indication of whether the client paid for the invoice or not.

You have to mark them as paid manually, and if you forget, then you have to chase your payments down the rabbit hole to confirm the invoice was settled.

Of course, if you're using a platform for your invoicing, then you won't have this problem. All of your invoices are visible in your platform, and you can see which are pending or paid.

This allows you to keep track of which clients to reach out to if they're tardy.

And that brings us to our next point.

Automate Payment Reminders

Dealing with late-paying clients is another time-waster. Your time is your biggest asset as a business owner, and without an abundance of it, you can't remain productive.

You'll quickly learn that having the best software tools to reduce time spent on mundane tasks is essential.

With a platform, you don't have to manually check for paid and unpaid invoices or hunt down clients. Instead, you can set up payment reminders to automatically send every few days.

This allows you to focus on more critical tasks without ignoring your bottom line (equally critical).

See Your Sales Activity

Who has time to sit around with a calculator typing in numbers from each individual invoice? If your business is having any type of success, then that means going through hundreds of invoices at the end of each year (or every quarter).

Then if you don't have an accounting staff, this means you have to do it all on your own or hire freelancer CPAs to do it for you.

You can avoid the unnecessary expense and time wasted by opting for an invoicing platform. No need to sift through Word documents -- instead, you can look at your dashboard and see your sales activity at different time intervals (monthly, quarterly, and annually).

This will enable you to keep a close eye on your growth (or lack thereof). There's nothing like being able to switch gears on a whim to benefit your dwindling (or growing) budget.

Track How Much Time You Spend On Tasks

If you're billing clients by the hour, then you're going to need a way to track your time spent on tasks. Unfortunately, Word invoice templates don't come with this feature.

This means you'll have to download a separate app on your mobile device or desktop. But even if you go this route, you still have to manually insert the time you take on each project into your Word invoice.

You don't have to worry about this when you're using a platform that both tracks your time and allows you to insert the hours into an invoice quickly.

All you have to do here is click send to bill clients for your time.

But even if you don't bill by the hour, it's still good to know how much time you spend on tasks so you can improve productivity.

Update Invoices in Real-Time (as a Team)

When you're managing Word invoices, you're stuck emailing documents back and forth. This comes with issues with version control.

Whenever you have this problem, you increase the chance of human errors. This is a costly risk not worth taking.

With an invoicing tool, you're able to connect your team members to the account and allow them to update their hours and projects to the invoice in real time.

Create Invoices Faster

Sure, Word comes with templates. But what it doesn't have is the ability to insert data quickly.

You'd have to create an invoice for each client to make invoicing faster. But that alone takes time and organization to pull off.

Why not just use a platform that saves all of your clients' contact information so you can easily insert it into each invoice as you go?

You also have access to templates, which include your logo, contact details, and your business details. Plus, you can insert lines that allow you to bill for your time, expenses, or mileage.

All of this streamlines the invoicing process so you can spend less time designing professional invoices and more time producing quality products or services.

Create Professional Invoice Templates

Speaking of design -- Word templates can turn invoice design into a grueling process. If you've ever worked with one, then you know how annoying it can be adjusting text alignment and line breaks.

If you type too much in one area, it can disrupt the aesthetic flow of the entire document.

No need to deal with this when you're using an invoicing platform, though. It comes with a professional template, and all you have to do is insert text and numbers into the fields, and it does the rest.

You get a professional-grade invoice to send clients each and every time. No design skills needed.

Get Paid Online for Quicker Payments

Have you ever sent a payment to a contractor using a Word Doc?

Didn't think so.

That's because it's not possible. This means extra steps your client must take to pay you. They have to either log into their payment platform, mail out a check, or call you to provide their cred card details.

This makes it a hassle for clients who are managing their own lives and businesses, which can, in turn, delay your payments.

So it makes sense to create a seamless payment process. When you sign up with an invoicing platform, your invoice process doesn't end when you click "Send."

Once your client receives the invoice, they can open it up from their email and pay for it right then and there. It's good to choose a platform that offers a variety of options, such as credit/debit card, Mollie, PayPal, Stripe, and WePay.

Of course, you can still accept bank transfers and checks on the side if you want. All you have to do is go into the invoice and mark it as paid.

Improving Your Invoicing Process with Software

Word invoices? Don't do this to yourself or your business.

You deserve to have access to tools that boost your productivity and portray your professionalism.

It's a no brainer.

So ready to make the switch? Then try out invoicely for free and send your first invoice today!