That time a customer told me my invoices looked like a mess

Back in 2018, I had a client look at my invoice and say 'this looks like a kid scribbled on it.' Hurt my pride, but she was right. I was just listing line items with no dates or descriptions. So I changed everything to a simple table format with clear job numbers and payment terms. Took me about two weekends to redo my whole template in Excel. Now I get paid faster because people actually understand what they're paying for. Anyone else had a client straight up tell you your paperwork was sloppy?

3 comments

3 Comments

henrygrant2mo ago

Great move owning up to it. So many people would just get defensive instead of fixing the real problem. My buddy runs a painting business and his invoices were just scribbled totals on napkins basically. Clients kept asking what the $500 was for. He switched to Google Docs with bullet points and pictures and suddenly people stopped calling him asking for breakdowns. Clean paperwork makes you look more professional even if your work is already top notch.

ericschmidt2mo ago

Something a lot of people miss is how clean documentation actually forces you to spot your own mistakes before the client does. That napkin invoice habit makes it way too easy to forget a line item or double charge someone without realizing it.

claire6422d ago

Friend of mine owns a landscaping company and used to handwrite invoices on notebook paper. He nearly lost a big client after forgetting to bill for a whole day of labor. He finally switched to a basic spreadsheet template after reading a post from @ericschmidt about this exact topic, and his billing mistakes dropped to almost zero.