Download the template here (MS Excel template file) or view it as a pdf file here.

Of course you don’t have to invest in a copy of Excel just to produce a few invoices, OpenOffice.org has most of the functionality of Excel (and other MS Office products) and it’s free. The template opens OK in OpenOffice but needs some slight adjustments for page margins and layout etc.

Google Docs allows you to produce invoices and other documents online and export to Excel or OpenOffice if required. They have their own invoice templates available and again it’s all free of charge.

Zoho.com is another online office suite, similar to Google Docs, with a lot more thrown in as well. They have their own dedicated online application for raising invoices invoice.zoho.com but annoyingly they’ve now seem to have started charging for its use.

Microsoft Office Accounting Express is FREE, fully featured, small business accounting software. For a free product it compares very well with the basic versions of Quickbooks and Sage, allowing you to raise and track invoices, enter bills, keep track of what you owe and what you’re owed etc, and did I mention that it’s FREE? It’s even upgradeable to the more advanced Microsoft Office Accounting Professional for about £150 if you find that you’ve outgrown it.

To satisfy HMRC you need to include on your invoice:

The date of issue of the invoice.
A sequential number that uniquely identifies the invoice.
Your business’s name, address and VAT registration number.
The name and address of your customer.
Your customer’s VAT registration number (only if they’re VAT registered in another EU country and you’re invoicing without VAT).
The date of supply of services (the date you did the work).
A description of the services supplied (from a VAT point of view ‘Courier work’ would be OK – your customer may want more detail).
The VAT rate applied (normally 17.5%).
Total amount of VAT payable.
The total amount payable for the whole invoice excluding VAT.
The total amount of VAT charged at each VAT rate (normally just one entry for the 17.5% rate).
The unit price of the services supplied and the number of units charged for – if this is normal practice for your industry (as far as I’m aware it isn’t normal practice in the courier industry) or required by your customer. In practice you can ignore this unless you charge your customer by an agreed price per mile or hour worked AND they’ve asked you to include the figure on your invoice. For example ’200 miles @ 70p/plm’.

To satisfy Companies House and Trading Standards:

If your business trades under a name other that its actual name then you must include the actual name on your invoice, as well as the trading name.

If you’re a sole trader John Smith and you trade as ‘John Smith’, ‘J Smith’ or just ‘Smith’ then that is the only name that needs to appear on your invoice.
If you’re a partnership of John Smith and Alan Jones, and trade under any combination of the names (‘Smith & Jones’, ‘J Smith & Alan Jones’ etc) then those are the only details needed.
If your business is a limited company and it trades under its own name ‘S&J Courier Services Ltd’, then that’s the only name that needs to appear on your invoices.

In any other case, where the business trades under a name that is not its actual name, the full actual name of the legal entity behind the trading name must be shown on all invoices. So if John Smith trades as ‘John Smith Couriers’, or John Smith and Alan Jones trade as ‘J&A Couriers’, or even if S&J Courier Services Ltd trade as ‘S&J Courier Services’, then the actual name of the sole-trader, the partners or the limited company must be shown on the invoice.

To keep you customer happy

The date you did the job.
The collection and delivery details – I prefer the format ‘XYZ Semiconductors, London E14 – ABC Computers, Manchester M30′.
Any reference if you’ve been given one by the customer – otherwise use the name of the person who booked the job.
Any purchase order number supplied by the customer – if it’s the first job you’ve done for them it doesn’t hurt to ring them and ask them what they need to appear on the invoice.
The POD for the job – often not essential with end-users but other transport companies like to get their PODs. Also attach the original hard copy POD to your invoice, KEEP A COPY FOR YOUR OWN RECORDS THOUGH.
Your bank details. – Most companies pay by BACS or internet banking these days. Make the payment process as simple as you can for them and avoid any excuses for late payment.
Invoice promptly – if it’s a one-off job then don’t leave it until the end of the month, do it now.
Invoice accurately – only invoice for the agreed amount. if there are any additions for waiting time, call-outs etc then agree the charges with the customer at the time that the cost is incurred.
Don’t backdate your invoice. If you don’t get round to sending your invoices until the middle of the month then don’t date them at the end of the previous month. Large companies may not notice and you’ll be paid as and when your invoice is cleared, small companies may get annoyed at being presented with an invoice due for payment within a few days of receipt.

To avoid any problems in the future

Spell out your payment terms and the due date on the invoice.
Explain the methods of paying the invoice – “Cheques should be made payable to XYZ Couriers…etc” “BACS payments may be made to Account no……etc”
Don’t mention unreasonable and un-agreed penalties for late payment on your invoice.
Draw the customer’s attention to the Late Payment legislation – “WE UNDERSTAND AND WILL EXERCISE OUR STATUTORY RIGHT TO INTEREST AND COMPENSATION FOR DEBT RECOVERY COSTS UNDER THE LATE PAYMENT LEGISLATION IF WE ARE NOT PAID ACCORDING TO OUR CREDIT TERMS.”
Draw the customer’s attention to your Conditions of Carriage, Conditions of Trading, Terms & Conditions, or whatever “ALL BUSINESS UNDERTAKEN IS SUBJECT TO OUR CONDITIONS OF TRADING – A COPY OF WHICH IS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST – or go to www.quietlyefficientcouriers.co.uk/conditions.pdf” This won’t automatically mean that the job you’re invoicing on this occasion will be covered by those conditions, you should have agreed that in advance, but it will help you show that your Conditions apply to any future work you carry out for the customer.

Most newspaper reports have picked up on the driver blindly following his satnav’s instructions and ignoring warning signs but other reports make the situation clearer.

“The DHL delivery driver had started work at 7.30am that morning. It had been a long day for him and he had only made 85 drops out of 120 he had to complete by the time of the accident.

“It was a strange area to him and he was under a great deal of pressure to get the delivery out first and foremost.

“This is a 21-year-old man who was under significant pressure from his employers.

“He was panicked and fairly stressed and at the time of the accident still had 35 packages to deliver.”

The accident happened at 1735 – the driver had already been working for over 10 hours and had done 85 drops out 120 in a rural area of Northumberland that he was unfamiliar with. His satnav sent him down a gravel track where he was confronted with an unmanned level crossing seemingly of the type with no warning lights.

One report says “Foster had ignored safety notices at the crossing and had not followed written instructions to ring a signaller to check if it was safe to cross. Instead, he simply attempted to cross the track, causing the accident.”

I used to have to cross one of these crossings regularly and I’m certain that the signs actually said something like “drivers of large or slow vehicles must phone signalman for permission to cross”. As he wasn’t driving either then maybe he should be forgiven for not phoning the signalman – if that’s what the signs say of course.

Richard Booth, the chairman of the Tynedale magistrates’ bench, said “we have taken into account that you were under considerable duress at the time of the accident.

“I think your employer needs to be taken into account.”

Mr Foster received a 13-week jail term, suspended for 12 months, and was ordered to do 200 hours community work and pay costs of £60.

It’s not clear from reports whether DHL face any action for their part in the accident, or indeed whether the driver was an employee, a subcontractor or a ‘Service Partner’.

One particular paragraph of the review stopped me in my tracks and made me think about the general problems people have had with satnavs since their introduction – namely satnavs sending drivers down unsuitable roads:

According to PC Pro, “The most significant upgrade to the new range is TomTom’s new route-finding ability – dubbed IQ Routes. What this means is that the 930T, along with the rest of the new “x30″ range, calculates routes not using the speed limit data alone, but also by taking into account the average speed of real-world traffic on those roads.”

Just pause for a moment to let that sink in - not the fact that IQ Routes™ (cue the jingle again) calculates routes based on the average time taken to travel those routes but that TomToms in the past have calculated the fastest route based on the speed limit of the road.

Even my first copy of Autoroute had options to set different driving speeds for different types of roads – rural A roads, urban B roads, urban motorways etc. It beggars belief that up to now TomTom have been basing their route calculations on speed limits.

Think about it – is it generally possible to make better time on an unclassified road than on, say, a speed-restricted section of the A1? If TomTom has been calculating routes using speed limits then it’s quite possible that it would direct you onto an unclassified country road with a (theoretical but unachievable)60mph speed limit rather than a fast A road which is restricted to 40mph for safety’s sake. The fact that you may be able to only do 30mph on the minor road is apparently irrelevant to the TomTom.

It certainly seems to explain some of the stories of satnavs directing people down totally unsuitable roads when there’s a perfectly good major road available as an alternative and may also explain some of the bizarre routes (Leicester to Croydon via the Edgeware Road anyone?) often taken by inexperienced drivers relying on satnav instructions.

With this in mind I was saddened to read this story about a young woman who died last week after a delay in getting her to hospital, caused by a faulty satnav.

The first lines of the story reminded me of my thoughts about the older TomToms’ route calculations:

“A young woman died after the ambulance taking her to hospital got lost on the way because of a faulty sat nav unit.

The vehicle carrying Kay Gadsby, 21, was directed along a narrow country lane instead of a quicker main road.”

The story goes on to explain that the satnav actually ‘packed up completely’ after that, and that the delay in getting Kay Gadsby to hospital may not have caused her death.

This particular satnav may not have been using this obviously flawed ‘speed limit’ routing method – it may just have been faulty – but the tragic story does show the fallibility of satnavs and the dangers of simply following directions from a satnav without actually thinking about the route that it’s sending you on.

IQ Routes™ is available on the TomTom GO 730, the TomTom Go 930 and on the ‘Traffic’ version of both units which take current traffic conditions into account when calculating your route and can adjust the route to avoid hold-ups.

According to a report in The Scotsman, the navigational experiment took the form of a ‘race’ over a 989 mile route between three teams of drivers.

The race was won by a team of men relying on reading road signs and asking directions. In second place was a team of women relying on their map-reading skills and the car relying on satnav finished over an hour and a half later.

So apparently men can ask for directions, women can read maps and satnavs don’t always find the most appropriate routes.

The report goes on to quote Luke Bosdet from the AA: “Unfortunately, many drivers become slaves to their satnavs – turning sharp right on to railway lines, rivers and, in one instance, a toilet on a German building site.”

Sarah Sands from the organisers of the experiment, Reader’s Digest, is quoted as saying “It goes to show that when you’re trying to find remote locations in the Lake District or navigate busy city centres, you’re better off relying on the people who live there, rather than a line on a piece of paper or a computer.”

I’d suggest that the outcome of this experiment might have been very different if the team relying on directions from locals had been trying to find locations in mid-Wales or in central London.

Satnav and asking locals for directions are without doubt useful methods for couriers to find their way around but both have their disadvantages. Satnav is occasionally inaccurate, often suggests less than perfect routes which add miles onto a journey and encourages professional drivers to rely on it far too much.

Asking directions is all very well until you find yourself in an area where the locals aren’t really local or deliberately misdirect people that pronounce their place names wrong.

The real answer is to develop good map-reading skills, a good knowledge of the national road network, make use of postcode location facilities on Multimap and Google Maps etc, ask the locals if you’re stuck and always use your brain first and your satnav second.

Agreed that it’s a total ballache having the same company issuing two different invoices, pure stupidity really. If they’re going to send their own invoice then why raise the ‘Network’ invoice to start with? It’s easy to avoid the double payment problem though – just match the invoice against jour job reference or purchase order when the invoice comes in. You can only pay for each jon once, so the second invoice goes in the shredder.

I’m not sure what the “not technically legal” refers to, apart from the absence of correct business names on some of them. That’s just as common with companies’ own invoices though.
 

I’ve not used but I’ve had a good look at it and it seems to cover the basics quite nicely.

lynyrd wrote:

Admin wrote:
I was having a yap with MTvan a couple weeks ago, and I believe they have something in the pipeline which will be free to their members…

I can get some more details if you want them…

if its stand alone software that cool

if its within mtvan no-one will use it

No-one in their right mind that is……

….some will.

From Tim’s keyboard:

Quote:
It’s similar to a lot of “courier software” packages, in that you can book a job, add a courier, add extras like waiting time etc, review the jobs before running pay and invoicing, print invoices, produce a list of invoices, and mark them paid.

The only difference is that it’s all on-line.

I think I’ll give that one a miss then.

The free version seems fine as far as it goes – if you’re only ever going to want something just to keep your bookings and invoicing in order then it seems well up to the job. It seems quite expensive when you start adding the extra features and extra users though. 
 

www.sosonlinebackup.com – scheduled or continuous backup of just about everything. I ran the trial and then bought the lowest level service and it gave me 50GB storage for <$5/month – should have been $90/month according to their rates.

I’ve got both services running now as well as a daily manual backup of vital files to our own webspace.

I’d have thought that the normal way of using QB is just to price your jobs manually and enter them individually – so the issue of rates for each customer doesn’t come up. Having said that you could set up your standard mileage rate for each vehicle as an ‘Item’ in QB and have it automatically apply a discount on a per customer basis. You’d still have to enter the mileages for each individual invoice line though so there’s not much advantage in doing that and it would be a bit complicated.

If you want a package with the sort of functionality you’re after then you need to consider Journeeze or DBS – both of which can export data to QB or Sage, or Controller, which has a bit of a clunky feel to it but is pretty fully featured, can export data to Sage and only costs £30/month. You can download a trial of that from www.couriersystems.co.uk .