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.

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.

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 .
 

It’s still got the nasty DOS screens when it comes to printing invoices and reports off though.

http://www.couriersystems.co.uk/

I think you can export the bookings from ND to Excel easily enough and with a bit of knowhow you can export from Excel into Sage – but why bother? If it saves you an hour a week your £500 is recouped within a year.

Alternatively have a look at www.databasebusinesssystems.com I understand that their software can link with both NetDespatch and Sage and provide you with a ‘proper’ booking and management system. I don’t think much of it myself but others do.