Remember when lists were the trendiest thing on the internet? When the top read articles all featured titles like ‘The 10 best songs of all time’, ‘The 7 best TV series of the 90s’, or ‘The top 100 movies ever made’?
While the listicle may seem to have been dying out, it’s doubtful whether it will actually ever meet it’s end (we take full responsibility for contributing to its extended lifecycle). But what can we say? We create invoicing software. We’re fans of lists in general.
In fact, lists are a bit part of human nature, dating back to ancient times. In fact, the first recovered written lists can be found in Homer’s The Iliad which dates back to the 2nd century BCE, wherein he discusses the Trojan War.
But let’s not go too far back...we bring up the history of lists to show just how important they can be. They’re not made just for fun or a result of pure boredom, but are a useful organisational tactic.
So how does this all relate to invoicing for your business? Lists are just as important in your invoicing software. They help you stay on top of your accounts by ensuring the details are in order and easy to find at a moment’s notice or when needed for an invoice.
What are the main lists you use in your business invoicing?
- Customer list
- Product list
- Supplier list
And to make these lists even easier to manage, edit, search, and use in an invoice, online invoice software gives you the tools to do so quickly and easily from any device.
You can quickly populate the following lists in your invoice software for fast and easy invoicing:
1. Create a list of customers
Before you become an invoicing fiend, we encourage you to add your customers and their contact details to a list. The size of this list will obviously depend on the stage of growth your company is in. Since the idea behind a customer list is to have all the relevant details in one place, take care to enter the following information correctly:
- Customer or company name
- Address and other contact details (email, phone number, etc.)
- VAT number if applicable
And if you use Debitoor, your customer list will also be numbered, making it easy to sort through many customers. You can edit and assign different numbers to your customers to order your list any which way.
When you enter your customer details, it will look like this:
2. Create a list of products and/or services for your invoices
What would an invoice be without its main purpose? The reason for creating an invoice in the first place: to describe what you’re selling. Since an invoice is a business document that represents an important transaction, detailed information of what is changing hands is imperative.
While this is likely more than obvious, it’s sometimes good to quickly rehash what exactly should be included in the product section of your invoices:
- Name and description of your product or service
- Unit type: number of items, hours, etc.
- The price per unit
- The product number
- Net price (excluding VAT)
- VAT if applicable
- Gross price (including VAT)
3. Create a list of suppliers for your expenses
While you create and send invoices, you will also receive them. Creating a list of your suppliers will make it easier to handle these invoices and enter them quickly as expenses to keep track of your company’s cash flow.
Your supplier list should include similar details to your customers:
- Supplier or company name
- Address and other contact details (email, phone number)
- Supplier number
Already have the above lists and ready to get started right away? Debitoor offers an easy import function to get all your information up and running as fast as possible.
Upload your customer, product, and supplier lists instantly to your Debitoor account to begin invoicing now. Under each tab, you’ll find an ‘Import’ button where you can upload your own lists to Debitoor.
Ready to get started? Check out our tutorial to learn how to upload your customer, product, and supplier lists now.
