When you are facing time crunch in presenting bill or invoice to your clients, undoubtedly you are looking at an invoicing solution that is fast, reliable, easy to operate, secure and simple.

Online invoicing promptly allows you to send and receive invoices thereby saving you time and resources. Most of these online invoicing software does allow the in-built payment option within the document itself. Clients can easily clear out the outstanding amount right from the document with just the click of a button.

A complete invoicing solution provider will also enable you with various task collaborations, automation, integrations and a project management system. Without further ado let’s discuss the must-have features in an invoicing app.

1) Transmit Invoice Securely

Any invoicing app should be able to create, send and receive invoices to & from your clients. It should also be secured so as to protect data and personal information. Moreover, the invoicing platform should offer various customization option while simultaneously having an interactive yet with simple format design. The layout as a standard norm should include a field for dates, address, tax & invoice numbers, payment details, terms, and conditions, etc.

2) Multiple Payment Options

It is advisable to offer as many payment options as possible to your clients for faster and easier business transactions. There are many payment gateway solutions such as Stripe, PayPal, WePay, etc., however, PayPal seems to be simple and fast for clients worldwide to make a quick and secure payment.

3) Make Partial Deposits

Not always that an invoice has to be sent or paid after the work has been done. Depending upon the work order and payment terms, one can easily ask for a deposit or partial payment upfront before taking the task at hand. Not only this will ensure that your payment is secured and the said client is trustworthy but it is also good for your business cash flow. You can also set the feature of recurring billing, which can either be set as a request for partial or full payment at regular interval of time.

4) Collaborate Data

When preparing an invoice, you have to deal with lots of data and information in a different way such as service details, payment amount, bank information, tax information, etc. The smart way is to allow the invoicing app to automate and perform by integrating different functions together. One should opt for an app that can easily track time, track your estimates, Manages project, activity log and many such features which are incorporated nicely into the app so as to integrate data to increase productivity.

5) Transparent Portal

The main perspective of the invoicing app should be to ease the tasks of your clients while maintaining productivity. This can be achieved via keeping transparent and updated portal. The objective is to make sure that your client never misses on any payments and an complete information on the current tasks. Keeping the track of all the transactions, the total amount spent, any upcoming payment due, etc. In short, accountability for everything makes a difference as your clients are easily able to view, download and can take necessary action on it.

6) Timely Notifications

Not knowing whether the client has either received an invoice or still waiting for the same or merely have paid their invoice and you are still waiting to receive any alerts related to payment. Especially a solopreneur or entrepreneur needs this as the last thing on the mind as their day is filled with many other tasks. Ideally, what works best to receive notification is when your client not only open the invoice but also when the payment is made for the same via a payment gateway. This will free up lots of time and allows you to see more of sent, an unpaid and current status of all your sent invoices. This seems to have made it to the list of must-have good features of an invoicing app.

7) Sync & Import

From time to time you’ll need to import/export data & statistics for analysis so it is quite handy to have a feature that allows you to download and collect information in one place. Moreover, merging it with other features will also give you other valuable information. It is also quite beneficial if via the app you could pull up relevant payment as well as expense data. It is necessary to know and keep the expense data to examine how much you spent to sort categorically.

Moon Invoice, a simple and easy online invoicing platform can streamline your entire expense management process with its ‘Expense Tracking’ feature. Also, other features such as billing, payment, notifications, reports, time tracking, sync and many more seem to be the functions will help you in performing business analytics and much more.

Moon Invoice mobile app is available for iOS, Mac OS X, Android, and Windows. Download our free app today and leave all your invoicing worry with us. There is a 7-day free trial period for you to try before you buy!

Recurring Payments Vs Recurring Invoices

Recurring Payments	Recurring Invoices
Recurring payments charge the customer’s credit card account or debit card account on a predetermined schedule for the same amount as preapproved.	Send an invoice to your customer on a regular basis. The client receives the invoice but, money is not paid unless the customer approves.
A business that takes prepayment of money and sells a monthly subscription service and product. Subscription services are excellent examples of this.	A company that provides fixed services with billable hours is an excellent choice for recurring billing. For example law firms and consulting agencies.

Pros and Cons of Recurring Invoices

Pros	Cons
You eliminate the possibility of human error by automating the billing process. If you use a recurring invoice, you will not be concerned about forgetting to charge your customers for the things they ordered.	You must exercise caution while recurring billing to prevent issuing inaccurate pricing. This also holds for price changes that could take place right once an invoice is created.
If you provide your customers with the option for recurring billing, they are more likely to buy products regularly.	It could be difficult to cope with recurring invoices if a transaction fails for any reason.

Net 45	Invoice is due in full within 45 days with no early payment discount offered
2/10 net 45 terms	2% discount if you pay within 10 days; otherwise full payment of the invoice is due in 45 days
1/15 net 45 terms	1% discount if you pay within 15 days; otherwise full payment of the invoice is due in 45 days
1/10 net 45 terms	1% discount if you pay within 10 days; otherwise full payment of the invoice is due in 45 days
1/7 net 45 terms	1% discount if you pay within 7 days; otherwise full payment of the invoice is due in 45 days

Category	Net Method vs. Gross Method	Explanation
Calculation Approach	- Applies tax credits first; reduces taxable income before computing tax liability.	- Doesn't apply tax credits; computes taxable income without considering tax credits.
Tax Credit Eligibility	- Allows for greater likelihood of tax credit eligibility due to reduced taxable income.	- Limits tax credit eligibility because taxable income hasn't been reduced yet.
Itemized Deduction Requirement	- Lowers threshold requirement for itemizing deductions due to decreased taxable income.	- Raises threshold requirement for itemizing deductions due to higher taxable income.
Advantages	- Leads to lower taxable income and increases chances of meeting qualifications for other tax benefits.	- Results in higher taxable income compared to net method.
Disadvantages	- May miss opportunity to reduce tax burden if taxpayer doesn't itemize deductions or take advantage of tax credits.	- Increases taxable income and may result in higher overall tax bill.