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QuickBooks Tip for Business Owners: When to Use Batch Invoicing
2020-10-19 | by Gene B. Reynolds, CPA
In the early stages of running your business, you likely sent out a handful of invoices to customers or clients and it was easy to keep track of invoices and follow up on payment. But, now that your company has entered the next stage of growth, the sheer number of invoices can be overwhelming to keep track of.
You should be excited about how much your business is growing without dreading the process of billing customers for services provided. Plus, as your business grows, you’ll want to spend more time on strategic planning such as identifying new customers to pursue and building the right team to support growth.
When your business achieves a certain level of growth, you should consider using batch invoicing in QuickBooks to save valuable time, effort, and energy. This way, as your company continues to grow, the invoicing process will become less of a burden.
When Is QuickBooks Batch Invoicing Right For Your Business?
Before implementing batch invoicing in QuickBooks, the key is to evaluate whether this approach is appropriate given your company’s operations. Batch invoicing is best used as a blanket invoicing process for a customer base or group of customers that have the same or very similar line items on their invoice. This way, invoices can be prepared quickly instead of one at a time.
Batch invoicing is ideal for businesses that provide a standard or routine service. The services may all be grouped under a few line items on an invoice that needs no further explanation for the customer to understand what was performed and what they are paying for.
For example, if your business provides a standard monthly service to several different customers that are billed on the first of the month, you could create multiple invoices all at once.
You can also use customization in QuickBooks to account for price differences for each customer. This can be quickly and efficiently achieved. You simply adjust the invoice amount using the multiple invoice screens in QuickBooks before sending out invoices to each customer.
The Importance of Set-up to Support Batch Invoicing
Another important step before implementing batch invoicing is making sure QuickBooks is set up correctly to support this endeavor. Proper set-up — as with anything related to QuickBooks or another accounting system — is critical in order to make sure the system works for you, not against you.
Set-up includes ensuring that your company’s list of services is correctly entered into QuickBooks. The services should also be listed in a way that makes sense for your operation, your industry, and the type of customers you serve.
When QuickBooks is set up correctly, you can create invoices faster and more efficiently. This will save you a tremendous amount of time when performing batch invoicing so that you can spend more of your day focusing on how to grow the business.
How Reynolds & Associates Can Support Your Growing Business
As a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, our CPA firm has helped many business owners set up QuickBooks correctly to support their operations. For your business, we can help create a list of services that matches your unique business profile. Then, we’ll help you understand how to quickly and accurately create invoices in batches.
One of the added benefits of utilizing batch invoicing in QuickBooks is being able to make informed business decisions as your company continues to grow. You will have access to more information about business performance to support strategic business decisions.
Our CPA firm can help you understand the information and analytics available through QuickBooks. This way, you can make important decisions about your company moving forward, such as whether to hire new employees to support a specific service that has increased in value over time.
When your business is growing and you would like to have more time to support growth initiatives, contact us to discuss batch invoicing. We’ll help you optimize QuickBooks set-up so that you can quickly get invoices sent out and paid.
You can reach us through our website, by calling our Houston office at 713-316-4560, or by emailing info@reynoldscpafirm.com.
About the Author
Gene B. Reynolds, CPA
Gene is the Founder and President of Reynolds and Associates, a Houston-based CPA Firm. He has spent 42 years helping Houston entrepreneurs navigate their enterprises through both calm and stormy waters.