Invoicing clients and managing projects FAQ

Some businesses need a way to collect payments for products or services with pricing tailored to the specific client and situation. No matter the kind of business you run, you can use invoices to accept payments from anyone, from clients to vendors.  

We collected some frequently asked questions about Invoicing and answered them below. 

 

1. When would I want to use Invoicing? 

Invoicing can be used by a wide range of businesses on Squarespace, however, it’s particularly useful for those who sell specialized goods or services that may be difficult to list as products in an online store. 

Let’s look at a few instances of when you may want to send an invoice. This is not an exhaustive list. Invoices are an extremely flexible way to get paid, and you may still find them useful in your business even if you do not fit one of these profiles. 

Selling custom products 

Let’s use the example of a bakery. You might list your regularly-available cakes and pastries as products on your online store so that customers can order them via your site to be shipped or picked up.

In addition, you may want to offer custom cake orders. Since the price will depend on your customers’ preferences, a standard product listing in your online store may not be the best solution. Instead, you can create a form on your site to gather your customers’ preferences, and then create an invoice to collect payment.

Invoicing makes it possible for you to sell custom products on a per-customer basis, with pricing based on the size and design your customer wants

And if you also want to offer wholesale baked goods to a nearby coffee shop, you can send a professional-looking invoice to get paid quickly and seamlessly, without having to separately list wholesale prices on your site. 

Selling services 

While you can add service products to your online store, you may want to sell more bespoke services to your customers or create a more consultative experience for them. Let’s use the example of a photographer. 

Just like the baker in the example above, you can add a form to your site to collect details about a prospective clients’ event or photoshoot needs. With the suite of Invoicing features, you can create a proposal to outline your photography packages and fees, send a contract with terms and capture client agreement by having them accept, and then send an invoice to collect an initial deposit.

Invoicing is great for project-based client work, since you can start with an upfront deposit and send additional invoices to collect the remaining payments. You can also easily track client info, invoices, and documents with a Project. 

 

2. What other features are available? 

The Invoicing panel is where you’ll find features related to running a successful invoicing-based business: Invoices, Documents, and Projects. 

The Invoicing dashboard is your main view for overall business metrics and important activity. You’ll see your total invoicing revenue from the past 30 days, as well as outstanding invoices, and you can track important updates (like what invoices have been recently paid or become past due) in the Activity view. You can also quickly start a new invoice, proposal, estimate, or contract by clicking Create at the top of the dashboard.

The Invoices subpanel is where you can create and manage your invoices. From this panel, you can view invoice details, edit or resend an invoice, and issue refunds. 

The Projects subpanel is where you can see and manage client projects. Projects let you track and organize client details, notes, and milestones, and to keep invoices and client proposals and contracts organized. 

 

3. Can I customize my invoices? 

Cohesive branding is a big focus here at Squarespace, and our product designers keep it in mind whenever a new product is released. Invoices are no exception, and they can be modified to match your site’s branding to create a seamless, more professional experience for your clients.

When creating an invoice, click the Styles tab and click Global Email Styles to access the settings for what your invoice and other client emails look like. From there, you can edit all elements of the invoice email, including the colors, fonts, and padding. The fastest way to a beautiful, branded invoice is the Quickly match your site button. From there, you can choose and apply a color theme that matches your site to give your invoices a professional look and feel.

 

4. How can I best capture leads? 

Let’s talk about some steps you can take to ensure you’re generating and managing leads effectively through your site. 

Step 1: Add a contact page or section

We recommend that you add a contact page or section to your site so that leads can get in touch with you, and you can track and respond to them easily since they’re automatically saved in your Contacts. With Squarespace, you can get a quick start at building a contact page or section by choosing from a pre-built layout. These layouts are designed to help you evaluate prospective clients, but you can customize them to fit your needs. 

Step 2: Customize your form to capture all necessary information 

An important element in capturing leads is customizing your form block. The pre-built contact page and section layouts include a form with basic information like name and email, but be sure to customize the form fields to capture the information that’s relevant to your business, like event/service date or budget.

Step 3: Attach a form submission to a project 

You’ll receive an email every time a customer submits a form, and you can view their submissions within the Contacts panel of your site. When viewing a form submission from the Contacts panel, you’ll see the option to create a project from it. Clicking Create Project will create a new project with the form submission linked to it so all information associated with the customer is in one place. 

From there, you can add notes and milestones, create and send documents and invoices, and all of the information will be contained in the project. 

 

5. How can I leverage proposals and contracts to get hired? 

During your early talks with prospective clients, you’ll spend your time learning what they need and want from you. You’ll also likely want to pitch your services to them so that they hire you. Our suite of project management tools makes it possible for you to create visually striking proposals and contracts for your clients to help you stand out from the crowd every step of the way. 

By clicking the Create button in the top-right corner of the Invoicing dashboard, you can start with one of our templates to quickly get started. Choose proposal, estimate, or contract, and then customize the sections and content for your needs. You can easily apply your site styles and fonts so all your client documents have a professional and unified look. Moreover, Documents are organized in Projects on your end so you can stay organized. 

Please note, Documents are available on the Business, Commerce, Professional, and Premium plans.

Proposals 

Use proposals to highlight past work that you’ve done, share information and pricing about different packages or tiers of service that you offer, and any other details you think your client would find helpful when making their decision. 

Estimates 

You can create an estimate or a statement of work for a particular client if they require this kind of document. This is particularly useful if you provide services to other businesses or organizations. 

Contracts 

Once you are hired by a client, you can create a formal contract to nail down expectations and deliverables of both parties. You can include an acceptance section in any document type, so that your client can formally accept your fees and terms right from their computer or phone. When clients accept a document from you, it creates a binding agreement. 

Please note, while our Customer Support team can assist you with using Invoicing, business or legal advice falls outside of our scope of support.