How to make a proforma invoice step by step

When the calendar reminds you that there are two months left to say goodbye to 2022, you know that the time has come to review your business's annual billing. It's time to check that your employees' internal expenses and payroll are correct, among a large list of details to consider within your company.

One of the big questions you should ask yourself during this process is whether you have succeeded keep a clear control of invoices and budgets. At taclia, we tell you what you should know about these two key elements for your company and why Proforma invoices are more essential than they seem.

Invoices and proforma invoices

The invoice itself is a commercial document that contains all the information about the service provided or a specific sale. This sheet is registered, so it has a legal validity, since the corresponding State taxes are paid.

Instead, The proforma invoice It is the document prior to the normal invoice. That is, it is a kind of provisional draft. It contains the details of the future invoice so that the customer can get an idea of how the services are going to be provided and what their fixed price is.

And what's the difference between a budget?

Do not confuse a pro forma invoice with a budget. The budget is the purely informational document that is sent to establish the first contact with the customer. Once the customer and the company accept the terms of the budget, the proforma invoice is designed.

What sets these concepts apart from everything is that if, for whatever reason, the customer and the company disagree, In judicial value, the proforma invoice will serve as proof to demonstrate any fraudulent activity that has been carried out.

Example of a pro forma invoice

The pro forma invoice shows the real cost of your products or services, therefore it is important to issue it so that the customer has visibility of the amount to be owed before receiving the final bill.

What should a proforma invoice include?

Here is an example of a pro forma invoice that you can create very easily through the Sales functionality by taclia:

As you can see in the example, these are the different elements that your proforma invoice should include:

• Information about your company and the customer, including name, tax identification number, telephone, email and address. By creating your invoice through taclia, you can also add your company logo.
  
• Date of the invoice. It is important to know the time it was issued and also the due date. Here we indicate that this is a pro forma invoice. It must always be indicated in the document to differentiate it from an ordinary invoice.

Below, we include the details of the services or products. Each service forms a separate line within the invoice. What is indicated in each line?

• Concept: here we detail the service we have offered to the customer. If we wish, we can write down a short description of the service.
• Quantity: the number of times we have offered our service.
• Price: per unit, without VAT or withholding.
• Subtotal: total price, without VAT or withholding.
• Tax: the tax rate, the withholding that must be applied.
• Total: The final amount of the transaction.

After the detail of the lines, as a summary, the subtotal price, the percentage of taxes and the total to be paid by the customer. You can also include a visible message at the end of the document.

With taclia you can make your proforma invoices and customize them in an easy and simple way. In the section Sales from your application, you will be able to have your budgets, rates, ordinary invoices and proforma invoices at your fingertips. You will have a list of services that have already been invoiced, collected or are still pending. You can review the date the work was done and the payment due, so you can always keep in mind when you should demand answers from your customer.

You will be able to create your own proforma invoice, writing down all the details that have been seen before, following the clear scheme offered by taclia:

Before sending the final document to your client, you can preview or download it. When the invoice is ready, with just one click you can send it directly to your customer. Once you have the customer's confirmation, you can convert your proforma invoice into an ordinary invoice by clicking on 'Convert to invoice'.

Thanks to the section Tariffs of the Sales functionality, you can very easily assign a cost to each of your services and create your invoices in seconds.

In the same way, don't forget that with taclia you can save your simplified invoices, those that are like a “ticket”, a receipt for the final payment.

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