7. How can we simplify communication with our customers?

a. Send Activity Reports

When a company invoices for a project on the basis of time spent (known as time and materials invoicing), customers often ask for Activity Reports (or CRAs) to confirm the time they will be invoiced for.

Ideally, this should be done on the last day of the month. If a validation process is required before the customer can be invoiced, this process must be clarified, in particular the time the customer has to validate before the invoice is sent.

Ideally, your time tracking tool will automatically send these activity reports to the customer. The customer can check and validate them by workflow in the tool. This promotes rapid, more efficient communication, which in turn enables invoices to be issued more quickly.

b. Include more information in invoice appendices

While invoices must carry a certain number of compulsory details on the main page, it is possible to add annexes to invoices, which include additional information. Invoice appendices can provide additional information in a more free-form format, and are a good communication practice for providing details to the customer. For example, you can add the following to invoice appendices:

• Details of time spent, with comments if necessary, detailing the work carried out during each session
• Details of rebillable expenses
• Details of products sold
• ...

Thanks to these appendices, the amounts summarized on the first page are clearer. When communication is clearer and more transparent, customer satisfaction increases and the time spent by finance teams clarifying invoices decreases. It's a win-win situation.

c. Send invoices by standardized email in addition to electronic invoicing

While electronic invoicing is set to simplify communication between companies even further, sending the invoice document will remain standard practice.

Sending by e-mail allows you to add additional information. You can add a personalized message, additional documents or even a quotation or order form.

While sending invoices by e-mail from the invoicing platform is only possible with invoicing software that offers this feature, it is still possible to standardize e-mail templates at the very least.

This standardization of processes drastically reduces (by 20% to 25%) the time spent by teams on this phase of invoicing.

Stafiz automates the validation of activity reports by the customer via a workflow. Additional documents are automatically added to the invoices according to the invoice templates chosen for this customer and this project. Finally, Stafiz lets you send all invoices en masse from the platform, by connecting to your mailboxes.

See our billing function

The 9 problems of project invoicing and how Stafiz can help you solve them?

1. How do you estimate costs, prices and billing type for a billable project?

2. How to manage the risk of project overruns?

3. How can I get paid faster by my customers?

4. How to manage complex billing arrangements

5. How do you handle tax billing and multi-currency billing?

6. How to manage invoicing between different entities within the same company (inter-company flows)

7. How can we simplify communication with our customers?

8. How can I change certain parameters during the course of a project that will have an impact on invoicing?

9. How do I set up a project quotation and invoicing tool?

The 9 problems of project billing