Invoices are the most common form of bill for commercial customers. All the varieties of invoice tell a customer how much money they owe you for specified services within a given date range. Invoices do not list any past due amounts or charges from earlier invoices; for more information, see this topic.

There are a number of bill formats available; since the Plain Paper Invoice is currently most used an example is provided below. Underneath is an explanation of the bill, a list of other useful information about invoices in general, and explanations of our other invoice formats.

Your business name and return address print at the top left so it appears correctly in windowed envelopes. At top right is the invoice number, the date the bill was printed, the customer's account number, and (in bold) the amount due on that invoice. Below is the customer's name, billing address (left), and physical address (right). The billing address lines up in windowed envelopes, and if you use our Trash Billing service to process electronic payments it will also include a QR code that can direct the customer right to the website and log them in. A block of space below the addresses is set aside for a brief message, the TrashBilling.com login information, and the due date.

The next section starts with a line repeating the name, customer account number, and service address on the account. That's because some companies use perforated paper so the top third can be detached and mailed back with payment, keeping the section below to file away. The charges section lists all charges oldest to newest along with a running balance on the right. The Invoice Total shows up in bold and matches the Please Pay amount at top. Below this is the Trash Billing login information and any message you chose to include.

Here's some useful information to know when sending invoices. Email invoices work the same way, though their appearances differ.

• When printing any bill you have a field called Detail Charges From (Last Billing Date). An invoice will list all charges made after (not on) this date
• The date on the bill will always be the current business date in Trash Flow. You can certainly change the business date, but please keep in mind that Trash Flow will then invoice any charges after the date of last billing up through the current business date—charges after that will be ignored.
• Once a charge has been invoiced it is assigned that invoice number and cannot show up on a different invoice. You can right-click an existing invoice in customer history and choose Re-Invoice to print another copy. If you make a mistake when invoicing you must first delete the invoice before you can try billing again.
• Customers who have the Inv by Placement option checked under the Edit menu will get separate invoices for every container placement that has charges.
• You have two options to add an extra message to print on bills. When you go through the bill printing process there are fields titled Message Line 1 and Message Line 2. Each of these is limited to 30 characters and will print under the billing address. In addition, you can create a longer message to print at the bottom of the bill. This message can be as long as you want, though note that making it too long might cause the bill to print an extra page.
• There's an option to Include Aging/Bal on Invoice. Showing a customer's full balance on an invoice is not considered a good practice in accounting, but the option is there if it makes sense to you and your customers.
• Similarly, there's an option to Include Payments on Invoices. This is again considered bad form by most accountants, but the option is there in case you want to use it.
• The customer's billing address will always print on the left and the physical address on the right. We sell a common style of business envelope with a transparent window for the billing address.
• There are two ways in Trash Flow to tell customers when to pay their bill: Enter Your Payment Terms and Setting Due Dates for Plain Paper Bills. Either will work, but it's best to choose one and stick with it.
• The Plain Paper Invoice keeps a running total to the right of each transactions; older bill formats typically do not.
• Listed transactions do not include taxes. Instead the tax amount is listed just above the bill total. In cases where separate taxes are charged they are each totaled individually.
• If you use our Trash Billing service to process electronic payments the customer's web account number will be listed twice: once underneath their addresses and again just under the total amount due. The latter will also have a note directing them "Pay your bill and see account information Online at [website name]."

Other Invoice Formats

• 6 1/2 x 7 inch invoice: this is meant for continuous-feed dot-matrix printers.
• 8 1/2 x 11 inch invoice: this is an older form of bill for laser and inkjet printers, but many Trash Flow haulers still use it. It is meant to be used with the blue and white statement paper we sell.
• CSV File Invoice: this generates a CSV file that can be opened with Microsoft Excel. These are formatted in a consistent manner and are meant to be handed off to a printing company.
• Email Invoice: an example is provided below. if you send an email statement to one of your customers this is what they will receive. They still follow the same theory as a plain paper statement.

Further resources

Print Bills for a Group