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Small-Business Books · session 3 of 6 · 25 min
The Invoice and the Wait
- Send an invoice that gets paid: what it must say and when to send it.
- Track who owes you what, and follow up without apology.
Work is not finished when the job is done. It is finished when the money arrives. The invoice — what you did, what it costs, when payment is due, how to pay — is the last step of the job itself, and it goes out the same day the work does.
| Client | Invoice sent | Due | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Office on 5th St | Mar 1 | Mar 15 | Ⓛ420.00 |
| Dr. Reyes | Mar 8 | Mar 22 | Ⓛ180.00 |
| Corner bakery | Feb 12 | Feb 26 — past due | Ⓛ275.00 |
The bakery line is not awkward; it is administrative. "Following up on invoice 14, due Feb 26 — happy to resend it." That sentence collects more money than any other sentence in business.
Add up the owed-to-you list. How much of your money is sitting in other people's accounts?
Work it out, then check
Ⓛ420.00 plus Ⓛ180.00 plus Ⓛ275.00 is Ⓛ875.00 — real money the ledger cannot see, which is exactly why the owed list is kept beside it.
This week
Write your own owed-to-you list right now, from memory. If anything on it is past due, draft the one-sentence follow-up — and notice it needed no apology.
Next in Small-Business Books: Profit Is Not the Bank Balance →