As a business, just having a professional image branding isn't enough when it comes to official documentation. As more and more businesses move online, your important documents should also be available in a digital format.
Google Drive is one of the best free tools for small businesses when it comes to collaborating and sharing important files across teams and clients. It can also serve as an invaluable tool for storage and retrieval of official client files such as invoices, bills, and purchase orders.
Storing your blank invoice templates on Google Drive, whether they are in Google Docs or Google Sheets, is an easy, hassle-free solution for many small businesses.
Did you know InvoiceBerry also has an online invoicing software to help create, send and manage your invoices?
InvoiceBerry simplifies invoices and expense tracking, helping you save time and money. Create your first invoice in the next 5 minutes.
How to Create and Send a Google Drive Template to Clients
One of the best parts of your templates already being in Google Drive is the ease of sharing these files to your clients.
1. Create your sample invoice template
If you already have a sample invoice in another format, like a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, you can upload this to your Google Drive so that you don't have to repeat most of your work.
However, make sure you double check the converted file to see if it converted your document correctly.
Word documents converted to Google Docs might have some formatting issues, as well as Excel spreadsheets turned into Google Sheet documents.
Of course, you can also create your sample invoice directly using Google Docs or Google Sheets by starting with a blank document or spreadsheet.
2. Make a copy when you need a new invoice
From this sample invoice, you can easily make a copy of this file on Drive so that you can customize it with your client's details.
Once your sample invoice is opened, choose Make a Copy from the File menu on Google Drive.r the location of this new invoice.
You will be able to type in a new name for the file as well as a different folder in your Google Drive for the location of this new invoice.
Once you've done that, you can edit the new file directly and add in your client's details. This way, you keep your original template intact and ready for the next time you need to issue an invoice.
From the File menu, select Download and click on PDF Document (.pdf). Your new invoice in PDF format will be downloaded to your computer immediately.
After getting your new PDF invoice, you can print or share this to your client via any of your preferred methods, or you can also upload this PDF back into Google Drive and share that link to your client directly, saving you both a bit of hard drive space!
Google Docs vs Google Sheets for Invoicing
Both Google Docs and Google Sheets can be easily used for your invoice template, depending on your needs.
A Google Docs invoice template will allow you to have a lot of flexibility in terms of display and formatting. It's also easily printer-friendly due to being a word processor at its heart.
Generated PDF invoices from a Google Docs template can be immediately ready for sending.
A Google Sheets invoice template, on the other hand, does have some additional powerful capabilities such as automatically calculating your total for you. Things like taxes, discounts, VAT, and the like can also be automatically computed.
You might have to give up a little flexibility in terms of formatting, but spreadsheet formulas can be very powerful.
Google Drive Invoice Template Alternatives
Google Drive invoice templates are a great tool that allows you to have all your official documentation ready whether you're on the road or collaborating with a bigger team.
It's free and easy to use, and is designed to be easily shareable to your clients right from the start.
But if business is booming and you're issuing invoices and bills left and right, sometimes the process of customizing each invoice and exporting them to PDF can still take a while. In this case, you might want to upgrade to an online invoicing software instead.
Like Google Drive templates, an online invoicing solution like InvoiceBerry is always available, and makes issuing invoices to your clients a breeze. As a business, you get to send professional invoices to your clients quickly and easily, and even send off recurring invoices. For your clients, they get to pay for those invoices right on the invoice itself – easy-peasy.
Make it easy to get paid with InvoiceBerry – for yourself and your clients.
