Fractional work requires good invoice hygiene. We built this tool to solve our own problems with invoices.
Risky Invoices - Blog that talk about the need for keeping invoices. Big invoices are not a good idea. As a fractional, you are not full time or hourly employees, but you want to keep your client thinking along that lines.
I have found that setting a specific period is health. In general outside invoices get reviewed and signed off on faster then they follow a set cadence.
Smaller invoices are easier to review. 2k vs 12k. There is just a mental obstacle that can come up. Fractional bill rates are higher a salaries employee might be use to, if they do not understand the cost structure.
I approach is to make them easy to review. Set time spans mean the project lead, or principle will easily link the cost and hours to recent projects and deliverables.
- Invoice on Time - Always - If you do the work, you can invoice. We make it easy. We nag you when it’s time to invoice. We nag you when you are slow. We make it stupid easy.
- Be scarce! - It might seem strange, but it’s important to keep your clients aware that you have limited hours and other companies want your time.
- Keep Invoice Small - Small, short duration and documented. These invoices keep the payment linked to the work. Small invoices can be paid with a credit card, and fit in under credit card limits.
When a fractional gets behind by 3-4 bill cycles, the total value of outstanding invoices might lead to a bit of sticker shock for a company. Even if they know what they are being, your point of contact might not be the person who manages the budget.
If the client goes through reocrganzations, layoffs or changes in management, invoices can get delayed. Or at the very worst, contested.
Sometimes a client will just tell you, invoice on this frequency. Our invoicing tool is designed for this reason. I consider it a best practice to setup the next three sequences invoices, so that they are in place and ready to gather hours as you work.
Additionally we have build the UI and notifications to push you to invoice once the invoice time frame is coming to a close. Use it. Fractional who invoice are fractionals who get paid.
The final benefit of smaller sequential invoices is that the quantity has its own mental weight. A company can not argue that there are distractions causing a slow pay issue, if the invoices have numbers and are aging in their system.