Your brand is the essence of your company. It’s what your customers perceive you to be, and it’s how you portray your business to the world. It’s imperative your brand’s appeal is strong. Believe it or not, invoicing can boost that appeal. You might wonder how sending something as simple as an invoice can do anything for your brand identity. After all, isn’t it usually the final step after the successful completion of a client project? What’s the big deal? The answer rests in the term ‘brand continuity,’ which is a big part of strengthening long-term client relationships and increasing the chances of referrals. Why brand continuity matters Brand continuity – also known as brand consistency – is the exposure of your brand identity across multiple customer touchpoints. Your target audience sees your visual branding, your core brand messaging, and other branding elements repeatedly over time during each interaction with your business. Such brand continuity builds trust and loyalty, inspiring people to feel positive emotions when thinking about you and your business. The consistency ensures you stay top of mind with customers and prospects, and distinguishes your brand from your main competitors. Any discrepancies in the branding, messaging, or quality of your products and services, will quickly lead to doubts and concerns. Even one hiccup – one inconsistency – can raise alarm bells and destroy carefully cultivated branding. How invoicing plays a part in brand continuity If you’ve worked with clients for any amount of time, you’ll know invoicing is not merely a request for payment at the end of a job. There are different types of invoicing documents, including deposits or partial payment requests to start a job, or recurring invoicing for ongoing gigs. These can come before, during, or after a project. And they can be for a brand new client or one you’ve worked with for years. Then there are related documents that can be turned into invoices such as estimates, quotes, and even proposals. All of these invoices and documents are touchpoints with your brand and require strict brand continuity. From the logo in your invoice header to the color scheme, company details, and the way you word and title your itemized service details, everything needs to be seamless and consistent. And this is where advanced online invoicing technology, like Invoice Ninja, can help you. Why not allow your client to convert an approved quotation into an invoice with 1 click? Why not leverage technology in every way possible to solidify your client’s experience with your company? How invoicing technology can help Whether it’s AI, cryptocurrencies, coding, or web development, every stage in a process needs seamless continuity. Otherwise, things have a habit of breaking. The same applies to your invoicing process. What cloud-based invoicing technology does is to help ensure every touchpoint with your clients and customers is consistent. With some initial input and personalization, you can soon make your invoicing processes almost entirely automatic. Let’s have a look at some features of cloud invoicing technology that can help boost your brand appeal. Adaptable invoice templates Your visual branding is a vital component in maintaining a consistent brand across multiple touchpoints. Attractive invoice designs featuring your company’s color schemes and logo present a professional front. They assure prospects and clients that you care about your reputation. With cloud invoicing technology, you can automatically maintain design continuity across all your invoices and related documents. For example, the same graphics, color schemes, and content formatting for an invoice will also be used for quotes, estimates, recurring invoices, and proposals. Best of all, with Invoice Ninja, you simply click and convert the document into the appropriate format for the next stage of the invoicing or project process. Custom domains Even small details like the displayed URL from which you email your invoice can make a big difference to your brand identity. Instead of directing people to a domain obviously from an invoicing software company, you can alternatively send people to an URL created from your company’s name. It might be a little detail, but it all helps position your brand as highly professional and all-encompassing, which instills trust. Client-side portals Something you can’t do with traditional forms of invoicing is to offer clients a seat at the table. By this we mean, a client-side portal. A portal allows your clients and customers to access all their transaction history and other details with you in one easy-to-understand password-protected panel. They get to view previous payments, future payments, quotes, account details, even third party attachments such a presentation files, design files, any type of document needed to accompany the invoice - all of which they can download if desired. A client-side portal offers complete transparency when it comes to payments, which is a massive benefit for your clients and your brand appeal. Third-party file attachments When people are busy, multiple emails with various attachments can get lost, be forgotten, or caught in spam folders. Chasing mislaid attachments is a nuisance for everyone concerned, and it harms your brand. Another benefit of cloud invoicing technology is the ability to attached third-party files to invoices, all in one email delivery. Your client receives everything they need without having to jigsaw the pieces together. Attachments you can add to your Invoice Ninja invoice document include proposals, contracts, project files, timesheets, translations, images, and any other important notes. Automatic recurring invoicing When working long-term with a client, it’s crucial to ensure your recurring invoicing system is consistent. Sending invoices manually - weekly, monthly, or quarterly - involves writing invoices individually, which can result in errors and inconsistencies. A better alternative is to automatically bill clients at set predetermined times, allowing for a more hands-off approach to invoicing. You create a template into which data is automatically added. This procedure not only saves you a lot of time but also ensures your invoices arrive at precisely the same time each week, month, or quarter, and with perfect consistency in all other regards. Multiple payment gateways Clients and customers have different preferences when it comes to making payments. While some will be content using PayPal or credit card, others will much prefer methods such as direct bank transfers and cryptocurrency payments. With Invoice Ninja’s invoicing technology, you can cater to all tastes. You can achieve this goal through the use of multiple payment methods. These are seamlessly integrated directly into the online invoice document itself. It usually requires just a simple click of a link to make a payment, right there and then. As you might imagine, this makes things smooth and fast, which will inevitably make a great brand impression. Boost your cash flow and your brand appeal Your brand is everything. It’s essential to strengthen and positively cultivate its development at every opportunity. A big part of this effort, as we have noted, is ensuring continuity across all customer touchpoints. Invoicing might seem like an admin task that has little to do with marketing and sales. But it does. Invoices are a big part of your brand image. It’s good to get them working in your favor. With the right cloud invoicing technology, you can boost not only your cash flow but also your brand appeal. ( : ) Disclaimer The author is the Founder and CEO at Invoice Ninja

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