Billing workflows
Setting Up Billing With a New Client in 15 Minutes
A fifteen minute billing setup for every new client: find the real billing contact, agree terms out loud, trade paperwork, and send a recap email.
By the FreeInvoices.co team | Updated July 10, 2026 | 5 min read
Most first invoice disasters were preventable at kickoff. The invoice sat in the wrong inbox for three weeks. It was missing a PO number nobody mentioned. The client assumed net 60 was normal because nobody said otherwise. Fifteen minutes of billing setup when a new client signs saves hours of chasing later, and it reads as professionalism, not paranoia. Here's the whole conversation, minute by minute.
Minutes 1 to 5: Ask How They Pay
Start with five questions. With a homeowner this takes three minutes; with a corporation, maybe ten, and every answer removes a future delay you'd otherwise discover thirty days after the first invoice went nowhere.
- Who should invoices go to? Get a name and an email, because “just send it to me” from a busy company contact often means it dies in a personal inbox
- Do you need a PO number or vendor registration before I can bill? Larger clients often can't pay without them
- How do you prefer to pay: card, bank transfer, check, something else?
- When do you run payments? Many companies pay on fixed cycles, and invoicing two days before a run beats two days after it
- Is there a portal or a specific format your accounts payable system needs?
Minutes 6 to 10: Set the Terms Out Loud
Now the part people skip because it feels awkward: say your terms before the first invoice has to say them for you. Due date, deposit, and what happens when payment runs late. Two sentences cover it. “I invoice on delivery with net 15 terms, and I take a 30% deposit to book the work. Overdue invoices pause the work and can carry a 1.5% monthly charge.” Nobody has ever fired a freelancer for saying that at kickoff. Plenty of freelancers have been sunk by their own cash flow for not saying it. If you're unsure which terms to pick, the reasoning behind each choice is laid out in invoice payment terms.
Minutes 11 to 13: Trade the Paperwork
US clients who will pay you more than $600 in a year will eventually want a W-9, so hand it over now instead of during their January panic. Collect what you need from them too: the exact legal name and billing address for your invoices, a tax exemption certificate if they claim one, and a signed estimate or agreement if the job warrants it. If they require vendor onboarding, insurance certificates, banking forms, a supplier portal, start it today rather than with the first invoice. At some companies, vendor setup takes longer than the actual project.
Minutes 14 and 15: Send the Recap
Close the loop with a short email the same day. It's not a contract; it's a memory aid, and it's the document you'll quietly forward when a new person takes over their accounts payable in month three. Keep it to seven lines or fewer so it actually gets read, and reuse the same skeleton for every client.
The Two Minute Recap Email
Subject: Billing setup for the Hartley project
Confirming what we agreed today:
Invoices go to ap@hartleygroup.example, copy to Dana.
PO 4417 appears on every invoice.
Terms: 30% deposit to schedule, balance net 15 from delivery.
Payment by bank transfer; you run payments on the 1st and 15th.
Deposit invoice follows this email. Thanks!
Then Send the Deposit Invoice the Same Day
The first invoice tests everything you just set up, so send it while the ink is metaphorically wet: the deposit, with the PO number on it, to the confirmed inbox, on the agreed terms. A same day deposit invoice does two jobs at once. It proves the billing pipeline works while everyone still cares, and it screens for trouble, because a client who stalls on a deposit they agreed to an hour ago is showing you the next six months. Build it in the free invoice generator, label it plainly as a deposit, and reference the same project name you'll use on every invoice after it.
Keep a Client Billing Card
One note per client: billing contact, PO rules, terms, payment method, payment run dates, quirks like “AP closes the last week of each quarter.” It takes thirty seconds to update, and every future invoice, reminder, and awkward payment conversation starts from facts instead of memory.
Frequently asked questions
What if the client has no formal AP process at all?
Common with homeowners and very small businesses, and the setup shrinks to three items: confirm the email invoices go to, state your terms and deposit, and agree on how they'll pay. Skip the PO and portal questions entirely. The recap email matters even more here, because with informal clients it's often the only written record of what was agreed.
Should I ask every new client for a deposit?
For project work, yes, almost always, somewhere in the 25-50% range depending on trade and job size. It confirms the client can actually pay, funds your materials, and makes cancellations survivable. Reasonable exceptions: established companies with formal vendor terms and solid payment reputations, or jobs so small the deposit is more admin than protection. Waive it as a decision, never as a default.
When should this conversation happen?
After they've said yes to the work, before you've done any of it. Folding billing setup into the kickoff call is the natural fit: scope first, schedule second, billing last, fifteen minutes total. Raising terms mid project feels like renegotiation and lands badly. If a project already started without this setup, run it at the next invoice instead of never.