42: Squarespace Invoicing: is it worth a try?

May 16

EPISODE SUMMARY

Whether you offer one-on-one services like website design, consulting, or any other service that requires an invoice, you're probably familiar with the constant juggle of tasks. Keeping track of project details, staying on top of client communication, and waiting for that invoice to be paid can be a hassle. But what if there was a tool that could help you streamline your workflow and get paid faster? Enter: Squarespace Invoicing.

In this episode of ThinkinsideTheSquare, we'll dive into the details of Squarespace Invoicing, a new feature designed to ease your invoicing woes. We'll look at what it is, how it works, and why it might be worth a try for your business.

What is Squarespace Invoicing?

Squarespace Invoicing is a new feature added to the Squarespace platform. It's aimed at helping business owners create and manage invoices efficiently. The best part? It's included for free with your Squarespace subscription. There are payment processing fees associated with your clients paying their invoice, but that's just a standard business expense.

One of themost important out features of Squarespace Invoicing is its integration with your website. It can display your logo and match your branding, upping the professional look of your invoices. While you're limited to existing font packs and default colors, it's a start for maintaining consistency across your business platforms.

How does Squarespace Invoicing work?

Getting started with Squarespace Invoicing ispretty straightforward. After you set up a payment solution like Squarespace Payments on your website, you're ready to create your first invoice. You can manually add line items to the invoice, specify when it's due, and even add a discount.

One of the useful features of Squarespace Invoicing is the ability to associate invoices with project milestones. This project management tracking is built into the invoices feature, helping you keep an eye on your projects and making sure everything stays on track.

Why should you try Squarespace Invoicing?

Squarespace Invoicing could be incredibly cost-effective for service-based businesses. You won't need to sign up for another software program or figure out how to integrate it with your domain and email. Plus, Squarespace Invoicing streamlines the process of creating, sending, and managing invoices, and it's all in one place.

However, it's important to keep in mind that while Squarespace is adding cool new features all the time, their main focus is on being a website building platform. While they're making efforts to help users keep things in one place, they might not be dedicated to becoming the best web-based invoice software on the market.

The bottom line: Squarespace Invoice Review

Whether you're tired of the constant hustle to stay organized and get paid on time, or you're just looking for a new way to streamline your invoicing process, Squarespace Invoicing might be worth a try. It's free for Squarespace users, integrates with your website, and could make your business operations a little smoother.

Just remember, it might not be perfect, but it's a start. And sometimes, a start is all you need.

[00:00:00] If you offer one on one services
[00:00:12] like website designs or consulting or anything that requires an invoice, you're probably familiar with the feeling of juggling a million tasks at once. You're chasing down project details, firing off emails to clients, and you're hoping that invoice that you sent ages ago just magically gets paid.
[00:00:28] Sound familiar? If you're tired of that constant hustle to stay organized and get paid on time, there is good news, my friend. Squarespace has introduced a brand new feature designed to be your secret weapon, Squarespace invoicing. In this episode of Think Inside the Square, you'll get an overview of this new feature so you can decide if it's the right program to start using for your own business.
[00:00:50] Welcome to Think Inside the Square, a podcast full of tips and tricks to help you create a Squarespace website that you're proud of. I'm your host, Becca Harpain, Squarespace expert and creator of InsideTheSquare. co. In this episode, we're talking about Squarespace invoicing, a brand new feature. I'll be breaking down how it works, how to set it up, and some of the reasons that you might want to give it a try.
[00:01:09] For a transcript of this episode, along with the links to any resources mentioned, visit insidethesquare.co/podcast.
[00:01:15] The term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace, Inc.. This content is not affiliated with Squarespace, Inc..
[00:01:22] Full disclosure here, my friend, I have not set out a client invoice in a few years.
[00:01:27] I made the transition to full time educator around 2021, and I do invoice some of the companies that I do contract work for, including Squarespace itself, but I don't regularly invoice clients like I used to. Before I was a full time Squarespace educator, I definitely had my fair share of frantic scrambles searching for client emails, project notes, and whatever invoice I swear was overdue.
[00:01:51] Squarespace invoicing could have really helped me out back in the day. So in this episode, I'm going to share the reasons of why I would use it and the reasons why I wouldn't, so you can make an informed decision for your business. First and foremost, it's free for us Squarespace users. There are payment processing fees associated with your client paying the invoice using Squarespace payments or any other form of payment, but that's a cost of doing business.
[00:02:15] The actual feature itself, the invoice creation, and the project management, it's a part of your Squarespace subscription already. Yes, even personal plans. It also integrates directly with your website, and it can have your logo right on the invoice. Now, being an artist and a designer myself, my first question about this new feature was, how do I make it pretty?
[00:02:35] Squarespace invoicing gives us a few options for creating branded invoices and they have a few pre designed templates that you can customize with your logo and your color scheme. But these design settings are connected to the global email styles that work with customer notifications. That means it is not the full suite of options that we have for our website.
[00:02:55] You're limited to font packs and setting default colors. [00:03:00] Sadly, my favorite font, Poppins, is not on that list. I have literally changed email service providers to keep my font, so this would be a big setback for me, if it weren't for the direct integration into everything else Squarespace. So if you're super picky about fonts like me, Stick with me here.
[00:03:17] You still might want to give it a try, even if these invoices won't look perfectly on brand. One of the features of these invoices is that we can associate them with project milestones, associating specific costs with parts of a project and seeing outstanding invoices at a glance on a client's profile.
[00:03:35] This project management tracking, it's built right into the invoices feature and it can help you manage your projects effectively to make sure that everything stays on track. That was something I used to really struggle with when I used multiple systems to invoice my clients. Squarespace invoicing really streamlines that process.
[00:03:53] Now let's talk about the bottom line, getting paid for your work. The whole point of sending an invoice, right? Your clients can pay invoices directly through your website, and this invoice integrates seamlessly with Squarespace payments, so you can manage everything in one place. Now, at the time of recording this, Squarespace payments is available in the United States, but it's unclear when it's going to roll out to other countries.
[00:04:16] I'll link to the official support article in the show notes, so you can check that out for the most up to date info. So again, Squarespace invoicing, the feature, it's included with all Squarespace plans. You don't need to pay any additional fees to access this invoicing tool or the project management associated with it.
[00:04:33] You only pay the standard processing fees associated with receiving payments. Now, this is a big reason that Squarespace invoicing could be incredibly cost effective for service based businesses. You don't have to pay for another software program and figure out how to integrate it with your domain and your email and all that magic.
[00:04:51] Now, I'm not a salesperson, but let's say you're sold on this feature and you're ready to give it a try. Before you dive in head first, I want to talk to you about the process. This is a podcast, so I'm going to keep it high level and save that tech tutorial stuff for my courses and videos, okay? Invoicing itself is designed to be user friendly, but I want to make sure you genuinely feel confident using it from the get go.
[00:05:12] So let's break this down. The first step to using invoices is to connect a payment solution, like Squarespace Payments, to your website. If you haven't connected a payment processor yet, you need to do that first. This will allow clients to pay their invoices directly through your Squarespace platform, saving them time and hassle.
[00:05:30] Two things that can prevent you from getting paid. Now once you've crossed that off your to do list, you're ready to create your first invoice. Again, everyone has this feature and it's free to try. Inside your main website menu on the left hand side of your screen, you're going to see Invoicing directly under Scheduling.
[00:05:46] The first thing you need to do is specify who this invoice is going to. Now Squarespace automatically stores all of the contact information from anyone who submitted a contact form, so you can quickly add those details to an invoice. [00:06:00] But you don't have to pick a real person, and I don't think you should, not for your first one.
[00:06:05] You'll see the option to add yourself as a test client, so start there. On the next screen, you'll be able to create a line item for every item or service, and make sure you include the quantity or the invoice due date. It's important to be specific about each of the services or products provided and the fees, but this can be a little tricky using Squarespace invoices.
[00:06:25] The only text you can add is to the line item itself is the title. There are no descriptions, but there is a memo space in the entire invoice. Now I'm going to say something wild here. I don't think you should rely on automation to fill in that text. This memo space, this is a great place to get personal about the specific project and make sure the person paying the invoice is confident about investing in your services.
[00:06:49] So again, there will be a memo spot for that, but each line item can have a title. Now the invoice itself also has a title and then you specify when it's due. Is it immediately or on a specific date? You can also add a discount line and that discount can be a value or a percentage. Now last but not least you can click on the styles option to update the branding.
[00:07:09] The official support article and landing page say match your site's branding, but let's be honest, all you're matching here are the global email settings, which is very limited when it comes to fonts and other customizations. Technically, the colors can match, so we're gonna call that a win, okay? And your logo or site title, that'll be placed on there automatically.
[00:07:28] Alright, let's do a recap here about this new feature. Squarespace invoices is a new feature that you don't have to pay extra for. It's already a part of your Squarespace subscription. Even on a personal plan, you can use it to send invoices to your clients or anyone who's filled out a contact form or even manually add a new client.
[00:07:45] You'll need to manually add a line item to their invoice and you can add a discount to. Link it to the payment processor you already use on Squarespace so your client can pay it online and you specify when it's due. Good reasons to use it. Again, it's free for Squarespace users. It integrates with your website, has your logo on it.
[00:08:04] It's one less software program to sign up for, that's a big win in my book. And you can duplicate an invoice and send it to a different client, so if you offer the same style of service, that could be a really helpful feature. Now the major downside is that you don't have that much flexibility when it comes to the design, the fonts, and the layouts, they're really limited.
[00:08:23] So if design is a really big deal, invoices are not going to be ideal. I also want to mention the elephant in the room here. Squarespace is a website building platform. Yes, they add cool new features all the time, invoicing being one of them. But when you try to be good at everything, you can't focus on being great at one thing, right?
[00:08:44] As much as I love Squarespace and all the things that it lets us do as creative entrepreneurs, we have to keep in mind the fact that they aren't focused on becoming the best web based invoice software program on the market. Okay, maybe they are, but I feel like companies whose whole thing is one [00:09:00] specific task, like project management, will spend more time and resources developing features for that specific task.
[00:09:07] Let's use Squarespace campaigns for example. It's a good program that makes it easy to send emails to people who have filled out a form or purchased a product on my Squarespace site. But this program was launched in 2019 and I still can't have my precious Poppins font. So keep that in mind when evaluating the pros and cons of this new feature.
[00:09:26] At the time of recording this, Squarespace isn't dedicated to becoming the world's best invoice program. They're creating a feature to help us keep things in one place, and this feature could improve over time. For anyone that wants to send basic invoices and do simple project management, this program integration is one you don't have to pay extra for, and I think it's worth a try.
[00:09:47] I hope you enjoyed my objective opinion in this relatively new feature. There are some pros and there are some cons, and But it's free to try it out, so consider adding yourself as a test client to see if you can make it work for your business needs. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Inside the Square.
[00:10:02] I've got some resources in the show notes for you, so check those out at insidethesquare.co/podcast
[00:10:07] This is episode 42, so that's insidethesquare.co/podcast/42
[00:10:13] Thank you so much for tuning in, and if there's a feature or concept you want me to cover in an upcoming episode, send me a DM on Instagram.
[00:10:20] I'm at thinkinsidethesquare, and I would love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening, and most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website. Bye for now.
Squarespace Invoices Landing Page: https://www.squarespace.com/blog/create-invoices-on-squarespace

Squarespace Invoicing Support Article: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/19848492736269-Getting-started-with-Squarespace-Payments
Squarespace Payments Support Article: support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/19848492736269-Getting-started-with-Squarespace-Payments