If you are a self-employed artist or artworker in the UK, you’ll usually have to submit an invoice to whoever you are billing for your work (eg an organisation, university, or company) before you can get paid.
As part of the Being Really Good At Being Self Employed series, here’s a tried and tested methods I use for writing invoice and contracts.
Are you are new to being self-employed or are asked to submit an invoice for the work you do?
This quick guide shows you what you need to include, and how to chase the late payments.
Getting Paid: How to write an invoice (slides) – Rachel Dobbs
Do I need to use online book-keeping software (like Xero or Quickbooks) to create an invoice?
The quick answer is NO – you can setup an invoice in any format you like (eg make a document in Word, or on Google Drive, or any other way of prepping a document that you prefer). You can even write your invoice with pen & paper (although this is very easy to lose track of!)
Here’s a simple layout and example that includes all of the details that need to be present in your invoice (laid out in Google Docs).
However, if you have been following my easy method for Doing Your Tax Return, you’ll know that it can be useful to use online book-keeping software as a way to generate invoices, as it also keeps an automatic record of all of your invoices for you. This is very handy when it comes to doing your annual tax return, and keeping an eye on how much income you have received during the tax year.
Services like Xero and Quickbooks charge a monthly fee, but there are also FREE OPTIONS AVAILABLE (who don’t have a massive advertising budget to tell you about their services!)
I’d recommend checking-out Quickfile – for the size of business you’ll be running, a free account with Quickfile (or similar free service) will be fine, and does pretty much all the same things!
Do I need a contract?
Often as a self-employed artist or artworker, you might be agreeing details of one-off work over email (which allows you to look back at what fees you have agreed and other details discussed). This is often fine for smaller gigs, or one-off workshops and presentations etc. and if both sides are happy to go ahead like this, there’s nothing to stop you.
Make sure you clearly agree things like:
- the fee (and any other expenses)
- what work will be carried out
- the date(s) & times of the work (including any deadlines)
- any expectations around information & images to be supplied
- the process for invoicing & payment
For more involved projects or commissions, I would strongly recommend that you agree a more formal contract with the individual or organisation you are working with. Similarly, if you are paying someone else to carry out work for you (eg setup a website, assist in a project you are running etc), you’ll want to agree a contract to make sure that everyone involved knows what is expected in exchange for payment.
Additionally, if you are paying someone to take photographs (or other recordings) of your artwork or projects, you’ll need to agree who owns the copyright of the images / recordings and how they can be used in future.
You can easily write a DIY contract together (that doesn’t involve solicitors or big legal costs) using contract templates like the ones below…
TOP TIP: Contracts don’t need to involve complex legal language – they can and should be written in simple terms that both parties (you and whoever you are making a contract with) can understand.
Easy contract templates
If you find these resources useful, let me know via Instagram – @RachelDobbs1. All of the resources I produce are available to download for FREE, but if you’d like to contribute to my future projects, say thank you or just do something nice for a fellow creative practitioner, feel free to donate by clicking the button below…