Invoice and get paid fast

The payment delay is your real margin

An issued invoice isn't collected money. Between the two lies a delay — and that delay is often what suffocates a young business. In many countries the default legal payment term is 30 days, capped at 60. But many clients treat that delay as a starting point, not a limit. Your job is to shorten this cycle as much as possible, because every week saved is extra cash without a single additional sale.

Three levers shorten the delay: a clear, compliant invoice (no excuse to dispute it), an instant payment method (a payment link beats bank details), and automatic reminders (most late payments are oversights, not refusals).

Issuing a compliant invoice without mistakes

A professional invoice must carry mandatory information: the issuer's identity and company number, the client's identity, a sequential invoice number, the date, a description of the work, the pre-tax amount, the applicable VAT (or the exemption note for small businesses), the tax-inclusive amount, and the payment terms. An incomplete invoice can be rejected by the client or the tax authority.

The classic beginner trap is cobbling invoices together in a word processor. It's slow, error-prone, and the numbering eventually develops gaps. Better to use a dedicated tool that guarantees compliance and sequencing automatically.

Note: electronic invoicing is becoming progressively mandatory between businesses in many markets (in France, large companies must issue electronically from 2026, smaller ones from 2027). Choosing a compatible tool today (or a partner dematerialization platform) will spare you a last-minute migration.

Invoicing tools, by profile

The right tool depends on your volume and status:

• Free / micro-business: solutions like Henrri, Abby, or the free invoicing module in Shine are enough for a few invoices a month. Abby is built for sole traders and also handles social-charge declarations.
• Regular freelancer: Tiime offers a free invoicing tool connected to accounting. Indy combines invoicing and bookkeeping in one interface.
• Company / volume: full accounting suites like Pennylane or Sellsy handle quotes, invoices, reminders, and collection in a single flow.

Practical rule: first choose the accounting tool you'll use (Chapter 5), and take its built-in invoicing rather than stacking two disconnected tools.

Collecting: the payment link changes everything

The payment method determines collection speed. Bank details at the bottom of an invoice force the client to make a manual transfer — so they have to remember. A payment link (card) lets them pay in two clicks, immediately.

• Stripe is the reference for collecting by card on the web. Payment Links require no code: you generate a URL, send it, the client pays. Indicative rate in the European zone: around 1.5% + €0.25 per transaction for a European card (more for non-EU cards).
• PayPal reassures some consumers but its fees are higher (often around 2.9% plus a fixed fee).
• GoCardless is interesting for SEPA direct debit on recurring amounts: cheaper than a card for subscriptions or installments.

A good reflex: add a card payment link directly on the invoice. Many tools (Stripe, Pennylane, Tiime) do this natively.

Automating reminders

Most late payments aren't refusals: they're oversights. A polite reminder at the right time handles the bulk of them. Rather than monitoring unpaid invoices by hand, switch on automatic reminders: the tool sends a nudge at day +1, +7, +15 after the due date, without you having to think about it.

Pennylane, Sellsy, and Indy offer these automatic reminders. For a minimalist setup, a Make or Zapier scenario can also detect an unpaid invoice and send an email — but an accounting tool that does it natively stays more robust.

Putting this first link in place

Concretely, to start this week: choose a compliant invoicing tool suited to your status, create a reusable invoice template with all mandatory fields, add a Stripe card payment link, and switch on automatic reminders. You've just removed three sources of delay: the disputable invoice, the painful payment, and the oversight. This is the link that feeds all downstream cash flow.