Maxi Schwarz wrote:
To get this out of the way first:
I believe such an invoice has better chance of getting paid in time than one issued by an individual freelancer.
I'm curious why the form of an invoice, and in this one in particular, would have that kind of effect.
I looked at the feature yesterday and sent myself one to see how it functions. It is more cumbersome, taking more time, than what I do now, I can't put in the information that my invoices usually contain as easily. I can't bill as I presently do. To explain: At present I have a simple Word template and I simply paste in a new client's particulars, or use an invoice created for an existing client and fill in date, fee, order reference. This takes about 30 seconds or less. The invoice is saved on a location on my computer where I know to find it among all other invoices, as well as an external drive.
With the ProZ invoice, every time there is a new client, I have to click different sections and fill out details, some of which are not necessary. I get several new, one-time only mostly, clients a week this would be cumbersome. 2) I was not able to write in my calculated, quoted fee. It seems that the system wanted to calculate it for me, using a per-word or other formula. When we derive our fees, we figure in many factors and things like per-word fees are merely a baseline. 3) It features "discounts" in a way that I think will make clients expect this to be a regular policy - I surmise that it has to do with the common "cat tool formula" I've seen (and don't use).
Then there is the problem of it being on a site of a forum, instead of being stored on my own computer, which makes it more complicated to access and less private. No, I would not use it - the "should" part puzzled me.