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DownloadIs bad invoice software a problem? This Invoice Collection spreadsheet template provides printable invoice spreadsheets for any business need, with templates for small businesses, freelancers, consultants, contractors, or corporations. Enter billable services, product quantities, and additional expenses, and our template will calculate the totals accounting for taxes and fees. Break out charges by services, product quantities, hours, or all three. A Proforma invoice calculates freight, tariffs, insurance, legal, and inspection fees for international orders. And a corporate sales invoice accounts for currency exchange rates for international deals. Last, an invoice tracker tallies outstanding invoices to keep track of paid and outstanding invoices.
Questions and answers
Have you heard about this PayPal invoice scam going around? Scammers are using fake invoices to trick small businesses, individuals, and big corporations into sending money to fraudulent accounts posing as legitimate businesses. Fake invoice scams can be seriously damaging, as similar scams cost big tech companies Facebook and Google hundreds of millions of dollars in 2019. Below, we explain 1) How the PayPal invoice scam works, 2) how even big companies are tricked by these scams, 3) how you can create personalized invoices to avoid getting caught up by these scams, and 4) how to use a fully customizable Invoice Collection template we created to get started. Whether you're a small business, corporate buyer, freelancer, consultant, or contractor, this template has invoices for you. If you want to go straight to the resource, scroll below to go there now.
If you've ever used PayPal, you probably know it allows sellers to create invoices to send to other users' account to pay for a product or service directly on the platform. The scam that's going around now takes advantage of PayPal's minimal security filters, which don't double-check if an invoice is legitimate or not. This scam makes it pretty easy for scammers to send invoices that request payment for a service to other PayPal users. In this example, the "Billing Department of PayPal' requested a thousand dollars from a fake Walmart eGift Card purchase. Other scammers send invoice estimates, like this example where sixteen hundred dollars was requested for a new internet connection. In this case, the goal is for the user to click a scam link or call a fake phone number.
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Sometimes these invoices request cash, or sometimes crypto, but they usually all have some form of "here's your invoice" or "invoice updated" with a button to say "view and pay invoice." This mimics a real PayPal invoice and is sent through a spoofed version of the service@paypal.com email address. And these scams aren't just limited to fake invoices - we even got a fake text message from PayPal support while researching this article.
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So what can you do if you get one of these scam invoices? First of all, don't click anything, and don't call any numbers. Check it for typos, and if you're really not sure if it's legit, check your PayPal account on a separate device or through the PayPal app directly. And be careful; these scams aren't just limited to PayPal. Scammers have also used Quickbooks domains to send malicious invoices made with a free QuickBooks account and have spoofed requests for payments from brands like Norton antivirus or Office 365. These scammers then convince their victims to call a number to learn more, giving them a second benefit: a phone number to call back for repeat scams. How bad can getting scammed by an invoice get? Well, Google and Facebook found out the hard way when they had to pay out over one hundred million to invoice scammers back in 2019.
Between 2013 and 2015, Lithuanian man Evaldas Rimasauskas stole $99 million from Facebook and $23 million from Google with fake invoices, forged contracts, and fake emails from real execs signing off on the purchases. These invoices were made to look like they came from a Taiwanese contractor that Facebook and Google regularly did business with called Quanta Computer Inc. The payments were then paid to a fake company in Latvia, after which the money moved from Cyprus, to Lithuania, then Hungary, Slovakia, and Hong Kong before Google ultimately caught him.
While Facebook and Google got their money back, the FBI says scammers stole $12 billion with email scams between 2013 and 2018, most of which was never recovered. For example, the toy company Mattel lost three million when scammers impersonated the company's CEO. The clothing retailer Diesel Jeans even filed for bankruptcy in 2019 all due to invoice fraud. Last year, email scams cost US businesses $2.4 billion. For some helpful frameworks to prepare for and future-proof your business from financial threats like these, check out our summary of the book Rogue Waves by Jonathan Brill.
So how can you create an invoice for your business that buyers know is safe, and isn't flagged by email security services and lost forever? You need an invoice that's customized to your business, that's not auto-generated through Quickbooks or PayPal, that you can send in an email as a PDF. Our Invoice Collection collection provides printable invoices for any business need. Whether you are a small business, freelancer, consultant, contractor, or corporation, there are templates you can customize and save as a PDF so your buyers know your documents are safe and coming directly from you. This enables you to get paid on time without the invoices getting spam-filtered by security precautions.
Questions and answers
Each template is stylishly designed so you can break out your charges by service, product quantity, hours, or all three. Once you pick the invoice that's right for you, customize it to your needs, and the invoice handles the calculations. The template also tracks all of your invoices in one place, so you know how many have been paid and how many are outstanding. Below, we show you how easy each invoice is to customize and use.
Questions and answers
The first step is to select the invoice that's right for your business. Each invoice in the collection has its own style and functionality for different use cases. For example, if you are a small business, you can use a sales invoice to bill customers or use the shipping invoice (above) to ship products to them. As a freelancer, the invoice below breaks out your hours along with your hourly rate to tally what's owed.
Questions and answers
After you've selected your preferred invoice, you can customize all of the fields in blue. Enter your billable services, product quantities, and additional expenses, and our templates will calculate the totals, accounting for taxes and fees.
And the Corporate sales invoice allows you to account for currency exchange rates for international deals. Select the currency and country of origin for the exporter and consignee, then enter the current exchange rate and any additional fees.
Last, our invoice tracker lets you tally your outstanding invoices to keep track of how much you've received and how much you're owed. Simply enter the number, date, and details of each invoice you send out. At the top, you'll see how much you've invoiced to date, while the date of payment column tracks when you've been paid for that invoice.
With fully personalized invoices, your clients will know your invoices are coming from a trusted source and not from a scammer. For more custom invoice templates, check out our other Invoice Models template on how to make an invoice that increases profits with PowerPoint.
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