How to send an invoice on WhatsApp

In South Africa a WhatsApp message gets read within minutes and an email often does not get read at all. If your client already talks to you on WhatsApp about the job, sending the invoice anywhere else adds friction to the moment you most want to be frictionless.

• The client cannot do anything with it except look at it — there is nothing to tap to pay.
• You have no idea whether they opened it.
• After two revisions there are three PDFs in the chat and nobody knows which is current.
• It gets lost above six weeks of other messages.
• Your only record is your own phone.

Instead of a file, send a secure link to the live invoice. The client opens a page on your branding that always shows the current document and the current balance, with a download button if they want the PDF and a pay button if you accept online payment.

1. Create and save the invoice.
2. Send the client their own secure link over WhatsApp with a short covering line.
3. The client opens it on their phone, reads it, and pays by card or instant EFT.
4. The payment records itself against the invoice and the balance updates.

Short, specific about the amount and the date, and it gives them a way to act immediately.

Send the same invoice by email as well. WhatsApp gets it read; the email gives the client's bookkeeper something to file and gives you a formal delivery record. It costs you nothing to do both.