Invoicing a Client in Another Currency
The first overseas client is a good problem. The invoice is not much harder than a domestic one, but three details decide whether you end up with the amount you quoted.
Pick the currency before you quote
Billing in the client's currency wins work and moves the exchange risk to you. Billing in yours does the opposite. Neither is wrong, but decide before you name a price rather than after, and say which it is in the quote.
Hold the rate on the invoice
If you bill in euros and get paid five weeks later, the rate on the day of payment is the one that counts for what lands in your account, but the rate on the invoice is what the client has agreed to pay. Record both. An invoice that shows the rate used and the resulting total in your own currency saves an argument and gives your bookkeeper the number they need.
Agree who pays the transfer fee
An international transfer can lose you twenty or thirty pounds before you notice, and correspondent bank charges can take a bite in the middle. Put a line in the terms saying charges are the payer's, or build the cost in and stop thinking about it.
Keep the paperwork your accountant will ask for
For each foreign invoice, keep the amount in the original currency, the rate you used, the date of the rate, and the amount that actually arrived. That is the whole record. Software that exports all four in one file turns an afternoon of reconstruction into a download.
Get the currency decided early and the rate written down, and an overseas invoice is no more work than a local one.
