Branded invoicing refers to styling your invoice to match your branding, including using your brand colours, logo, fonts and any other distinctive features that you use in your branded material, such as on your website, flyers, in social media posts or banners.
Customized invoicing is a great way to showcase your brand to your customers once again, right at the time when they’re about to pay for your product or service. Building a strong brand with design shapes the way customers perceive you and helps you to reinforce your brand message, values and goals. By extending your branding as far as to the invoices and quotes you send, you increase the chances of your brand being remembered and recognised. Additionally, the professional appearance legitimizes your business, which makes you more credible and trustworthy.

Typically, invoices need to include the following information:
- a unique identification number
- your company name, address and contact information
- the company name and address of the customer you’re invoicing
- a clear description of what you’re charging for
- the date the goods or service were provided (supply date)
- the date of the invoice
- the amount(s) being charged
- VAT amount if applicable
- the total amount owed

If you’re customising your invoices with our custom DOCX branding themes service, we are able to add elements to your invoices that will make them integrate with your brand more.

More specifically, we can customise your Xero or Quickbooks branding templates by:
- Adding images and graphics
- Incorporating your letterhead
- Adding colour to tables
- Adding or repositioning your logo
- Adding a background watermark
- Changing or adding data fields

Invoice format refers to the layout of an invoice and the different sections it includes. Invoices can be broken down into different sections which allow you to arrange the information in a logical way, whilst making sure you include all the necessary information that is required to be stated on an invoice.

Invoice format is not the same as invoice template. A template is an already formatted invoice with dummy data that you can replace with your own information. Accounting softwares such as Xero or Quickbooks allow you to generate invoices using their pre-made templates but also give you the ability to amend the format. Using these templates and editing elements of it, such as text, font sizes or your logo is the standard approach to customising your invoice. However, it doesn't offer as much creative freedom as branding your invoice does, which is what can be achieved by creating a custom DOCX branding theme for your business.

Using invoice branding is a way to stand out from the competition and look more professional. Having an advantage of being perceived as a high-quality, trustworthy service or product provider, and the ability to use the colours and design creatively when using custom DOCX branding themes, you are able to influence the client to pay your invoice on time. Apart from driving conversions and sales, it is believed that customised, branded invoices are more likely to lead to referrals.
A lot of the time when people talk about invoice branding, they’re not only referring to invoices, but also have other documents in mind. Matching the design and branding on all your digital stationary, such as quotes, proposals, credit notes or customer statements is the most efficient way to get out the most from your accounting software. With Xero for example, when you create a custom docx branding theme for a multi-page proposal that includes your quote, you can send beautifully designed proposals that can be edited to add a personal touch to each prospective client without having to convert your files to PDF each time. What’s more, when the quote is accepted, Xero lets you turn this into an invoice with a click of a button. With custom DOCX branding themes you are saving time and cutting out a lot of the admin work.

When working with Web Design London to produce sharp-looking custom DOCX branding themes, there are certain rules that accounting softwares impose on designers. You don’t need to worry about these as our team would take care of them for you, and simply provide you with a finished template that is ready to be uploaded. So, once you’ve received your final DOCX file with, for example, your invoice branding theme, here are the steps to take to import it into Xero:
1 - Click onto your Business Name and go into Settings, then go into Invoice Settings.
2 - Click the New Branding Theme arrow and select Custom .docx.
3 - Enter a name for your custom theme and click OK.
4 - Find the Upload button on the far right side of the branding theme you just created.
5 - Click Upload and select the option to Browse for Invoice. This will open up your documents and you’ll be able to select your DOCX file you received from the Web Design London team.

When producing customised invoices or other documents for your Quickbooks account, you will need to have a correctly formatted DOCX file with the design. There are some rules and limitations that accounting software imposes on designers. When working with Web Design London designers, you don’t need to worry about these as our team would take care of them for you, and simply provide you with a finished template that is ready to be uploaded.
When you’ve got your template saved on your computer, follow the below instructions to upload it to your Quickbooks account:
1. Go to the Setting icon at the top right corner of your dashboard and select Quickbooks Labs.
2. Switch on the option to Import Styles and press Done to save your changes.
3. From your dashboard, click on the Settings icon again and then select Custom Form Styles.
4. Click on New Style on the right-hand side and select Import Style from the dropdown box.
5. When you land on the first page of the ‘Import your own form style’ process, be sure to select the right document in the dropdown under Form Type.
6. Then click below on Browse and select the DOCX file provided to you by the Web Design London team. Then click Next.
7. Check that all the fields in your document match the ones in Quickbooks. You will see numbers associated with different elements of your uploaded document which will correspond to numbers in a table generated by Quickbooks. Cross compare that the field that each number is assigned to on your invoice matches the field that Quickbooks selected in the table. If something needs to be amended, simply select the correct field name from the dropdown list in the correct row. When everything matches, click Next.
8. You can then preview the style and if you’re happy with it, click Save and give your form a name.
9. Next time you’re creating an invoice, once you’ve got your information in, you can select the Style you created from a dropdown at the bottom of the page.

A DOCX file is a Microsoft Word document that typically contains text but can also store other media, such as images. A DOCX file is an upgraded version of a DOC file and has gained popularity since its introduction. Both, DOC and DOCX files can be opened using Microsoft Word, as well as some alternate programmes.

Nowadays, it is more common to see people use DOCX files rather than DOC files for several reasons. DOCX is a smaller document file format when compared to DOC file and comes in the popular XML format, making it a perfect file format for sharing. It can be read by almost any full-featured word processor, including online tools like Google Docs and readers developed by other companies, such as Pages on an Apple device.

Both DOC and DOCX files have been developed by Microsoft. DOCX is the successor of the DOC file and was introduced in the early 2000s.

The main difference between the two is that in a DOC file your document is saved in a binary file that includes all the related formatting and other relevant data while the DOCX file is actually a zip file with all the XML files associated with the document. This means that you would still be able to open the DOCX file with any zip compression software if you were to exchange the DOCX extension of the file with ZIP.

Because the DOCX file was introduced later, you cannot open a document with that extension in a version of Microsoft Word from 2003 or earlier.
The way DOCX is set up makes it a lot lighter and smaller in size which is perfect for storing documents or transferring them via email.
Additionally, DOCX file allows you to work with new features when the DOC file does not.

Both accounting softwares, Xero and Quickbooks, allow for some sort of customization. Both provide you with some templates that you can take and customise further, as well as an option to upload your own template.

The terminology used to describe these templates differs - Xero calls them branding themes whereas Quickbooks refers to them as form styles. The idea behind them, however, is exactly the same - a way for you to personalise your documents by adding your logo, brand colours, headings, watermarks or extra messages.

The list of documents that the two accounting softwares allow you to customize are almost the same.

Xero lets the user customize Invoices, Statements, Credit Notes, Quotes, Purchase Orders, Receipts, and Remittance Advices.

In QuickBooks Desktop, you can create custom templates for forms like Invoices, Sales Receipts, Estimates, Statements, and Purchase Orders.

The primary software that lets you open a DOCX file is Microsoft Word 2007 (and above). If you are using an earlier version of Microsoft Word, you can download the free Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack which would allow you to open, edit and save DOCX files in your older version of MS Word.
For those who do not have Microsoft Word at all, there is a free programme available called Word Viewer, through which you can open DOCX files, without having to purchase the MS Office.
If for any reason, you decide to stay away from Microsoft products altogether, there are other readers that are compatible with DOCX files. These include WPS, OpenOffice Writer, ONLYOFFICE or Google Docs. Those are all free and allow you to open and edit the files.
For Apple product users, DOCX files can be opened using the built-in application called Pages.