talkmagic.co.uk

Following a conversation last night I thought I'd share something with the wider magic community regarding issuing invoices.

When issuing an invoice to a client it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that the first listed legal entity (and this includes peoples names) in your invoice address is very specifically that of the company / person you are invoicing.
Please note if you are invoicing a company that is registered with Companies House it is vital that you do not neglect to add the "Limited" ("Ltd" abbreviation acceptable also) of the company name. (or "plc" if you do work for a plc)

Any person / company is completely within their legal right to reject any invoice which is not specifically addressed to the correct legal entity
You need to look at this from a perspective of "who am I going to take to court if this invoice isn't paid"; and a mis-spelling of a persons name or lack or "ltd" on the end of a limited company name can have this thrown out of court purely on this basis.

I would add here that a company may choose to pay an invoice that is incorrectly addressed but if it came to a point that you needed to get the legal eagles involved they could simply state they don't have an invoice to pay; so you're best off covering yourself from the outset.

One further point is that if you're lucky enough to be VAT registered and you do not follow the above invoice addressing convention, if your client does choose to pay your invoice then they would be committing a VAT violation if they were to reclaim the VAT element of your invoice on their tax return. While this is not really anything to do with you it's worth you knowing.
For further reading from a HMRC point of view please review EU Invoicing Directive 2001/115/EC

More than happy to discuss any of the above on a one to one basis however please note this is only my personal advice and I hold no legal responsibility as a "financial advisor" or any such title.