If you’re a freelance artist, creating professional art invoices is an essential part of managing your finances. Discover our tips for creating, managing, and sharing invoices for artistic work.
If you’re a professional artist who’s just launched a small art business for the first time, or you’re still new to your freelance art career, you’ll want to get up to speed on the invoicing process.
An invoice is a statement of the goods or services you as the seller have supplied to a buyer, and the amount that's due for that transaction. Creating a professional invoice as a freelance artist is an essential part of managing your finances and getting paid for your artistic work.
In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of creating an art invoice for freelance work, including what to include and how to manage them. We'll also explore how Dropbox can help you manage your art invoices and streamline your workflow.
You should create an invoice any time someone buys a product or service from you. This includes:
Payments usually won’t be made until the commissioned artwork has been completed and delivered to the buyer.
With large commissions, you might send the invoice before you start creating your artwork to guarantee payment for your time. But with smaller commissions, you might not know the final price until the piece has been created.
In this case, the invoice will likely be sent to the buyer by the gallery's sales team on your behalf, so that they can add their own commission. Because of this, you need to price your artwork accordingly before it goes on display at an exhibition.
You’ll send your invoice to someone for licensing your work after the terms of the agreement have been made and agreed upon. This could be billed on a rolling basis for as long as the artwork requires a license to be used by someone else.
