Notes on getting paid

Invoicing, tax, chasing without damaging the relationship, and running a business whose revenue arrives in bursts. Written for the person who does the billing.

Four revenue layers of decreasing certainty, drawn separately rather than stacked into one total

Latest

How to forecast revenue when you do not bill the same amount every month

Project businesses are told to look at MRR, which they do not have. Here is a model that works when your income arrives in bursts: four layers, sorted by how certain each one is, never added together.

05 Sept 2026 · 4 min read

Two stacked bands labelled ESIGN federal and UETA state law, with a signature drawn across both

Is an electronic signature legally binding in the US?

Electronic signatures have been valid in the US since ESIGN took effect in 2000, and the statutes settled that question. What they left open is proof: whether you can show this person made this mark on this document, which is a question about the record your signing tool keeps.

09 Sept 2026 · 20 min read

E-signature Contracts

An invoice with eight ticked field rows and three crossed-out optional ones

What a US invoice has to include, and what it does not

No general US statute says what a commercial invoice must contain, so most "required field" lists are convention, not law. Here is what actually makes an invoice work, what the two federal exceptions (customs and federal contracts) really require, and which fields you can drop.

09 Sept 2026 · 21 min read

Invoicing Getting paid

A payment timeline from issue to due date, with the gap after the due date marked

Invoice payment terms that actually get you paid

Net 30, due on receipt, deposits, milestones and late fees, and what each one actually does to your cash. Plus why an invoice is the worst place for a payment term to appear for the first time.

09 Sept 2026 · 19 min read

Invoicing Getting paid

A stack of audit trail elements over a SHA-256 hash bar

What an e-signature audit trail actually has to contain

A signature image proves almost nothing. The evidence is the consent record, the timestamps, the per-recipient link, the append-only event log and the SHA-256 hash of the original document, plus knowing how to check that hash correctly.

09 Sept 2026 · 17 min read

E-signature Contracts

A split showing most documents inside ESIGN and a short excluded list outside it

What cannot be signed electronically in the US

ESIGN §7003 does not ban electronic signing, it withdraws a federal validity rule, and the difference decides whether you have a hard stop or a higher evidentiary bar. What subsection (a) and subsection (b) actually exclude, why each item is on the list, and what to do instead.

09 Sept 2026 · 17 min read

E-signature Contracts

Twelve months of uneven revenue bars crossing the flat monthly line other tools assume

How to choose invoicing software when your revenue is not monthly

If your income arrives in bursts rather than on a monthly clock, most invoicing comparisons are measuring the wrong things. Here is how to judge project billing tools on deposits, milestone schedules, committed future revenue, and what happens to your records the month you stop paying.

09 Sept 2026 · 18 min read

Invoicing Getting paid

Two states either side of a split, showing CGST plus SGST within a state and IGST across states

CGST and SGST, or IGST: how to know which goes on your invoice

One field decides it, and it is not the one most people think. A practical guide to place of supply for services, why exports are different, and the mistakes that cost the most to unwind.

23 Aug 2026 · 3 min read

GSTInvoicing

Five escalating reminder steps from three days before the due date to thirty days after

How to chase an overdue invoice without damaging the relationship

Most unpaid invoices are not refusals, they are stuck in somebody's approval queue. A sequence that escalates in stages, asks for one specific thing each time, and never threatens.

09 Aug 2026 · 4 min read

Getting paid

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