Alternative
Invoicing from Excel or Word
A spreadsheet template is where almost everyone starts. It's free, it's yours, and it works — right up until it quietly doesn't. Here's where it usually breaks, and what moving looks like.
| What you need | Clienta | Excel / Word |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free to start (founding access) | Free |
| Invoice numbering | Automatic, no duplicates | Manual — easy to reuse a number by mistake |
| VAT / totals | Calculated for you | Manual formulas you maintain |
| Swiss QR-bill | Built in | Not possible in a template |
| From tracked time | Line items pulled from your hours | Re-typed by hand |
| Finding an old invoice | Searchable in one place | Hunting through folders |
The spreadsheet isn't the problem — at first
For your first handful of invoices, a template is honestly fine. You control every cell, there's nothing to learn, and it costs nothing.
The cracks show up slowly: a duplicated invoice number, a VAT formula that broke when you copied the file, a client asking for a QR-bill you can't produce in Word. None of these are disasters on their own. Together they turn a five-minute job into a nervous one.
What actually changes when you move
The point isn't fancier invoices. It's removing the manual steps that go wrong: numbering, totals, and re-typing hours. When those are handled, sending an invoice stops being a task you double-check.
Clienta pulls line items from the time and tasks you already tracked, keeps numbering clean, and adds a Swiss QR-bill automatically. You can still export everything for your accountant. It's newer and narrower than a spreadsheet is infinite — but that's the point.
FAQ
Is there anything wrong with invoicing from Excel?
Not at low volume. It becomes risky as you scale: manual invoice numbering can produce duplicates, VAT formulas break when files are copied, and you can't generate a Swiss QR-bill from a template. Those are the usual reasons people move on.
Keep the spreadsheet for budgets. Let Clienta do the invoices.
If numbering, VAT, and QR-bills have started costing you time, Clienta handles them from the work you already track. Try it free.
Try Clienta free