If you're typing "Frontend Development — 180/hr" on every invoice, you're doing it wrong. A service catalog saves time and ensures consistency.
Agency invoices tend to have the same line items over and over. Web development, UX design, project management, consulting — the descriptions and rates are the same across invoices. Typing them manually every time is slow and introduces inconsistencies.
Define your services once
A service catalog is a list of the products and services your agency offers, with default descriptions, units, and prices. When you create an invoice, you pick from the catalog instead of typing from scratch.
This sounds simple, but the impact compounds. Ten invoices a month, five line items each, and you've saved 50 instances of manual typing. More importantly, every invoice uses the same descriptions and rates, which matters when clients compare invoices month over month.
Payment terms templates
The same principle applies to payment terms. "Net 30, bank transfer to Maybank account ending 4521" shouldn't be typed out each time. Create a template, set a default, and it auto-fills on every new invoice.
When you onboard a new client with different terms — say Net 14 instead of Net 30 — create a new template for them. It's a one-minute setup that saves hours over the lifetime of the relationship.