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What actually delays payment

It is rarely unwillingness. Invoices go unpaid because they reach the wrong person, arrive without a purchase order reference the client needs, sit in an inbox nobody reads, or require the payer to type account details into a banking app from a PDF.

Each of those is a friction you can remove. Address the invoice to the person who authorises payment rather than the person who commissioned the work. Carry their reference on the invoice, not just yours. Send it through the channel they actually read, which in Nigeria is usually WhatsApp. And give them a link that opens a payment page instead of a document they have to transcribe.

What belongs on a Nigerian invoice

• Your registered business name and address as they appear on your CAC registration.
• Your TIN, and the client's TIN where they are a registered business.
• A sequential invoice number that does not restart or skip — gaps are the first thing an auditor asks about.
• Issue date and a payment due date, stated as a date rather than "net 30".
• Line items with quantity, unit price and the VAT treatment for each line.
• VAT shown as its own line at 7.5%, not folded into the unit price, so a registered client can reclaim it.
• The total in the currency you expect to be paid in.

The VAT line matters more than it looks. A client who cannot see the tax cannot reclaim it, and an auditor who cannot see it will assume you did not charge it.

Sending in more than one currency

Billing a foreign client in dollars while your costs are in naira introduces a real exposure: the rate on the invoice date and the rate on the settlement date will differ, and the difference is a gain or loss that belongs in your records rather than being quietly absorbed into revenue.

Exported services are zero-rated for VAT, so foreign work is charged at 0% while input VAT on your own costs stays reclaimable if you are registered. Below the ₦25,000,000 registration threshold none of that applies.

Getting an invoice paid without chasing

1. Send it the same day the work completes. Every day of delay adds a day to payment, and often more.
2. Share the invoice link on WhatsApp as well as email — the follow-up conversation is going to happen there anyway.
3. Set the reminders when you raise the invoice, not when it goes overdue.
4. Record part-payments against the invoice so the outstanding figure is always the real one.
5. Review your ageing weekly. A specific list of overdue invoices gets paid; a general feeling that clients are slow does not.