Invoicing is a basic building block of revenue for every business—if your clients don’t send clear, concise, and on-time invoices to their clients and customers, they simply won’t get the income they're relying on.
But for too many small businesses and their finance leaders, invoicing still is inefficient and even slightly chaotic, resulting in late payments, unnecessary stress and extra work for everyone involved.
A recent QuickBooks study found that two-thirds of businesses spend 14 hours a week dealing with payments-related issues; 81% don’t have an integrated payment system; and 72% felt that their payment processing issues were holding them back from growing their business.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are 4 tips you can share with your clients for streamlining invoicing so that it becomes the foundation of their business growth instead of something holding them back.
1. Set payment terms in advance
Easy invoicing begins with clear agreements before a project starts. You don’t want to find yourself involved in a back and forth with a client about pricing or payment deadlines when the payment is already overdue.
Instead, make sure that all your invoicing and payment terms are clear and understood from the beginning.
Electronic documentation platforms like Hellosign help you to establish agreed terms from the first moment of your working relationship. Use it to create a transparent audit trail and ensure that everyone’s on the same page about payment amounts, due dates, and late payment consequences, saving you arguments down the road.
2. Automate your invoicing process
Manual invoicing is time-consuming and leaves too much opportunity for errors and oversights to creep in. In 2022, you should be automating every possible business process, and accounting workflows are high on the list.
Automated invoicing saves time and hassle producing and following up on invoices and helps make sure that you don’t miss out on revenue due to late payments that go unnoticed.
Implementing an integrated invoicing solution using vcita’s business management platform helps streamline payment processing by automating tasks like preparing itemized bills, creating embedded payment links to make it easy for the client to pay, and sending late payment reminders. Because it’s built to be pre-integrated into a CRM, messaging system and self-service client portal, all your interactions are also recorded and transparent.
3. Accept payments from anywhere
The easier you make it for clients to pay and the more trust they have in your payment processing, the more likely it is that they’ll pay in full and on time.
However, it’s equally important for you to seek out a solution that’s low cost, so you don’t leak revenue on high service charges.
A recent QuickBooks study found that two-thirds of businesses spend 14 hours a week dealing with payments-related issues; 81% don’t have an integrated payment system; and 72% felt that their payment processing issues were holding them back from growing their business.
Deploy payment processing tools like Stripe to invite clients to pay through multiple methods, including credit cards and digital wallets, while maintaining high levels of security and fraud prevention to increase trust in your business.
By using Stripe to embed payment links into your website, emails, and SMS messaging, you can enable customers to pay with a click from anywhere in the world.
4. Record time tracking data to back up your invoice
If your clients feel uncertain about the validity of your invoice amounts, they’ll be more likely to delay payment, and use up your time demanding a detailed explanation of the invoice bottom line.
While agreeing to payment terms at the start of the project can help with this issue, it doesn’t guarantee that clients will accept that they’ve all been met.
To prevent doubt creeping in, use a tool like Time Doctor to break down the components of your invoice. It tracks employee activity and makes it easy to import those details into your invoice, so you can demonstrate exactly how the customer’s money has been spent and bolster customer confidence in your bottom line amount.
Take back control over small business invoicing
Managing invoices for small to medium businesses doesn’t have to be a headache, and chasing late payments doesn’t need to be a regular part of your finance team’s month. By agreeing on payment terms in advance, automating invoicing tasks, including detailed time tracking data and making it easy for clients to pay, you’ll be able to tame the invoicing beast, improve cash flow, and free up employee time for other activities.
Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has six-plus years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS.
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