It’s an undeniable and irrevocable fact that invoicing has always been a crucial part of businesses of all kinds. Naturally, businesses of all sizes need to manage their bills properly. You expect to receive payments on time, and so you attempt to keep your systems performing optimally. However, even a minor act of negligence, especially before leaving for vacation, will lead to numerous problems that will hamper your cash flow. Here you will learn how to increase the speed of your invoicing process.
The success of a business depends on how fast you receive payments from your clients. You can’t run a business in any other way. Then again, invoicing is a lengthy and time-consuming process. Experts found that business owners and employees waste over two hours every week in creating and delivering invoices using manual procedures. These people spend two more hours reviewing the bills. Apart from these things, business owners also have to tend to time wasted on chasing late payments. The worst part is that most business owners don’t receive the money within 30 days after sending an invoice.
The information given above is probably already causing second thoughts to storm inside your mind regarding the trip that you planned with your friends or family. You want to get what your clients owe on time so that you can enjoy your vacation to the fullest. So, what can you do to make your customers pay on time?
Maintain records: If you own and use an online invoice app, then it should have time-tracking options. Hence, before you start invoicing, you need to maintain accurate records of transactions with that time-tracking system. It will remove all questions from the minds of clients when they receive the bill because they will know how much time you spent on that project.
Use the appropriate tools: If you aren’t using an Invoice maker app yet, then you won’t even have time to go to the restroom, let alone vacations! You have to ditch your manual invoicing processes and shift to cloud-based invoicing software programs or mobile apps. It eliminates every time-consuming aspect of invoicing. Today, innumerable platforms are available that provide these services. You get to send and manage invoices from your mobile device. It means that you can access the records from wherever you are and whenever you need to.
Set your terms: Once you find an exceptionally useful Invoice generator and start using it, you should sit down to think about the payment terms. These generally differ from one business to another but a few things remain the same. While you may allow some amount of flexibility to specific clients, you shouldn’t deviate from your terms as much as possible, especially before leaving on vacation. It would be wise to explain these terms to your clients before you start working on any project.
Talk to your clients: You have the right to set your payment terms, but all your customers won’t play by the rules. Therefore, you should speak to them and learn how and when they wish to pay. If you use this approach, then you will receive payments faster. It also takes out the guessing game of how and when to send invoices to clients using an online invoicing app.
Collect while serving: Instead of delivering a bill and waiting for your client to pay, you should look for ways to collect the money at the time of service. You may also consider processing payments through phones. The best Invoice maker mobile application has this feature. You can ask them to make payments before you allow them access to your services and products.
Recognizing the contact person: You won’t get your payment on time if you have to include multiple people in your invoice. It has to pass through all the middlemen before reaching its destination. Even the best Invoice generator won’t prove useful here. You should try to recognize the final client and send invoices to that person directly. It means that you also have to eliminate the middlemen.
Rely on payment plans: You will encounter moments when the client or customer won’t be able to pay the full amount. You don’t have to battle with them to get the money. Instead, you can automate the payment plans by charging a customer’s bank account or credit card to extract the money in parts every month.
Add penalties: You should adopt a system where every client has to pay a late fine in case he/she misses the deadline. Even if you charge 1 or 2 percent of the actual amount as late fine, it will prove to be more than enough to make them pay earlier than usual.
Outsourcing: While it may seem too costly, you should think about outsourcing the task of invoicing to a professional finance specialist. You should rely on this process only if nothing else works.
Be regular with follow-ups: No matter what you do, there will always be a few clients who will never pay you on time. That’s why the best way to demand the due is to follow-up with your customers. It’s an excellent way to make them way without being too obtrusive. Of course, you may have to threaten one or two of your stubborn customers about taking legal action.
Wrapping it up
Now you have ten different ways under your belt to increase the rate at which you receive payments from your clients and customers. If you follow one or more of these tips, then you won’t have to consider canceling your trip. Working without having fun occasionally will wear you down eventually. You won’t even have to depend on most of these tips if you simply download and start using an online invoicing app.