Undoubtedly, technological advancements have positively impacted on the lives of billions of people by making things more comfortable and convenient. Countless small businesses have also benefited from the growth of the software industry. Now it’s possible to manage your business, process payments, and prepare reports, among other business activities by a few clicks on a software.
One crucial development is invoicing software. Besides helping you manage your invoice-related operations, invoicing software streamlines your financial processes through automation and enables you to avoid late and missed payments.
As much as you are looking to acquire software to ease your invoicing needs, it’s crucial to look for an option that will serve you satisfactorily and endlessly. Here are three features that any small business invoicing software should have.
1. Straightforward invoice creation and customisation
An excellent invoicing software is one that allows you to effortlessly generate invoices and still customize them as per your brand or business needs. A billing software enables you to create an invoice from scratch while filling essential details such as customer details, the number of goods sold, amount, sales tax, and discounts.
Alternatively, you can fill the details in the invoice templates available in the billing platform. For customization, you can modify the invoice elements or add corporate symbols such as your company’s logo or slogan.
Whereas there are various options in the software market that allows you to schedule your recurring invoices. This means that they can be generated and sent automatically to your customers on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis. Most importantly, opt for billing software with fewer functions, features, and buttons that enable you to carry out the basic invoicing operations quickly.
2. Customer records creation and usage
Consider purchasing software that allows you to create customizable portals whereby you can easily access your customers’ information. Remember that you are looking to utilize a tool with features that will enable you to enter and save customer/s personal information such as email, phone numbers, residence, and credit card information as well as their purchase records. With such a centralized database, it’s easy to access any information you need about a particular customer.
Your software should automate several things using customer data. Utilizing the customer data, you can set automatic billing profiles to simplify payment. The software should have the capability to send your customers an email with a payment link or enable you to create online portals for your customers through which they can make payments. In other words, your invoicing platform should be able to process credit card payments or should have the capability to be integrated with online payment platforms.
You also want software that has the appropriate features to secure customer data. You certainly don’t wish to deal with data theft that will not only expose your customers to fraud risks but also harm your business due to the loss of trusted customers.
3. Report generation
Business reports are elemental tools for progress evaluation. A useful invoicing software allows you to generate a wide range of reports that can help track your invoices and finances. Such a tool will provide you with a summary of pending and completed payments so that you get to know who has made payments, who owes you what, and when particular invoices are scheduled for sending.
Furthermore, good billing software will eliminate the need of you relying on external tools for tax reporting during the tax season. By looking into your payments and expenses, billing software should enable you to generate tax reports without any struggles of summarizing the necessary information. A standard billing software allows you to export the reports to your computer’s storage in the form of PDF files which you can read offline and share via email.
Conclusion
Invoicing software eases and automates invoicing operations to help small business owners bill their customers effortlessly and on time. Through a billing software, you can create customized invoices from scratch or fill the details in a template built in the software. Moreover, you should be able to build secure customer portals through which the platform can automate payments and invoice sent. Lastly, look for an option that can generate the necessary reports from the various financial data entries.