What do you do when you have so much on your to-do list and so little time to deal with everything? You either outsource or delegate these tasks or automate them.
Turns out, businesses have it even worse. Amidst so much competition and dynamic market environment, there is so much that businesses need to get done and that too with efficiency. So, how do you save time and reduce costs?
This is where cloud
Why you should switch to cloud based invoicing?
According to a survey by HubSpot Research, 27% of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) said that they have a hard time creating and sending invoices, let alone the trouble that comes along with tracking them. Below are some ways that a cloud based invoicing software can help you with-
1. Reduce errors: Have you ever had to deal with a wrong figure in an invoice and worse yet, the same invoice was forwarded to the client? Or payment was made late because someone forgot to send the invoice on time? These mistakes can cost the company a lot in the long run and can lead to disgruntled clients as well.
Utilizing a web
2. Automated process: Once you schedule the invoices according to your project calendar, if you are using one, the software automatically sends them to the clients. You don’t need to keep remembering the dates when an invoice needs to be sent. Your mind remains free to remember other important things.
You also can set automated reminders to remind you when the payment becomes due for your high-value clients. Furthermore, you can also add notes and reminders for special cases as every client needs to be dealt with in a different approach.
3. Better cash flow management: When you can see all your accruals in the same screen, you can plan your finances better. You can also track any late payments or payments that could turn into bad debts and provide specific attention to them.
For clients that you know will run the payment late, if not pushed, you can send notifications to those clients by using your accounting software. This helps you manage your accruals in an organized manner which can prove to be quite beneficial, especially in tough times. This also helps you manage regular payments that you scheduled while project planning.
4. Greater efficiency: Using an invoicing software gives you the perfect template along with your business logo and all other required details. This means you don’t have to fill all the same details every now and then. You also don’t need to trouble yourself with sending physical copies of invoices and tracking them; which means payment now gets done faster.
All the approval processes also get shortened. You can also make a system where clients can pay online as soon as they receive the invoice. Doing this also lets your clients know that you use professional services and are reliable.
5. Keep track of historical records: What do you do when you need to check the invoice of a client but it was sent five years ago? Currently you might be doing either of the two things – look for it in your laptop, that is if you save them or search for it frantically in piles and piles of files lying somewhere in your storage area.
Online invoicing software can save you from this trouble. All the documents, billing information, receipts are stored in the software itself so that you can use it for future references.
6. Reduce paperwork: Everything is moving to the digital medium now. So why not your invoices too? You save paper, envelopes, stamps, etc. by switching to e-invoices. Not to mention miscellaneous costs on these items and on top of it, the transit costs. You also don’t need to send the physical copy to different departments or people to get it approved.
All you have to do is share it through the communication tools you are using. Reducing paperwork also means that there are no needless papers lying on your desk and countless number of files that you use to store those invoices. All this helps you in reducing your storage cost as well as the manpower cost that goes into dealing with excessive storage.
7. Better verification process: Manually checking every invoice for every client can take a lot of time. Especially if you are a big business and have to get it verified by multiple departments. Using an invoicing software can help reduce the time and cost that goes into this process. Let’s understand how in detail.
How does invoice verification take place in online invoicing software?
First, you set the predefined limits in the software. For example, certain items will have a fixed sales price. As soon as you enter them, the software takes into account the entered price value. You can also make sure that only those items are sold that are already entered into the system.
For those items that have a varying price, you can set the maximum and minimum limits to it. In case the price entered doesn’t fall in between these limits, the system notifies you immediately that there’s an error.
Once you have defined all these things, the process of invoice verification begins as soon as you start generating invoices. First it checks whether all the data such as purchase order number, date of purchase, client name, delivery date, tax information is entered or not. You can also set fields to only numeric, alphanumeric etc. so that there are no errors.
Once it has checked whether everything has been entered or not, it goes on to test the accuracy of the data entered. In this stage, the software sees that all the calculations are done correctly or not, whether the taxes are correctly calculated and so on. It also checks whether the field conditions are met or not.
Once this is done, the invoice can be generated. You can mail the same to your client in pdf format after getting any approvals that are required.
Invoice verification not only saves your time and energy, it saves considerable costs as well. If you have suffered from a client because the calculated amount in the invoice was mentioned wrong, you know the implications that one small mistake can bear. You no longer have to waste time on things that are repetitive in nature.
While it takes some time and cost to adopt invoicing software, the benefits it can bring are substantial. And what’s more? Nowadays, software focus on high customization which means you can modify it to fulfill your requirements and make it