Invoicing software has the key role to track your finance and billing management that helps businesses, Freelancers and organizations to create quick and easy invoices to manage and monitor payments and overall health of the business. This tool creates a list of services and products along with their corresponding costs and sends them to your customers as an invoice. These invoices are commonly created using ready-made templates, mostly professional-looking ones, which makes the process easier and advantageous to businesses.
For every product sold or service rendered, an invoice is made, the first step for you to get paid. Where before payments are mostly cash-based and books are kept manually, leading to erroneous billing and delayed payables, today, we enjoy the vast benefits of financial technologies like electronic transfers, card payments, and online payments that speed up transactions. Invoicing software makes things even faster… especially that process that rings cash to your ears: collection.
Why your small business needs invoicing software?
We all know about the importance of multitasking in business. With so many things happening at once, you need software that lets you accomplish the maximum number of tasks in the minimum amount of time. Investing in the best invoicing software for small businesses allows you to send out multiple invoices simultaneously. There are multiple reasons to believe that your small business must need invoicing software to streamlined all your finance and the growth of your business. Invoicing software may help you to understand a more clear vision of your business position and the financial health of the business you are running at any time.
- Create invoices faster and more accurately. This is a far cry from what you’re used to creating an invoice from a word processor. A proper invoice document must have an invoice number with a different number on each invoice you send; details of product or service provided; date invoice was sent and date when the product was delivered or service rendered; name and contact information of seller or service provider; name and contact info of buyer; costs breakdown; total amount due; payment details; and payment due date. Imagine inputting all that information manually compared to a system that does everything for you except for the variable elements.
- Generate invoices anywhere. In relation to the above, companies can create invoices from any location with internet connectivity since online platforms are powered by cloud technology and are web-based. Likewise, with some providers offering mobile apps, you get to create invoices even on the go, something you cannot do with on-premise software.
- Integrate invoicing with your key business systems. Online invoicing platforms can integrate with your full accounting system for all your financial requirements and can be linked to your payroll, inventory, banking and reporting modules using one basic source. Some invoicing solutions can even connect directly to e-commerce platforms and shopping carts as well as to external client databases and timesheets.
The word accounting comes from the word accountability. If you are going to be rich, you need to be accountable for your money. * Robert Kiyosaki
Benefits of Invoicing Software
Businesses of all sizes need to look for ways to save time and money. Increasing productivity and convenience for their customers is paramount. Therefore, the advantages of using even in a small business invoicing software become key to scaling your billing models.
Scaling your business may sound a bit difficult task, but one of the first places to start is with your billing. Finding an efficient way to generate invoices, along with keeping track of financial information, can achieve that increase. Most importantly, this is all done while improving your cash flow.
Aside from efficiently managing all invoice-related tasks, the best invoicing software should be able to extend the following benefits:
- Minimize late payments – The right software solution can help streamline your billing and invoicing process and allow you to get and receive payments on time. No longer will you be waiting weeks for a client to receive, review, and return an invoice via snail mail. “Lost in the mail” episodes (and jokes) are gone forever. Your invoices keeping your data and schedules organized, you can have your collection on the dot and boost your profitability.
- Minimize missed payments – By accurately monitoring and tracking your billing commitments, you ensure that you do not miss collecting any payments which will redound to a positive bottom line.
- Maintain a professional image – A good invoicing and billing software can help boost your company reputation. Most software offer support for customized logos and other design improvements to payment documents and invoices. You can put forward an organized and prompt approach to exude a professional image with your clients.
- Help streamline your accounting and financial processes by automating important tasks – You can cut costs by reducing staff in the invoicing and billing department and save time that is spent on following up and going after the late payers. Likewise, you get to increase cash flow with faster payment of invoices and enhance customer relations with shorter times in fixing and resolving errors.
- Minimize fraud and improve security – A good invoicing software solution has levels of bank-grade security features to ensure that the entire billing-to-payment process is protected from hacks or prying eyes. This is comparatively more secure than preparing your invoices manually and sending them as email attachments.
- 24/7/365 Access – Online invoicing is on the cloud which gives you the ability to manage client information and billing from one application. You can use on your desktop, tablet, or smartphone. This means if you can’t make it into the office, you’re at home or traveling — you can send and manage your invoices 24/7 and 365 days.
- Environment-friendly – Did you know that on average, digital invoicing is four times more environmentally friendly than paper billing? It saves the trees (you can advertise this). You are saving water and energy, and it reduces pollution. Less in the landfill from the solid waste created by sending paper invoices. [Just thinking of the ink cartridges is making me cringe].
- Reduces errors – Paper processing involves several steps. Any process done by a human is prone to human errors. Processing incorrect billing amounts or sending a bill to the wrong client just doesn’t happen anymore. Errors delay the payment process. They can also damage the relationship that you have with a client. Not to mention the relationship with the blankety-blank who delayed or made a mistake in the billing. Even less “fun” if that’s you. Invoicing errors and disputes can end up costing you thousands of dollars to correct. The send and resends are a nightmare. Online invoicing calculates the total amount for you to prevent errors. It adds the taxes and ensures that the right client is billed. Even if you do make a mistake, it only takes a minute to fix and resend.
Top Features
Although invoicing solutions vary widely in terms of feature set, target uses and pricing, they do share standard functionalities. A respectable app should have the following features:
- New invoice creation. Allows the creation of clean and professional invoices that can be customized to match your brand. The system should allow for extracting and integrating information from projects, timesheets, and customer records.
- Customer records creation. A feature that enables you to summarize customers’ personal and purchase information and attach relevant files in a single, centralized database equipped with search filters for easy access to customer records.
- Credit card processing. The invoicing suite should enable you to save time and facilitate billing by processing credit cards promptly and allow recurring billing and secure customer management. Some systems even enable auto-billing of credit cards so clients won’t miss a due payment.
- Predefined templates. How your bills and invoices look is equally important as their accuracy, which is why a system should provide for professional and predefined communication templates. This will not only save you time but also let you personalize your accounting and allow you to carry your brand.
- Multiple currency setting. This feature enables you to connect your billing and invoicing system seamlessly with the rest of your software architecture, similar to your basic financial operations. Multiple currency settings can be useful for issuing receipts, accepting payment and managing taxes, and it is of vital importance for businesses with global operations.
- Receive/send information. The function allows you to send quotes to your customers quickly since there is a centralized database where all their information is stored and readily made available.
- Invoice, payment, and tax report. A good online invoicing system should eliminate the need for you to use external systems for tax reporting and allow you to perform it within the same system, without losing hours to summarize information.
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