Tired of chasing down clients for late payments?
Don’t know how many people owe you money or are several days past due?
Spending all day going back and forth with clients to create invoices just so that you can receive the money you deserve?
There’s a solution to all your problems, in the form of an invoicing program for businesses, that can make things so much easier and better for you.
Ready to learn more? Then this guide is for you.
Today we’ll cover:
- How invoicing tools can save your business time and money
- 5 key features to look for in invoicing software
- How to choose the best software for your business
- Plus some bonus tips and tricks to getting clients to pay you ASAP
Let’s go!
Table of Contents
Why Invoicing Programs Matter for Business
Late payments are the death of small businesses, I’m not just talking hyperbole here. In fact,
Research from Intuit QuickBooks found that 56% of small business owners are currently owed money because of unpaid invoices. And on average, it’s around $17,500 per company. Yikes.
The issue is, there’s an incredibly easy way to fix this problem.
All businesses need to have an invoicing program for businesses.
Working with a reputable online platform backed by Prime Software support gives businesses the tools to automate invoicing workflows and minimize payment delays.
Look at it this way:
A good invoicing program is like hiring an employee who never sleeps, never gets sick and never tires. They’ll send out invoices on time, follow up and keep everything in order without anyone even having to lift a finger.
And when invoices get sent out on time and in the right format every time? Clients respect you, pay on time and money keeps flowing into your business.
Isn’t that the dream?
The Hidden Costs of Manual Invoicing
So why are so many businesses still using Excel spreadsheets or the dreaded Word Doc? The answer is they think it’s free.
In fact, 20% of UK invoices are still produced manually.
Research from Amalto however, has shown that invoicing manually actually costs a fortune.
When an invoice is manually made and sent to a client, errors can occur in three main areas.
- Time: Entrepreneurs spend a median of 15 days a year just chasing late invoices. 2 weeks of working time, just for something that could be automated.
- Errors: 61% of late payments are attributed to invoice errors including incorrect amounts, missing information, or wrong addresses according to a survey by Amalto.
- Cashflow: Late and incorrect invoices = delayed payments = late bills = negative cashflow = a business on its knees.
If you take a look at the growth of the billing and invoicing software industry, it’s set to expand to almost $14 billion by 2033. It’s currently at around $5.43 billion.
Businesses the world over are finally waking up to the fact that invoicing is costly when done manually.
Essential Features of Invoice Software
To build credibility, maintain professional relationships, and secure smooth cash flow for the future, having a solid invoicing program for businesses is a must.
Not all are equal however, and there are some key features all great invoicing software should have.
The 5 essentials are:
- Automated Invoice Generation
- Payment Tracking
- Multiple Payment Options
- Automated Reminders
- Integration Capabilities
Automated Invoice Generation
The bread and butter of any invoicing program for businesses.
Look for a program that generates and sends invoices automatically based on your predefined schedules or triggers.
No more forgetting to invoice a client, or sending invoices late.
Payment Tracking
Ideally, knowing at a glance which invoices are paid, pending, or overdue should take seconds not hours.
Digging through emails and bank statements to manually track payments is a waste of time and energy.
A good dashboard will give you this information at the click of a button.
Payment Options
Customers pay faster when it’s easy. The best invoicing software integrates with multiple payment options including credit cards, bank transfers, digital wallets etc.
The more ways you give your customers to pay you, the more likely they are to pay you.
Automated Reminders
No one likes chasing late payments from clients, and following up repeatedly in a professional way is awkward.
Automated reminder emails are your friend. Set specific time intervals after the invoice due date passes for software to follow up for you.
Professional, consistent, and effective.
Integration Capabilities
If your invoicing program doesn’t integrate with existing software programs you have, it creates more problems than it solves.
Look for invoicing programs that integrate with accounting software, CRM systems, banking and more.
Smooth data flow and access without switching between different platforms = saved time and errors.
Reporting and Analytics
Detailed data and analytics lets businesses know and understand their invoice payment patterns.
Which clients pay late all the time? What’s the average number of days to payment? What types of invoices sell more? Good reporting answers these questions and more, and equips businesses to make smarter business decisions.
Tools like Stax, FreeAgent, Brightpearl are just some of the best invoice programs on the market currently, that not only have the features discussed above, but do it really well.
Choosing the Right Invoice Tool for Your Business
Choosing the right invoicing program can be overwhelming with the different options available out there.
Simplifying the process down into simple steps makes the decision easier and more straightforward.
Step 1: Know the Pain Points
Make a list of the challenges with the current invoicing process.
Speed? Accuracy? Follow-up? Whatever the issues are. Being crystal clear on the existing pain points allows for matching those with features of the invoicing program to be chosen.
Step 2: Size and Complexity
A one-person freelancer with 5 clients has a different scope than a business with hundreds of customers across multiple regions. So choosing an invoicing software with the features to scale for the next 5-10 years is important.
Step 3: Ease of Use
An invoice program with all the bells and whistles is useless if no one in your team can figure out how to use it.
Look for programs with intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces and onboarding support. The learning curve for the team needs to be shallow to encourage adoption of the software.
Step 4: Integration
Make a list of all the software the business uses. From accounting programs and CRM platforms to payment processors. Then ensure that any potential invoicing program works seamlessly with these.
Step 5: Pricing
Some invoicing programs charge a fee per invoice created and sent. Others have monthly subscription plans. Some offer tiers with different feature sets at increasing price points.
Calculating the actual cost based on real usage vs. promises of the sales team is an important step before deciding to sign up.
Step 6: Real Reviews
What do real, everyday users say? You need to look beyond the glossy marketing material and read honest reviews by actual businesses that are the same size and industry as yours.
Switching Over to a New Invoicing Program
It can feel daunting to transition a team over to new invoicing software. But the small disruption and time involved pays off quick in time when payments start arriving faster and admin headaches get minimized.
The best approach is to do a trial run.
Migrate a percentage of invoices to the new system while keeping the legacy system going.
This allows time to work out any kinks before the switch is flipped all the way to the new system.
Summing It Up
Invoice tools have become essential for any business that wants to run like a well-oiled machine.
Not only do they free up time and minimize the human error costs involved with doing things manually, they also help to get invoices paid faster.
A good invoicing program for businesses can make the process of invoicing clients and getting paid go so smoothly, business owners can focus more on growth and less on chasing money.
To summarize:
- Invoice problems cost small businesses thousands of dollars
- Sending invoices manually leads to errors that get paid even later
- Invoice tools automate everything so no more admin headaches
- Look for invoicing programs with essential features
- Choosing the right program involves matching those features to real needs
No business should have to suffer when there are tools and programs available that make the invoicing process a walk in the park.
The question now is, how much longer can a business afford to wait?