Emailing invoices for quicker payment is the wave of the future. Have you received a request from your client to email invoices to them or a third-party vendor? If you haven’t, get ready – you will. Before long, mail or fax will no longer be acceptable. Given that, emailing invoices to customers will be the standard.
Here are debt collection tips to help you successfully collect by emailing invoices for quicker payment.
For those working in certain industries – for example New York real estate – the time is here. Consequently, many property management companies have made a change from manually processing accounts payable. With that in mind, many property managers have hired accounts payable vendors to take over the back-office work.
For those looking for payment, the requirement to email invoices and supporting documents presents some challenges. If not properly prepared, then frequently you will not get paid.
Every client or third-party admin will likely have specific requirements for formatting invoices. In reality, those requirements depend on their internal systems – not yours. The layout of the data, character by character, will be more rigorous. Likewise, if the presentation is unacceptable to the recipient’s system, the system will not consider your submission for payment.
Emailing Invoices for Quicker Payment Tips
- Ramp up immediately on your intake, sales, and credit process.
- If you do not have a protocol to systematically document all transactions, develop one immediately or receiving payment due can become a nightmare.
- Have the correct billing information. Billing the wrong party will prevent you from receiving payment at worst or delay payment at best.
- Underlying documents need to be in order because your paperwork must support you request for payment. For example, Include signed contracts, requisitions, purchase orders, change orders, and any other document that is part of the file.
- It must be remembered that your customer must cooperate and enter the required billing information to facilitate payment. Make sure you have an open line of communication with the client.
- People move from place to place. Have personnel that stay on top of receivables, are constantly following up, and are aware of who’s who in your customers’ accounts payable department.
- Cycles can be a cash flow headache for companies that don’t understand the process. Business must create the resources to ascertain that billing is complete. Remember to follow up. If you don’t, cash flow will suffer.
Benefits of Emailed Invoices
Thinking about emailing invoices for quicker payment, set goals and lay the groundwork. If you have a process, fine tune it. If you don’t have a process, develop one. With this in mind, create a means for storing your contract documents. Invest in a computer program to keep contract documents easy to track and locate. This is the way to stack the deck in your favor for timely payments. You will have fewer billing errors. The result should be a speedier collection cycle.
Getting up to snuff on the mechanics of billing and emailing invoices will help you keep your business successful. An investment in programming or proprietary software will level the playing field. In reality, for smaller to mid-size companies it increases your chance to succeed. Once you have followed these suggestions and are up and running successfully, emailing your invoices will get you paid quicker.
At FFGN, we’re here to help not only with email collection tips, but also the billing process, drafting contracts and other documents and collecting debts. Reach out to us by phone (212) 686-0100 or email.
