Sending Business Invoices Electronically (Electronic Billing, E-Invoicing)
By Lee Simonson
Postage is going up again! It's the never ending postal rate hike spiral!
One of the quickest and easiest ways for businesses to save money in these belt tightening times is to begin sending business invoices electronically. Why spend valued resources on paper and postage when you can easily convert invoices electronically and email or fax them? Best of all, you don't need any hardware or software to start. You have everything you need right now to get started.
Companies that use electronic billing (or e-invoicing) not only reduce their costs, but they also see faster payments. You can cut 3-4 days of normal postal delivery time down to a few minutes thereby speeding up the accounts receivable process, especially if you incentivize customers. The overall business cycle becomes much shorter and the electronic delivery is also customer friendly since nearly all of your customers already receive some or most of their statements electronically.
And it's not just for business invoices either. This easy method can work for other important and time sensitive statements as well, including purchase orders, reservations, confirmations, receipts, bank statements, etc.
How can you begin seeing the advantages of electronic billing or e-statements? There are a number of services that can easily set you up. First, you'll have to decide if you are going to fax your invoices or email them. There are advantages to both. And you'll also have to compile a list of customer email addresses or fax numbers. (It doesn't have to be either fax or email, it can also be both, so your list can be mixed.)
Once that is done, you simply send the "data stream" you would normally send to your printer to your service provider. So rather than producing a hard copy invoice, you create an electronic one. Your service provider will convert the data to an email or fax and then automatically deliver it.
Here are some of the highlights that you should know:
1) You have several ways to send your data to the service provider. Connections can be made using a Web service, SMTP, TCP/IP, and other frequently used systems.
2) You have maximum security protection. Most systems can support SSL and advanced data encryption standards, including the use of IDs and passcodes, which can be routinely changed.
3) Most providers have huge capacity. You can deliver thousands of electronic invoices and statements every hour and your customers will benefit because it is much more convenient in processing their accounts payables.
Bottom line: Converting to electronic business invoicing will prove itself to be a solid investment. Ramp up is relatively quick and savings are immediate. Utilizing electronic invoicing is one key in modernizing your operation, but a very important one in reducing costs and streamlining back office productivity. Not only that, but it is the "greener" solution.
For more information on sending business invoices electronically, or e-invoicing, you can visit this website: http://www.monarchbroadcast.com/businessinvoices.html
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