HOW TO SPEND LESS WHILE MAKING MORE

OPTIMISE YOUR BILLING PROCESS:

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If your business is weak on billing, you may be spending too much time and money chasing payments.

A recent DocuSign survey of small businesses found nearly two-thirds of bills require a time-consuming process, which can significantly delay receipt of funds.

Identifying bad habits in your billing practices is the first step toward improving them. Read on for five common mistakes and fixes you might make. For more insight into what billing and collections inefficiencies are costing your company, complete the worksheet that follows this article.

MISTAKES COMMON BILLING

AND HOW TO FIX THEM

DISCOUNTS FORQUICK PAYMENTS

SOLUTION

Maintain your credit terms while improving your chances of receiving payment faster. Note the discount on your invoices — for example, “2%/10, net 45”. Customers typically welcome the opportunity to save money, and improved cash flow usually offsets the cost of the discount.

Granting long payment terms or overriding established credit limits is may help close a sale, but doing so can compromise your ability to pay your own bills. Once credit terms are set, tightening them can be tricky and may strain relationships.

Overly generous terms MISTAKE01

STREAMLINE DIGITAL WORKFLOWS

SOLUTION

Consider using a tool that routes order information from sales to your accounting system electronically and allows for easy updates to invoices. Be sure your team is trained to enter details completely and accurately, as this can help minimise problems later on.

Too many people and departments involved in billing can lead to inefficiencies and errors. For example, if salespeople email in orders while the accounting team generates invoices, mistakes could be made that impact the entire collections process. If adjustments that should be applied are overlooked, payment may be held up until those are resolved.

Too many ”touches”MISTAKE02

Delays in sending bills, not confirming the correct recipient, and other missteps can significantly delay payment and drive up costs. If your standard invoice format doesn’t include all the information that some customers require, you may find yourself redoing bills so they can be processed.

Invoicing missteps

COLLECT PAYMENTS AT THE TIME OF SALE

SOLUTION

Explore electronic signature tools that let you accept customer payments at the same time contracts are signed. This eliminates the risks of invoicing errors and payment delays. If you need to send invoices, aim to do so as soon as you’ve fulfilled your obligation to a client.

MISTAKE03

Eighty-three percent of the businesses that DocuSign surveyed accept cheques, more than accept any other payment method. Between mail delays and processing deposits, funds take longer to enter your account than other forms of payment. Handling cheques also eats into time that could be spent on other tasks.

Encouraging cheques

ACCEPT ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS

SOLUTION

Offer customers multiple payment options — including credit or debit card and electronic funds transfer — to try to speed up payments. This could help you meet your own payment obligations more easily and have funds available when opportunities arise.

MISTAKE04

An unreliable recordkeeping system can lead to errors and oversights: Unpaid invoices can go unnoticed; payments may be applied to the wrong account; or duplicate bills may be sent unnecessarily. Over time, poor recordkeeping habits can exact a significant cost and may even damage customer relationships when miscommunications result.

Disorganised records

BETTER DISCIPLINESOLUTION

Get in the routine of recording payments as soon as you receive them. Apply payments to the corresponding invoice, rather than simply crediting the customer’s account. When invoices become past due, follow up on them promptly.

MISTAKE05

Small business need to get paid faster.SURVEY SAYS

9/10BUSINESSESindicated that faster receipt of payments would add significant value to their processes.*

*Findings from Prospect Survey Charts 2017

$85% OFSMALL BUSINESShand deliver checks to the bank. Checks are the most commonly accepted form of payment.*

*Findings from Prospect Survey Charts 2017

Paper checks are costing small businesses time & money.SURVEY SAYS

You may be surprised to learn how much inefficiencies cost your company.

Spend five minutes completing this worksheet to quickly calculate your costs and see where billing gets bogged down. Once you have this information, you can begin to identify strategies and tools to streamline your processes.

HIDDENUNCOVER YOUR

BILLING COSTS

Calculate how many hours your team spends on the following six most common collections activities, and record your best estimate.

ESTIMATE TOTAL MONTLY COST

Vetting customers and setting credit limitsChecking customers’ credit profiles with the reporting bureaus, reviewing credit applications, requesting references from other suppliers, and related tasks.

Preparing invoices. Gathering information needed to create invoices; verifying the recipient, mailing address, price and other details needed for payment; applying credits; and mailing invoices.

Manually recording or rekeying informationRe-entering invoicing data; recording dates when invoices are sent and payments received; and capturing changes in address, payment terms, or other billing-related information.

Hrs

Hrs

Hrs

1.

2.

3.

Handling customer payments. Opening check payments, making deposits, matching payments with invoices, and related tasks.

Resolving invoicing errors. Addressing mistakes such as sending invoices to the wrong person or address, including the wrong price or order description, or failing to apply credits or discounts. Also account for the amount of time spent resubmitting invoices.

Following up on late paymentsTracking the status of payments, generating follow-up emails or phone calls, recording new terms that come out of those communications, and/or writing off balances.

Hrs

Hrs

Hrs

HrsTotal team hours spent on billing and collections

4.

5.

6.

TOTAL MONTHLY COSTprocessing billing and collections

$

Use the information you gathered to calculate an estimate of your monthly spending on billing and collections work.

Hrs

$

YOUR ESTIMATED COST

Total team hours spent on billing and collections

Average hourly costbilling and collections employees

Having a clearer understanding of your billing-related costs and inefficiencies can help you plan actions to mitigate them.

Digital tools such as an electronic signature and payment service can be an important part of the solution. By letting you collect customer payments at the time a contract is signed, they eliminate much of the complexity and potential for error that accompanies billing and collections.

AUTOMATE TO

TIME AND MONEYSAVE

DOCUSIGN PAYMENTS

Tightening your billing process can save

valuable time and speed up revenue.

Lets you collect signatures and payments in a single step.

TRANSFORM TODAYLearn how DocuSign Payments can transform your billing and collections process.

Replace multiple, disjointed steps with the ability to collect signatures and payments simultaneously. Gain more time to focus on your business and provide a superior experience to customers by letting them sign and pay anytime, anywhere, on any device.

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