The Green Sheet Online Edition

August 22, 2022 • Issue 22:08:02

Why you and your merchants should use e-invoicing

By Nicholas P. Cucci
Fluid Pay

Since the early days of business, invoices have been sent by mail. This slow and inefficient process relies heavily on the post office, resulting in high material costs and even lost invoices. In today's fast-paced business world, these issues can be costly and cause significant payment delays. This is why invoicing has gone digital, and e-invoicing is becoming the new standard.

What is e-invoicing?

Electronic invoicing, or e-invoicing, is a digital version of a paper invoice that is sent and received electronically. It allows businesses to send invoices, accept payments and manage their accounts receivable online. Since the invention of e-invoicing, businesses have been able to streamline their invoicing process, saving time and money in the process.

E-invoicing offers many benefits, including reducing accounts receivable costs, material costs, clerical errors and more. Through this guide, I will explore the top benefits of e-invoicing, how it works and how you and your merchant clients can start using it today.

How does e-invoicing work?

E-invoices are generated by the sender and sent electronically, typically through an electronic invoicing system or provider. The resulting invoice is intuitive with line-by-line details, a custom company header and your company's branded messaging.

The recipient receives the invoice by email or SMS and can proceed to make a secure payment using an embedded link. Once the payment is processed, both the sender and recipient receive a confirmation of the transaction.

E-invoicing is a paperless process that is much more efficient and eco-friendly than traditional invoicing methods. This simple, intuitive system is quickly becoming the new standard for businesses all over the world.

What are the benefits of e-invoicing?

E-invoicing comes with a number of benefits that can save you and your merchant customers time and money. Some of the top benefits include:

• Reduced accounts receivable costs: E-invoicing can help reduce your accounts receivable costs by streamlining the invoicing and payment process. This eliminates the need for a large accounts receivable team to manage invoices, perform data entry tasks and process payments.

  A study by Deloitte Access Economics, https://bit.ly/3zHfu2V, estimates that businesses can reduce up to 70 percent of their processing costs by implementing e-invoicing in place of manual or PDF invoices. In their findings, they've also discovered that every electronic invoice a company generates can deliver up to a $20 cost savings over a traditional paper invoice.

• Improved cash flow: With e-invoicing, your business can send invoices faster and receive payments sooner. The immediate delivery reduces the amount of time that invoices spend in the accounts receivable process and can free up working capital that can be used elsewhere in the business. In the same Deloitte study mentioned above, researchers found that electronic invoice recipients paid their invoices an average of seven days faster than those who received paper invoices.
• Reduced clerical errors: E-invoicing can help reduce clerical errors common in manual data entry tasks, such as transcribing paper invoices into your accounting software, or miscalculations and typos in the invoicing process.

  E-invoicing systems automate data entry tasks and can help ensure that the correct information is captured the first time. This not only saves time but can also help prevent late payments and reduce or even eliminate the need for manual interventions by staff members.

• Reduced material costs: E-invoicing can help reduce material costs, as you or your merchants will no longer need to print and mail paper invoices. This can save a significant amount of money on paper, printing, envelopes and postage. In addition, e-invoices don't require physical storage space, so they're cost-effective to file and much easier to retrieve.

  According to experts at Industry Week, https://bit.ly/3zKsbKi, the average costs of a paper invoice can range anywhere from $12 to $30. This includes the direct costs of materials and the postage required to mail the letter. It also consists of the indirect costs of paying staff to manually input data, send the invoices, follow up with your customers for payment, and reconcile any issues with the invoices.

• Greater security, complete transparency: E-invoicing can provide your business with greater security and complete transparency throughout the invoicing process. They. are delivered and paid through a secure network that encrypts the data to prevent fraud, stolen data and identity theft. In addition, e-invoicing systems can provide a complete audit trail of all invoices sent, received and paid. This can help your business resolve any disputes quickly and efficiently.
• Simplified archiving, record-keeping: E-invoicing can simplify archiving and record-keeping processes, reducing the need for massive filing cabinets and storage space in your facility. E-invoices are stored electronically, which means they take up minimal space on your computer, server or network.

  In addition, e-invoicing systems can help you or your merchants organize and manage invoices more effectively. Most e-invoicing systems come with features such as searchable databases and the ability to sort and filter invoices by date, customer, amount and more. This can save time when you're trying to find a specific invoice or track payments.

• Improved customer satisfaction: E-invoicing can improve your customer satisfaction by providing them with a faster, more convenient way to receive and pay their invoices. In addition, e-invoicing can help reduce invoice recipients' accounts payable costs by simplifying their invoicing and payment processes.

E-invoicing should be easy to integrate and use. Look for a common-sense, intuitive execution of this product. Be picky!

Nicholas Cucci is the co-founder and COO of Fluid Pay LLC. Cucci is also a graduate of Benedictine University and a member for the Advisory Board and Anti-Fraud Technology Committee for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, as a Certified Fraud Examiner himself.. Fluid Pay is the ONLY 100 percent cloud-based Level 1 PCI Payment Gateway processing transactions anywhere in the world. Contact Nick at Nick@FluidPay.com.

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