E-invoicing – Could your business benefit?

Electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) allows your business to send digital demands for payment. In doing so you can reduce many of the common delays and costs associated with the billing process, such as the costs of physical invoice delivery, and the time it takes for a printed document to arrive at your client’s offices.

Of course, emailing an electronic copy of the document will help realise some benefits in relation to these issues, but there are even greater savings available. True e-invoicing sees every payment demand you generate being inserted automatically into your clients’ accounts system, using a third party e-invoicing gateway. Every time you raise an invoice, your client’s account system is updated to reflect the debt.

This immediacy provides benefits for both you and your customers:

• Sent invoices cannot be “lost” as they are inserted directly into the client’s accounts.
• Clients can avoid late payment fees caused by lost or mislaid paperwork.
• No need to copy details from PDF or printed invoices reducing the likelihood of wrong data being entered, and helping to avoid disputes about due dates, sums, and payment status.
• Simplified invoicing processes reduce the administrative burden, cutting costs at the same time.
• Invoice payment details can also be entered into your accounts system automatically as the client pays their bills.

For any SME seeking to reduce their operational costs and improve cash-flow control, e-invoicing is a valuable tool. E-invoicing comes as standard when you use accounting software packages such as Xero– these offer a great route to truly stress-free business finance.