How to get customers to pay on time
Spenda
1 February - 6 min read
If you’re an accounts receivable professional or a business owner, you’d know the headache of following up overdue payments all too well. You may use a range of strategies to collect overdue payments, from agreeing on payment plans with your debtors to sending the invoice for debt collection. No matter the strategy you choose for collecting late payments, it doesn’t address the problem at its core — getting customers to pay on time in the first place.
This article outlines how to get customers to pay on time, including tools and processes that will create a great experience for your customers while improving your cash flow.
Inefficient debt collection has a high cost
The most effective way to get customers to pay on time is to review your business’s processes, from booking appointments through to debt collection. Not only do many businesses have payment processes that are inefficient for the customer, ineffective internal processes also make it difficult to make meaningful improvements across your business.
Take, for example, a pool services company, which we’ll call Blue Lagoon Pool Services and Supplies.
How to stop chasing late payments
There is a range of changes and digital tools businesses can implement to get paid on time, improve cash flow and reduce the amount of time people spend on following up overdue payments. Thinking about the problem using the customer’s journey is a good way to identify what changes you need to make.
Regardless of your industry, you should consider implementing the following changes to get paid faster:
- Collect customer payment details at the time of booking or scheduling
- Automatically send invoices immediately upon goods or service delivery
- Make it easy for customers to pay, with a range of payment options and methods
- Implement a system that allows you to view all invoices in one place
- Automate your processes wherever possible, particularly your payment processes
- Integrate data across your business for improved stock management.
How do you automate payment processes?
The first step in getting your customers to pay on time is to automate your payment processes. To automate your payment processes, you need a platform that allows you to quote, invoice, schedule and collect payments and follow up overdue payments in one place. For your customers, this same platform should allow them to pay more than one invoice in a single transaction, along with options for how and when they pay.
Give your customers different payment options
Customers need options for how and when they pay. These options may include credit card payments, bank transfers or financing options. SpendaCollect currently offers credit card and bank transfer options, with the ability to access financing for invoices coming soon. In terms of when customers pay, a platform, like Spenda’s that provides the infrastructure to automate payments allows customers to choose whether they:
- Pay immediately
- Schedule a payment for a future date
- Split the payment into instalments.
Make managing your payments a breeze
With an integrated system for all of your payment and business management needs in one place, you’ll be able to improve your cash flow, address bad debts, manage stock more effectively and invoice customers quickly and automatically. The features of MySpenda, the powerful new interface for B2B and B2C businesses, provides a range of solutions:
- Better bill presentment options (choose to view and pay a single or all invoices in one place)
- Flexible payment options allowing customers to pay via credit card or bank transfer, and save the payment preference
- Pay multiple invoices in one transaction
- Faster payment settlement
- Lower payment processing fees (1% up to 75 cents for bank transfers and 1.5% with no cap on card payments)
- Fewer errors with data collected and integrated automatically across systems.
For B2C businesses, overdue payments often arise when someone has already delivered a product or service in the field. The pool and spa industry, where technicians visit customer’s homes to work on their pools, often deals with late payments due to outdated systems and processes, or no system at all.
Our tailored business management platform provides pool and spa businesses with the systems and tools they need to get paid on time. The integrated Point-of-Sale (POS) system allows businesses to accept payment on the go, while the intuitive drag and drop functionality makes it easy to use. Further, the flexible payment options, including the ability to pre-authorise payments, allows your business to implement workflow payments. In effect, this means your customers can input their payment details and, once you’ve delivered the goods or services, you can charge the customer on the go. All of the business’s transactions and accounts are updated in real-time, making reconciliation efficient even if your team is working from multiple locations out in the field.
With Spenda’s suite of tools and products, you can not only improve your business’s debt collection processes, but you’ll also create a better customer experience. Our platform provides everything that businesses need to get paid faster in an intuitive interface that your customers will love.
Click here to book a demo and learn how you can improve your payment processes and get customers to pay on time.
Related Articles
For businesses across all industries, improved accounts payable and accounts receivable processes can deliver efficiencies that drive growth. This growth comes from upgrading payment systems and processes to improve productivity and strengthen cash flow.
Introducing the improved Spenda Accounts Payable (AP) solution which comes equipped with a new self-guided set up, enabling users to easily onboard themselves and quickly streamline their payables.
Having the ability to use ESD can boost everyone’s cash flow and improve trading relationships. Keep reading for an overview of ESD and how they work.
