One of the core functions of any business is its ability to invoice its customers for any goods or services sold to them.

Businesses don’t tend to pay upfront for many things, so what they normally do is agree payment terms for invoices so that they have a bit of time to process the details of any purchases through their accounting systems.

The Trouble With Paper Invoices

Many firms in the United Kingdom still issue paper invoices to their customers in this technologically-advanced age that we live in, believe it or not! Issuing invoices in this manner is liable to all sorts of issues and systematic abuse, such as the following:

  • Excuses

    • One of the reasons why customers might not pay their invoices on time is due to excuses that they give to their creditors, one of which is “we never received your invoice”;

  • Rejection

    • A significant proportion of paper invoices issued to customers get rejected by them due to incorrect invoice details such as wrong prices, missing purchase order numbers, or even something as simple as not spelling the company or entity name correctly;

  • Cost

    • One gripe that companies have with issuing paper invoices is that they cost money. For example, there are the costs associated with printing the invoices and the costs associated with posting them out.

Why E-Invoicing Can Revolutionise The Way You Get Paid

Thankfully a large number of firms using this rather traditional and quite frankly outdated method of invoicing are turning to technology in order to help them cut invoicing costs and streamline the process.

Electronic Invoicing: A Practical Solution

As the world’s buying and spending habits shift towards carrying out all manner of transactions almost instantaneously using the World Wide Web and the Internet as a whole, sending out an electronic invoice to each of your customers has become an accepted practice by businesses and organisations of all sizes.

If your business or organisation is still sending paper invoices out to its customers, here are some of the reasons why you should make the change to electronic invoicing!

  1. Cloud-based Technology is Easy to Set up

    2. As you might already know, any data stored online is often referred to as ‘the cloud’. The great thing about using cloud-based electronic invoicing software is that you don’t need to install anything on a PC or Mac, as everything is done within your web browser;

  2. Cost Savings

    3. As I mentioned earlier, it costs money to print invoices and post them out. The costs don’t just stop at material items, because it will also cost your firm money to take someone out of their work in order to post the invoices out to your customers. Electronic invoicing gets rid of all such costs, freeing up your cash flow to spend on other areas of the business;

  3. Instant Delivery

    4. Customers can’t fob you off with excuses that the postman has lost your invoice because it is delivered instantly to them over the Internet;

Increased productivity – your credit controllers and other members of your accounts team don’t need to waste time and money chasing your customers for payment because the system is more tightly controlled and has less room for non-payment excuses.