The most obvious benefit to an ACH payment would obviously be the speed at which the payment for your goods or services are transferred to your account. Remittances are typically transfered in the early morning hours before the banks are open, with this being the case ACH payments are processed before paper items, and available funds are committed to those ACH items on a first in, first out basis.

Another benefit is automatically realized by your businesses accounts payable department. As your customers adopt ACH as their preferred method of remitting payments there will be a direct reduction of paper check processing. With the addition of check processing scanners, even customers who insist on paying with a paper check can have the funds for their payment processed easily through ACH.

As the economy continues to tighten it’s belt there are ever increasing concerns regarding audit trails and insufficient funds notification. Providing a solid audit trail for remittances and deposits is easily managed through ACH processes. Each transaction is uniquely identifiable and search-able. This includes, origin, destination, dates, amount and other information which follow NACHA operating rules and Federal reserve guidelines.  ACH also allows for real time notice on insufficient funds regarding payments. With this the item can be directed to collections in a timely and efficient manner ensuring the best possible odds of collecting the balance due.

There are many more benefits to the ACH process including, better customer relations, improved cash flow on recurring or monthly payments, and making it easier for your customers to pay in a timely manner without reminders and follow ups. Visit Greenbill.com for more information on our ACH services for you and your customers.

With a simple mouse click or two, reports are generated, invoices printed in triplicate and letters, complete with typographical errors are created, most only to be thrown away either at the source or final destination. What is the true cost for a single page document to your companies bottom line? What are the ways to reduce this waste of both resources and money?

Larry Phelps has kindly provided us with these statistics on the staggering cost and quantity of paper in the workplace. For more information please visit his site and his expertise on efficient and environmentally document imaging.  larryphelps.wordpress.com

• Over its life-span, a single sheet of paper ends up costing an average of $30. -Delphi Group.
• Every year 7.5 billion documents are created and 15 trillion copies are made.
• E-mails will double to 60 billion a day in 2 years.
• 7% of documents are permanently lost.
• The average document is copied 18 times.
• 90% of business information is still on paper.
• Misfiled documents cost $120 each.
• 4-drawer file cabinets cost $25,000 to fill.
  and $2,000 per year to maintain. (Source: Coopers & Lybrand 2004)
• $14,000 worth of productivity is lost per worker per year due to their inability to find the data they require to do their job.-IDC Canada.
• Professionals spend 50 percent of their time searching for information, and take 18 minutes to locate each document on average. -Gartner Research.
• US companies spend approximately $20 on labor costs in order to file a document, $120 on the labor required to find a misfiled document and $220 to reproduce a lost document. -Coopers & Lybrand.
• Companies typically misfile up to 20 percent of their records – thus losing them forever.

With these facts in mind, it only makes sense, both financially and environmentally to examine the options for online invoicing, electronic payments and software based accounting. All of these provide a significant reduction in paper, paper related costs and environmental impact.

See for yourself , try the Greenbill Green Billing Calculator and find out how much paper is really costing your company.

He question to me was, “Why does recycling and saving seem more important when people have less?”

Now this may contradict my opening statement, yet it is very clear that although there is less outward focus on being “Green”, companies and individuals would appear to do more regarding conservation and recycling in times of economic strain. Reusing materials, equipment, and reducing energy usage to save. Swing shifts at the office to reduce heating and cooling costs, electricity usage at non-peak rates and on, and on. The same is very true for individual households. Lights turned off which otherwise would be left on, reducing fuel by commuting less or by public transportation, reusing items which otherwise would be thrown away, it is human nature and one which should be evaluated to help with the quest for a “Green” planet.

Now the challenge is to keep these habits in place during times of economic growth and abundance. Easier said than done? Well, we have begun a list of what we do as a family to help conserve and reduce energy, disposables and resources at our house. The kids have figured that with these notes we can see exactly how our “Green” habits can be retained as economic times improve. By continuing these habits we will be even farther ahead as we move into the future, helping the planet for my children’s children.

 Try it at your home or business; you may be surprised exactly how easy it is to be “Green” and to stay that way.

Next we will review and detail managing open invoices, tracking customer payment trends and scheduling automatic follow ups for invoices due. With a comprehensive and easy to use work queue for collections, management and collecting your open invoices is no longer a dreaded task. The results, your relationships and communications with clients improve and your company gets paid faster.

Once again, this sounds simple, common knowledge every business owner or manager should know, right?  Unfortunately knowing the rules and following them are two completely different things. How can this be solved? Simple, and it is, employ a method which corrects the commonly overlooked or unmanageable targets in a companies accounts receivables. Invoice generation, invoice delivery, ease of payment for your customers, cash application, open invoice management, and collections. This is the purpose of an EIPP system, Electronic Invoice Payment and Presentment. Integrated with a company’s order and accounting systems along with the internet as a transfer method, invoicing and payments can flow smoothly, increasing cash flow.

First we must generate the invoice. This may be done manually or using order and invoice software. Amounts, items, fees and payment due dates are generated to match contracts provided and an invoice is born.  This invoice then must be delivered to the customer. Mailed invoices have several inefficiencies; these must be reduced to streamline cash flow. Several costs, realized or unrealized are inherit to paper invoicing. Printing, envelopes, postage, time lag for actual delivery, and payment processing once received, all diminish profit, in some cases substantially. A twenty dollar invoice may cost up to five dollars to process and deliver, that cost doubles if there is a second mailing. With electronic delivery, material costs are eliminated, postage is eliminated and there is no time lag, the invoice can be directly emailed to the individual in charge of processing. Plus we are reducing the nasty CO2 emissions.  Second deliveries or follow ups are easily duplicated by regeneration of the electronic document. This is technology at work from the beginning steps; creation to delivery in 60 seconds, by following this first step through the entire process, payments can be just as efficient.

In my next post I will review payment options, which ones work, which ones don’t and most importantly, what works to get your company paid the fastest. Remember that is the goal of accounts receivable, get paid faster.