How do you cut your costs, get the money you are due and manage all the headaches at the same time? Here are some ideas that might reduce the noise a bit:

1. Plastic, not paper. Dealing with cash or checks costs more than you might think. You have to handle it, count it, move it from your drawer to the bank, all with human hands, and it takes time. Businesses which handle cash also pay higher insurance premiums. Much of the same logic applies to handling paper checks.
2. People are using their credit cards more and more. Despite the fees, accepting plastic or checks electronically cuts out all the costs and many of the errors of humans handling paper money.
3. Electronic invoicing has become commonplace, and online payment is building steam. These things started slowly but have been steadily gaining ground. More companies offer electronic invoicing and the convenience of it all has tremendous appeal.
4. Using electronic payment eliminates all the time normally spent in real-world transport of that cash, which means you get paid faster.

Online invoicing and payment centers are ultimately more convenient for today’s well-connected people. We’re busy, always on the go. We want to see it, pay it and get it over with in a moment with the least amount of bleeding possible. If you’re going to go that route, follow that strategy as far as you can.

One thing common in online invoicing is an overabundance of images and advertisements. There are several things wrong with that approach. If it looks like spam, they’ll push it over to their spam bucket and it will never be read. Their email client will then start recognizing your invoices as spam, and they will never see an invoice again. Even if they know it’s a bill, why would they want to wade through all the junk to get to the bottom line? Finally, why pay somebody to jazz up an invoice when really all you want to do is get your money? Keep the advertisements separate. It doesn’t cost extra to send two emails instead of just one. Just put a simple link to your website at the bottom and you’ll be covered.

Your invoice should look like an invoice and have as few extraneous details as possible. The only graphic additions should be there to validate the origin of the message or clarify the content. The entire message should be designed for exactly one purpose: Let the customer pay the bill as simply and quickly as possible. No fuss.

Your online customer portal should be the same: They should see the current balance with a “pay now” button as soon as they log in. They should be able to easily see their billing and payment history. They should be able to dispute all or part of the bill, and add notes and see notes for each invoice.
While they’re paying though, it won’t hurt to add in a check box for “Make this payment automatically” or “Send me offers for programs that may help me.”

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.

10. Seamless 2-way integration with Quickbooks.

9. Get up and going with Greenbill in minutes. It is painless and leverages your existing Quickbooks data.

8. Get up to date access to who paid and who owes from anywhere online. Works on the iPhone too.

7. Greenbill makes it super easy to get paid online via Credit Card, Paypal, Google Checkout or better yet by ACH/eCheck.

6. Quick and convenient  ACH/eChecks. ACH is $0.35 per payment instead of 2-3% of the transaction.

5. Your customers will love the your branded web portal. Its simple, fast and easy to use.

4. The reporting kicks ass. See trends and payment patterns for your customers that you have been missing in Quickbooks.

3. Set it and Forget. You never have to worry about making sure the invoices and reminders get to the right people.

2. Our Customers get paid 10 days faster on average when they use our solution for their invoice delivery, collections and online payments process.

And…..(Drum Roll Please)
1. Go Green and Get Paid Faster. If you are still sending paper out of Quickbooks, STOP IT.  Greenbill is good for the planet and good for your business.