It’s no secret that your billing process has a huge impact on many areas of your business operations. It’s a major point of contact with customers who will be frustrated and dissatisfied with confusing statements or late invoicing. It also sets the pace of your cash flow: you can’t take in revenue until it’s been billed.
An effective billing process is key to an effective business, but there are no simple invoicing or utility billing solutions. It requires attention to detail across the following areas:
Statement Design
Good statement design requires a combination of written communication and graphic design. Remember, the primary goal of a statement isn’t to bring in payments, it’s to give clients information about their account. Statement services like Southwest Direct can help you overhaul your statement design with billing solutions like usage graphs, consumption history, detailed charges, and online statement archiving.
Timely Billing
The timing of your billing drives the timing of your cash flow, and will also go a long way to keeping your customers totally satisfied while also keeping their accounts up to date. Issuing timely invoices requires keeping track of work flow and expenses that inform each client’s account and rapidly preparing accurate bills or invoices. Especially in utilities, customers making recurring payments expect their bills to arrive on time so they can plan their finances accordingly. This gives you an increased incentive to make sure billing is always timely for your clients’ convenience.
Electronic Solutions
Electronic, online billing solution are quickly replacing paper tracking, or even electronic databases like Access and Excel. A statement service firm can help you upgrade your billing process by moving online and into electronic billing, payment, and archiving.
Online systems give your customers easy access to their account history and current bills, and allow them to set up automatic withdrawals: an extremely effective tool for minimizing late or missed payments and optimizing your cash flow.
Off-Site Processing
Whether on paper or online, simply processing statements and invoices requires a huge investment in time, manpower and storage. If your business struggles with timely processing, it may be time to consider outsourcing your billing, statement processing, and storage to a firm like Southwest Direct. Off-site processing frees up time and manpower for other duties, while leaving your billing process in the hands of database and financial experts who will keep your customers informed and satisfied and your cash flow moving smoothly.
For up-to-the-minute utility billing solutions, rely on a firm that will manage your statement services from statement design to archiving and storage. Contact Southwest Direct for the best service at the best prices, and the kind of peace of mind that only expertise can provide.
