Whether it’s pledging to spend more time at the gym, adopting a healthier diet, or kicking a bad habit, New Year’s resolutions are as ubiquitous around the holidays as candy canes and wrapping paper.
Declaring a New Year’s resolution is easy, which is why nearly 40 percent of people do it, according to Driver Research.
Making one stick? Therein lies the challenge. The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business reports that 23 percent of people quit their resolution just one week into a new year while 43 percent are done by the end of January.
If you’re a B2B company looking to make changes in 2024, AR (accounts receivable) automation provides the innovation and tools to make your financial resolutions come to fruition.
Here are five New Year’s resolutions that are attainable through automating your AR process:
1. Reduce DSO
You’re tired of waiting around for late payments, especially when you can use that money to modernize equipment or add more talented staff. Such is life when you’re hamstrung by high Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), which is the amount of time it takes a business to get paid for goods or services. A high DSO not only suppresses cash flow, but it makes for a stressful working environment and can convolute the already complex AR process.
Through features such as smart invoicing, automatic payment alerts, and AutoPay, AR automation makes it easier than ever for you to collect prompt payments from customers and lower your DSO. Not only will this generate more money for you to put into your business, but lowering DSO eases stress and enables you to better predict your revenue, leading to sound, well-informed financial decisions.
2. Make fewer accounting mistakes
Errors tend to happen when your AR process is carried out manually. Customers may get charged for the wrong product. Invoices may get sent to the wrong customers or may never reach their intended target if a seller’s name is spelled incorrectly or an envelope is mislabeled.
Automating the AR process, however, helps eliminate mistakes by automatically linking customers to their specific invoice and reconciling paid invoices. That way, you get paid on time and keep in your customer’s good graces.
3. Make better use of employees' time
You put together a team of employees best suited to take your B2B company to the next level. You didn’t envision them spending hours of their week stuffing invoices into envelopes and filing cabinets or chasing down late-paying customers.
Thanks to AR automation, they won’t have to. AR automation distributes, collects, and reconciles invoices into a single, secure platform that’s simple to navigate, ensuring accuracy while giving your employees the time required to take on creative projects that they enjoy and help grow your business.
4. Build stronger customer relationships
Growing your customer base is a good thing. However, the one caveat is that the more customers you bring on, the less time you get to interact with each one or the longer it may take you to solve a specific issue.
AR automation brings you closer to customers and helps humanize relationships through robust collaboration tools such as customer portals and other features that enable you to send customized notes, payment reminders, and alerts with the click of a button. And real-time payment tracking notifies you whenever a typically prompt customer’s payment is overdue, giving you a chance to proactively reach out and offer any assistance.
5. Offer faster, more secure payment options
Continuing to accept checks doesn’t just slow down the payment process, but it makes you and your customers vulnerable to check fraud, which has become the most common form of financial deceit.
AR automation makes it easier to process payments through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network and credit and debit cards, options that are fast, simple, and secure, ensuring payments arrive on time and your customer’s financial data isn’t compromised. ACH processing costs are also the lowest among all payment options and include transaction fees that are flat and predictable.
Bill360, the first payment platform created for B2B companies like yours and offers unique data solutions in a secure, embedded platform that makes it easier for customers to pay on time, wants to make 2024 the year you see your resolutions through and improve your business.
Register for our Sign, Sync, & Save offer and sync Bill360 to QuickBooks or your existing accounting software – a process that takes minutes – any time from Jan. 15 through the end of the month. Do so and we’ll waive your monthly software charges for a whole year.
Discover firsthand how Bill360 is revolutionizing the AR process and helping B2B companies like yours achieve long-term profitability.
