Efficiency is essential to all industries. But few need it more than accountants, especially those working in the B2B space.
You spend your days keeping a close eye on your clients’ finances, ensuring they’re taking the necessary steps to ensure long-term financial health. Doing so, however, requires that you run your business efficiently, as well, especially if you’re handling everything manually. That includes your accounts receivable (AR) process, where your employees spend hours performing repetitive tasks while trying not to drown in an endless stream of paper invoices and checks.
It’s time to adapt. As tax season draws near, here are five ways automating your AR process can benefit B2B accountants:
1. Faster payments
Accounting firms have long been plagued by late payments. Accounting Today reported that 94 percent of accountants had to chase down delinquent customers, which not only puts a crimp in your firm’s cash flow but makes for a high-stress work environment.
Automating your AR process is a surefire way to eliminate overdue payments. Not only are invoices automatically created, distributed, and tracked, but AR automation provides a portal where your customers can make secure payments with just the click of a button. And with features such as AutoPay, you can automatically withdraw recurring payments from your customers’ checking account through the Automated Clearing House Network (ACH) or a credit card stored in their buyer-managed wallet each month. That way, you’ll no longer worry they’ll forget to pay their bill.
Faster payments invigorate cash flow and enable your team to focus on more strategic endeavors.
2. Simplicity
You’ve been tempted to use automation in the past. However, your team is busy enough and you’re unsure if your accounting firm has the manpower or technological experience required.
It’s important to remember that automation was created to simplify your AR process. It should be easy to implement and even easier to use. The right platform requires little training and syncs with your existing accounting software in minutes while providing unique features such as customer portals and real-time customer collaboration tools. You should also have access to a support team made up of trained professionals who act quickly should any issues arise.
AR automation makes it easy for your accounting firm to use the most up-to-date technology, enabling you to better serve your clients and keep up with the competition.
3. Compliance
Falling out of compliance not only results in costly fines but it can also harm your firm’s reputation. Prospective clients are less likely to trust you with their important financial information if you can’t keep up with ever-changing financial regulations.
By automatically carrying out manual tasks, AR automation eliminates human error and helps ensure records are kept accurately, enabling your accounting firm to stay in line with tax regulations and other standards. With features such as real-time tracking and insight, AR automation alerts you of any possible non-compliance issues, allowing you to resolve a problem before it even starts.
4. Better allotment of time
Your clients outsource their accounting tasks to you so you can help them make sound decisions. That could be difficult to do if your employees are spending their time preparing invoices and chasing down overdue payments.
AR automation takes the manual labor out of the AR process, handling everything from invoice distribution to reconciling to reaching out to typically prompt customers whose payments are past due. Free of mundane tasks, your employees can spend their week working with clients on financial analysis, consulting, and other projects related more to accounting than filing.
5. Enhanced security
Your clients trust you with financial information and the results could be catastrophic should it fall into the wrong hands.
Automating your AR process means you’re integrating software with secure payment platforms that are compliant with standards such as PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). AR automation also provides payment options through the ACH network, which is speedier and far more secure than paying by check, especially since incidents of check fraud are more frequent now than ever before.
6. Fewer mistakes
Mistakes can happen to anyone. For accounting firms, however, errors are a surefire way to lose clients. Why would they put their important information in your hands when you can’t even send them the correct invoice?
The CFO Daily News recently reported 41 percent of all financial errors are the result of human error. AR automation takes human error out of the equation by automating manual tasks and automatically filling in customer information, ensuring invoices head to the right address and the correct clients are billed for the correct services.
Reducing mistakes leads to satisfied customers who have the information required to pay you on time, resulting in quicker payments that can go to the expansion of your firm.
Bill360 is an essential tool for B2B accounting firms like yours. Our automated payment platform syncs with QuickBooks and Xero in a matter of minutes and requires less than an hour of training. And there is always a knowledgeable Bill360 staff member standing by to assist you if problems do arise.
Learn more about how Bill360 can take your accounting firm to the next level and our free, no-risk 90-day trial.
