Embedded B2B Payments
Convenient, fast, and secure payment options so your customers have everything they need to pay their invoices.
Accounting automation creates efficiencies that 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 six ways automating your AR process can benefit B2B accountants:
1. Faster payments
Accounting firms have long been plagued by late payments. Accounting Today reported an average of 31% of invoices in the industry are paid late.
Automating your AR process with Bill360 is a surefire way to eliminate overdue payments. You can create and send payment-ready invoices immediately after the work is done. Rather than sending invoices one by one, Bill360 enables batch invoicing, where multiple invoices are sent at once.
Bill360 provides you the opportunity to use AutoPay and 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. Bill360 requires little training and syncs seamlessly with existing accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero while providing unique features such as customer portals and real-time customer collaboration tools. We also have a full-time, U.S.-based support by your side from training and onboarding right through daily usage.
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. 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. In a recent survey of nearly 500 accountants, 59% admitted to making several errors per month and 18% revealed they make errors daily.
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. That is why companies with teams that embrace new technology experienced a 75% reduction in financial errors.
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: AR automation for accountants
Bill360 is an essential tool for B2B accounting firms and their clients. Our clients save up to 15 hours per week by eliminating manual tasks and get paid an average of 10 days faster than their previous process.
Is your AR process helping or hurting your firm? Find out with our free AR Health Checkup.
FAQ
Will AR automation replace accountants?
Not at all. AR automation will help accountants by handling time-consuming accounting chores, leaving them more time to work with clients and do more analytical work.
Is my firm too small for AR automation?
No such thing as "too small a firm." If anything, smaller firms benefit more from AR automation because it removes 15 hours of manual labor off the team's shoulders each week.
Will my team need extensive training to use AR automation?
No. Bill360 requires less than an hour of training, enabling your employees to start using it that day.
