Simplifying your company’s accounts receivable process can provide you with more money and time, essential to the long-term success of any business.
Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers make bill collecting easier and more efficient for you and your customers, enabling you to receive faster, punctual payments. These digital transactions transfer funds between bank accounts through the ACH network. Direct deposits and apps such as PayPal and Venmo are examples of ACH transfers.
Here are five reasons why accepting ACH payments benefit your business:
1. Reduced costs
ACH offers processing fees that are the lowest among payment options. And unlike debit and credit card fees that vary with the size of each transaction, ACH fees remain flat and predictable. ACH is also cost-efficient when customers pay by check. The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) reports the median cost of receiving an ACH check payment is between $0.26 and $0.50. According to Nacha, the cost of receiving a paper check can be as expensive as $2. Multiply those costs over a year and you’ll be surprised at the amount of money ACH saves your business.
2. Stronger security
Nearly 70 percent of businesses were victims of check fraud in 2022, according to the AFP. That’s the last thing you and your staff need. Paper checks can be dangerous for your customers too – if intercepted or lost in the mail, checks can provide anyone who finds them with the company’s checking account information and the routing number of its bank. Checks through ACH transfer don’t need to be mailed or handled manually, and they can be easily traced, enabling quicker detection if fraud does occur.
3. Efficient processes
In a survey of more than 2,200 businesses, PYMNTS and American Express reported that 49 percent said a manual process was the greatest challenge when it came to accounts receivable. ACH payments enable your finance and AR teams to track transactions electronically, making for a simpler, more organized operation that doesn’t require bulky file cabinets or folders that can easily be misplaced.
4. Faster payments
The quicker your customers pay, the sooner you’ll be able to funnel those funds back into your business. Paper checks can sometimes take a week to clear, especially when weekends and holidays get in the way. ACH payments process the same day or the following business day, invigorating your cash flow while giving your customers the peace of mind that their bill has been paid.
5. Better allocation of resources
Receiving paper checks requires your staff to open envelopes and either go to the bank or sit at their desk and manually deposit funds into your account. It doesn’t sound like much – but these mundane accounting tasks eat into your employees’ work week. ACH payments, however, can be automated. This doesn’t just make the AR process quicker and easier, but it frees up your staff to work on projects geared more toward the growth of your business.
Bill360, the only AR automated tool purpose-built for small to medium-sized B2B merchants, offers unique data solutions in a single, embedded payment platform for ACH and card processing that supplies a seamless experience for you and your customer. With Bill360, you’ll get paid faster while reducing costs and giving you and your team more time to drive your business toward profitability.
Schedule a demo and discover firsthand how Bill360 is revolutionizing AR automation.
