Digital Invoicing – What You Need to Know
When it comes to running a business there’s one thing you can’t do without: a reliable way for managing your invoices. Customers want, and expect, prompt and accurate billing, which can be a struggle if your accounts payable department isn’t running efficiently. Switching to digital invoices may be the boost you need to improve how your invoices are processed.
Digital vs. Paper Invoices
Most companies have relied on paper invoices for decades. However, with today’s technologies, you can create digital workflows that simplify the process. Consider these problem areas, and how digital invoices can improve them.
Speed and Accuracy – The more people who touch a document, the slower the process is and the higher the chance for errors. Switching to digital can make a dramatic difference. Invoices can be quickly and easily sent with the touch of a button. This makes the process better for your employees while also improving customer satisfaction.
Privacy – Paper invoices can easily violate privacy. Whether sitting on a printer tray or a desk, they could seen by prying eyes. Digital invoices, however, can be encrypted for safety and even protected behind passwords or other means of authentication.
Filing and Storage – Paper is easy to lose and hard to store. A misfiled document can take valuable time to find or recreate, slowing down your business and costing you money. Digital documents take up little physical space, and can be indexed for easy searching.
Destruction and Disposal – Paper is a fragile medium, which can be easily destroyed. Whether it’s a disaster, such as a fire, or a liquid spill on a desk, the result is the same – the document is lost. At the same time, purposely disposing of paper documents can be a time-consuming process of shredding and arranging proper disposal. Digital documents solve both these problems; backups are easily created and stored offsite, and deleting is as simple as touching a button.
Making the switch from paper to digital invoices can offer many advantages that will not only benefit your accounts payable department, but your entire company as well. Want to learn more? Give one of our team members a call and let us show you how digital documents can benefit your business.