Automating your billing process? Here is what you absolutely need to know

Manual billing can be time-consuming, and expensive, and when it gets busy or the work is complex, there are times when it can suffer from human error. As your company grows bigger and more complex, handling your billing manually can be a hindrance that is actually preventing you from using your time in a more constructive manner. Business automation has changed the way accounts are handled, and billing automation can be extremely beneficial for you and your company. In this article, we are going to look at what is involved in manual billing, and how automating your billing process can transform your results.

Manual billing – what is involved and why it is outdated

There are a lot of steps involved in the billing process, and when you are doing it manually, it can quickly become overwhelming, especially if you only have a few team members working on the process.

When you are sending out the bills, the manual process can be generally broken down to:

1. Gather the information needed (such as price, product details, service received, dates, etc).
2. Create an invoice.
3. Review and if required, have the invoice approved.
4. Send out the invoice and confirm receipt.
5. Check that the payment has arrived by the due date.
6. If the payment has not arrived by the due date: Follow up with the client.
7. Record the invoice as having been paid, and file appropriately.
8. Update the client record to show that payment has been made.
9. For repeat clients: set a reminder for the next due date.

For incoming bills and invoices, the steps are a little different:

1. Receive invoice.
2. Check against records to ensure the information is correct (total owed, dates, etc).
3. Make the payment (if required, seek approval and sign off first).
4. Record on the record the pertinent information (date paid, total, how it was paid, etc).
5. If necessary, inform relevant people that the invoice has been paid.
6. File the information for tax records and other official purposes.

Each of these steps takes time and experience, especially if you do not have a regular billing cycle – some companies will standardise their cycles to being monthly, fortnightly, or weekly – and others are completely dependant on when a contract or agreement starts and ends.Manual billing is not efficient, and can suffer greatly from human error, which can cause financial, legal, or reputational trouble for your business.

How billing automation streamlines the process

Automation can make the billing process much smoother and more efficient and help to avoid problems with sales invoicing, by breaking down the process into individual steps, and assigning tasks to the right software solutions, both incoming and outgoing bills can be monitored, managed, and even paid, without employees having to be involved.

Most automation software also comes with notification options, so if an error or irregularity occurs, a notification can be raised with a designated person or team, so that the process is not delayed any longer than it needs to be.

The benefits of adopting business automation for billing

Using business automation for billing makes a lot of sense, and there are considerable benefits from doing so. These include:

• Reduction of time wastage – Employees can spend time on the tasks that require their attention and will only need to be involved if something unexpected occurs, or if their expertise is required.
  
  
• Issues with clients can be identified – Because automation can be enriched with analytical processes, the entire billing process can be monitored and regularly audited. This means that if you have, for example, a client that is repeatedly late with their payments – you can make arrangements to either move their payment date, or escalate the issue as required.
  
  
• Process is not reliant on individual staff members – When you are dealing with a lot of clients, you might find that some of them have certain quirks or requirements, and with a manual process, handled by only a few people – this specialisation means that payments can become an issue if the team member is unavailable during the end of a billing cycle.
  With automation, and the ability to annotate client records, information can be recorded and flagged for attention, and the automated process customised to meet these specific needs.
  
  
• Sensitive data is protected – By removing the human element from the process, and only allowing access to the people who have the right credentials to examine the billing data, you can better protect your client confidentiality, and improve the security of your processes.

Whether you are a small but growing business, or a larger company, by automating complex billing processes, you can help yourself evolve and grow even further.

The challenges of finding the right billing automation software, and what to look for

Finding the right software and tools for your billing automation can be a challenge, it is important that you examine your options carefully, and choose services that fit your needs, work with your company structure, and provide you with scalability for future growth.

When selecting your automation software, you should be looking for tools that are:

• Legally compliant
• Integrate with your existing software, or can replace it easily
• Suitable for your team to use (both in functionality and being trained on usage)
• Cost effective

How we can help you with your billing automation

In order to operate at maximum efficiency with minimal interruptions and errors, your billing automation needs to be carefully planned, integrated with your existing structure, and using tools and platforms that your team can be trained to handle in a reasonable amount of time. This is where TEB Apps comes in.

When you utilize TEB for your billing automation, you will ensure:

• Effective payment tracking and reminders – Do not miss payments and minimise human error to ensure you always get paid on time.
• Get a holistic view of your billing activity – Get a simple user-friendly view of your billing activity to stay aware of your processes.
• Accessible custom billing cycles – allowing you to set up your bills and view them on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis.
• Easy third-party integration – so you can easily process bills and invoices with existing third-party accounting or payment processing applications.

Discover more about what TEB Apps can do for your business, and book a demo where we will show you exactly how your billing process can be made easy.