Encouraging and incentivising clientele to pay your invoices more efficiently is a guaranteed way to increase the projected profit levels of businesses across a multitude of industries and trades. It’s important to take the time to consider the importance of this when aiming to maximise the financial prospects of your brand going forward. To learn more, stick around as we break down six actionable tips for ensuring that invoices are getting paid in a timely manner.
- Send Invoices Efficiently
Making sure your team is staying on top of their game in regards to how quickly they’re sending out the invoices is an integral part of ensuring a faster response rate. A great way to go about this is by utilising software services such as Xelix as a form of AI that helps automate and deliver a efficacious financial system within a business operation.
- Provide Various Ways to Accept Payment
It’s important to ensure that paying invoices is not a chore or a hardship for your clients to have to go through. Making an effort to diversify your approach to invoices as a brand is an incredibly effective option to consider here. Consider offering online and app-based invoice payment methods in order to increase the likelihood of efficient transactions.
- Chase Up Your Clients
Don’t be afraid to follow up on financial qualms and queries with your consumer base. Send over a quick email or give them a call if an invoice has been sitting in your inbox unpaid for an extended period of time. Providing a service comes at a natural cost, and advocating for your businesses remuneration is always good practice.
- Double Check The Invoice Recipient
It may sound obvious, but it’s an easy mistake to make – many overdue invoices are simply caused by not being sent to the right client, at the right time. Whether it’s an issue with spam mail or a simple lapse in thinking, it can happen to the best of us. Be meticulous with the planning and dispatching of each invoice to avoid this rookie error.
- Offer Invoice-Based Discounts
A great incentive that is likely to motivate clientele to keep up with their due invoices, is to offer small discounts whenever they are paid with immediacy. A little can go a long way – this method shows customers that your brand is appreciative of being made a priority. Consider the idea of reducing the overall pricing of your transaction by 5% or 10% in order to ensure that your team isn’t left waiting around for their payment, when all is said and done.
- Utilise Late Fees for Overdue Invoices
On the flip side, heavily enforcing a late fee can also help garner the desired outcome in regards to seeking invoice remittance. Though it may feel a little drastic at first, at times taking such measures is the only way to emphasise company policy and procedure to your brand’s target demographic. Include the warning of a late fee in your general customer proposals to retroactively warn customers of this potential risk.
A Brief Overview
The issue of unpaid invoices is an annoying yet ubiquitous dilemma that most companies are forced to confront at one point or another. However, implementing the tips provided above can and will help your business effectively nip the problem in the bud.