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Make Your Business Operations Smarter With an Online Invoicing Tool

Are you struggling to manage your invoices? If yes, then you are struggling to manage your business.
Online invoicing tool handles the most important part of business operations. Businesses that manage their expenses well tend to be more profitable.

A simple invoice software automates the process of procuring the capital clients already owe you. But it is done in a smarter manner so that clients are able to make payments easily.
Users can create a seamless billing system with an online invoicing tool, set up automated billing, customize invoices, send out updated invoices, include client requests, and enable recurring payments. Meaning, you can take your entire business operation pipeline and make the cash flow easily with a simple invoice software.

Automate Billing
You do not have to shuffle through excel sheets every time you finish a project. With the right online invoicing software, you can automate invoice generation. It can be integrated with your word desk tools, and all relevant details like client information, services offered, contractual details can be accessed by the software directly. You can also set up automated payment channels for all your clients through a free invoice software.

Recurring Payments
If you have bagged a business deal, and are looking to set up a platform to enable recurring transactions then online invoicing software is a favorable solution. It can be done it no time. You can create customer profiles and set up channels of payment for difference services.

Even if your services change every month you can decide on a fixed base pay. The online invoicing tool will segregate the invoices for you. It will generate monthly invoices for a base payment, and you can make changes to an additional dynamic invoice to include any new services. Users can easily set up a recurring channel of payment for multiple clients, without worrying about errors.

Also Read: Online Invoicing for Small Businesses: Brief History & 5 Essential Invoices You Need

Accurate Estimates
The invoicing software not only generates invoices but also studies your transactions to understand your business operations better. Most online invoicing software are integrated or enabled with a time tracker. The time tracker logs the time spent by employees on each task.

This service is exceedingly helpful if you are paying employees by the hour, for instance – freelancers or employees on contract. Their payment is then directly made by the hourly pay multiplier. Now, with a time tracker, an online invoicing tool gains the ability to study your behavior as a unit and how long it takes you to finish certain tasks.

It also considers your history of transactions and general quotations. An invoicing software can make accurate estimates for a new project.

Multiple Payment Options
Why accept only Visa payments when you can set up multiple channels of payment with your online invoicing software? It does not matter which country or country you wish to make transactions to. You can explore a whole range of payment options and plug it directly into your invoices, making it easier for your clients to pay.

Also Read: Best Online Invoicing Software for Entrepreneurs

Payment Notifications
Have you had bad experiences with clients not paying on time? Some clients are generally off time, but some just forget that with a simple invoice software, you can turn on payment notifications or an alert system.

Even when it processes recurring payments, the software will notify you as well as the client. You can further reprogram it to send alerts a few days before the due date. Do not forget to set up regular alerts post due dates to send your clients payment reminders. In some cases, you can directly link payment channels along with the alerts to subtly push the client to pay.

Invoicing software truly simplifies the hustle of running a small business. Taking most of the transactional semantics and automating it, leaves you more room for other aspects of your business like improving productivity, acquiring new clients or expanding operations.

The Financial Side of E-commerce Websites

Most people assume that the big costs that are associated with an e-commerce website come from paying webmasters to set up a website and that once the site is fully set-up, the running costs are minimal and you can sit back, relax and watch the money roll in.

While you don’t have to pay the rent that is typically associated with a brick-and-mortar store, there are still many hidden costs that come from running a (successful) e-commerce store. Successful stores don’t sit on their business and start counting the cash, they are constantly buzzing and looking to grow. If you need help understand the financial side of e-commerce websites, let this article help you by breaking down the costs that are associated with running a successful online store.

E-commerce Website Development
If you want to ensure that you are running as successfully as possible, you will need to review and update your website regularly and frequently. The easiest way to do this is by regularly running website audits. These are checks that allow you to identify as well as understand risks that can damage both your brand reputation and your finances. By understanding them, you help yourself to prevent future damages, for example security risks that can become attractive bullseye targets for hackers.

Your audit will also help you to identify which areas of your site might need development and future investment. The amount that you spend developing your website will depend upon the type of site you have, as well as the platform that you choose. For example, the Magento platform is more configurable and customizable than, for example, Shopify, and therefore can be developed more easily; however, if you pick a standard template on other platforms, they often update themselves for you. The easiest way to get an audit is to use a web design company: magecloud.agency is currently offering audits for free.

Shipping and Handling
Whether you do it off-site or on-site, shipping and handling costs are a constant cost for any successful e-commerce store. They include:

Shipping carriers – you need to balance cost-effective carriers with trustworthiness and reliability.
Packaging – often a non-negotiable cost. Boxes can cost a dollar each or more if they are unique in structure.
Shipping insurance – this is needed for safety but you can offset some of these costs by increasing the shipping fee
Inventory management – whether you are housing your goods in your own warehouse or doing everything third-party with a drop-shipping model, you will have inventory management costs.

Digital Marketing
To keep a constant flow of traffic heading towards your site, you need a digital marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy is likely to include specific practices, many of which will require a staff member to work on over time. These practices include:
Search Engine Optimization – this requires updating your site regularly for search engine crawlers. A key component of SEO is creating content and back-linking, which can be quite labor-intensive.
Paid Advertisements – your digital marketing budget is also likely to include the costs associated with paid advertising. These might be pay per click adds or even paying influencers.

Equipment
You won’t need anywhere near the same amount of equipment as brick-and-mortar stores do, but you will still need some. These include:

A good computer – the heart of your business
A great internet connection
Laser and label printers
Scales (you need to weigh packages to calculate fees)

Reasons Why You Need Software to Manage Your Business Expenses

Let’s face it…expense management is not just for those big rich corporate houses. Every business, no matter how big or small, has to deal with endless receipts waiting for verification and approval. However, spending time on getting these sorted is often a waste. Especially, when managers are put into such situations, they cannot contribute to the growth of the business. Even employees find filing business expenses manually tiring. After all, they have to first bear the burden of business expenses, and then carry a fat bundle of receipts to work, hoping they would be verified and their expenses reimbursed as soon as possible.

All in all, there is absolutely no point in manual business expense management anymore. All of this can be handled seamlessly and transparently by business expense tracking software. Let’s look at a few reasons why you absolutely need software to manage your business expenses:

Automate business expenses
Imagine a world where filing of business expenses is paperless, receipt scanning is automatic, and verification and approval occurs instantly! Yes, that’s what the right business expense tracking software will do for you. Such a software seamlessly integrates all the tasks involved in business expense management and automates the workflow.

Once an employee incurs an expense, they can simply use the software application on their phone to click a picture of the receipt. This receipt is then uploaded to the software, and it is auto scanned for important details like time, date, amount, business, etc. It is then categorized and sent automatically for verification. Users can set up an automatic point by point verification step, or route receipts to the concerned entity for approval.
Every expense is tested for compliance and approved. After approval, the process of reimbursement is initiated. And voila! In case a receipt is not approved, it is flagged and sent to a designated party for a secondary check.

Also Read: 3 Steps for Tracking Your Business Monthly Expenses

Error free and risk free expense management
Global Business Travel Association reports that 19% of expense reports are filled with errors. This can be a real setback, considering that companies file multiple expense reports and spend valuable time to correct them. This back and forth game of error-filled reports and the arduous correction involved is not unknown to managers. The good news is that, even free expense tracking software can generate error free expense reports. So, why waste precious time?

Save yourself from fraud
Businesses are vulnerable to fraud when it comes to managing business expenses and the conventional way of filing expenses. In fact, employees often take advantage of the manual process, and they even admit to it, according to this survey.

Did you know that businesses lost over 500 million dollars to fraud in the first half of 2020, according to UK Finance? Even small businesses fall prey to frauds, and the loss is more than just money.
However, even if you use any free expense tracking software for small businesses, you can prevent fraud, owing to sophisticated algorithms and compliance management. Nothing irregular will go undetected and managers can reprogram the software to further customize the flagging of fraudulent receipts.

Transparent expense management
Business expense tracking software solutions are thoroughly transparent and employees get intimated at every step. Even if their expense receipt is flagged, they can challenge the disapproval.

Also Read: How to Find the Right Expense Tracking Software for Your Business

Ensure policy compliance
One important reason why businesses should switch to software is to ensure policy compliance and to implement regulations strictly. Going through each and every receipt and checking it for compliance can be a long and arduous process.

The policies in place are also subject to change, and so, managers are left juggling with laws at hand and bundles of receipts, trying to make it all work. Fortunately, business expense tracking software can do it all, through automation. Every receipt is checked for policy compliance and only then sent for approval.

The only sensible thing to do to manage business expenses is by embracing the right software. So, hope you found the above reasons compelling enough to sign up for the right kind of business expense tracking software today.