Has your VAR or MSP business been growing? Have you had to create more and more invoices for a variety of different clients that have different billing structures?
Those are good problems to have, but your staff members may need an increasing number of hours just for generating invoices. Also, the growing complexity of keeping track of different types of projects, clients, and billing structures can lead to invoicing mistakes. Sometimes, those mistakes can cause confusion, canceled projects, and lost revenue.
If any of this sounds familiar, you may need good invoicing software, which can automate many tasks surrounding invoicing. Besides billing customers in a more accurate and profitable way, the software can free your staff members to perform creative service work for customers.
Signs That You Need Invoicing Software
You and your staff provide great IT products and services to clients. So, you may be frustrated by having to worry about invoices, collections, time tracking, different payment schedules for different clients, and so on.
When are your billing frustrations enough? When should you get billing software to automate invoicing? Look for the following signs:
- Frustration Among Staff Members: Are your employees getting frustrated with the repetitive task of invoicing? Are they starting to get overwhelmed by an increasingly higher volume of invoices?
- Complexity of Billing: Are there now too many different kinds of contracts? Too many details on invoices? Are your employees having trouble keeping track of all the variations? They may feel demoralized by a sense that the task is too disorganized or overwhelmingly detailed and complicated.
- Possible Lost Profits: Is it probable that not all hours of work are being recorded accurately on invoices? You might be routinely losing revenue on projects. Even in a subscription model, poor invoicing practice can cost you.
- Decreasing Repeat Business: Are some customers not coming back for unknown reasons? Some customers jump ship because they think a service provider is disorganized, which late or inaccurate invoices can indicate.
- Late Projects: Does your firm always complete milestones in large projects on time? Are there delays in milestone payments slowing down the whole project? Could delays be caused by slow or incorrect invoicing?
- Reduction in Billable Hours: Is working on invoices reducing employees’ billable hours? Are skilled, creative workers tied up in billing instead of serving clients directly?
- You’ve Recommended Automation Software to Clients: Do you recommend automation software to your clients? Do you implement the best automation solution in your own operations?
How Billing Software Can Improve Your Day-to-Day Operations
Allowing billing software to automatically generate invoices can improve your business in many ways. Below are just three examples.
Unleashing Creative Skills
Employees can’t use all their creativity on repetitive invoicing. Automated billing software can get them back to serving customers, racking up billable hours. If that’s what they’re good at, they’ll feel better using their problem-solving skills again.
Improving Your Professional Image
If clients have thought you disorganized in the past, top-notch invoicing can persuade them or future customers to think differently. If your invoices are always on time, nice to look at, and free from errors, customers are more likely to think of you as detail-oriented and professional.
Protecting Revenue
It’s easy for busy employees to forget to track some billable hours and materials used—or even to forget to record whole services. Invoicing software can help you increase your revenue by billing more accurately.
Researching Invoicing Software Further
Are your staff members increasingly frustrated with invoicing? Do they put it off? Does it take too much time away from their IT expertise? Could problems with invoicing be causing you to lose revenue or clients or miss deadlines?
If you answered “yes,” to any of those questions, it may be time to do some research into billing software. It could help you spend less time on invoicing and maybe even increase your profits.
