As a small business owner, you strive for maximum efficiency, whether it’s related to sales, accounting, or marketing. Your time is, however, finite, and it’s not always clear where you should focus your efforts.
That’s why we’ve developed a new series of blog posts about the different ways you can manage your finances to save time, money, and effort. That way, you can focus on growing your business.
The first topic we’re going to address in this series is payments. If your clients don’t pay you or you don’t pay your vendors, your business will come to a standstill. In today’s business landscape, streamlining and enhancing security on your payments can be a business advantage that will help your business grow faster.
The Need for Small Business Owners to Streamline Payments
Suppose you’re like a lot of small business owners; payments and other accounting tasks fall on your desk at the end of the month. These tasks are sometimes deemed “a necessary evil” because of how costly and time-consuming they are.
In fact, nearly 40% of small business owners spend more than 80 hours a year on payments and other accounting tasks. The cost of those hours and other services that still need to be outsourced lies between $5,000 and $20,000 for 46% of small business owners.
Dealing with payments is one of the tasks you can and should streamline. In fact, an inefficient payment system can actually have a negative effect on your business. It can prevent you from paying yourself, your employees, and your vendors on time, which can have disastrous results. Business development plans, marketing budgets, and hiring can suffer as well.
On the other hand, streamlining your payments can help you get on the good side of your customers and get a much better overview of your cash flow. Fortunately, streamlining your business payments doesn’t have to be difficult.
How to Streamline Payments
Efficient payments start with an efficient payment system. There are three areas where you can streamline your payments: customer invoices, vendor payments, and the way both are reconciled in your accounting. Ultimately, a good system should cover all three areas.
Spend Less Time Getting Paid
Following up on unpaid invoices is, perhaps, one of the most time-consuming tasks related to payments. It’s time that you or an employee spends on status emails and phone calls, which can be better spent on other tasks.
Save time by setting up automatic reminders that let clients know when an invoice is overdue. You’ll want to do the same for recurring invoices.
To take it a step further, you can make it easier for your clients to pay you. That means providing several payment options, such as ACH, credit cards, or checks, along with easy access to invoice information. Clients should be able to access invoices without searching frantically through their inboxes or getting on the phone with you.
All of this can be achieved with an all-in-one platform that provides your clients with a secure payment inbox. With a system like FINSYNC, clients are provided with a portal where their payment information is stored together with all the invoices they have issued. This means that you don’t have to store payment details for your clients and can rely on FINSYNC to do it for you.
Pay Vendors with Any Payment Method
Paying vendors can be tricky, mainly because some may prefer getting paid by credit card, while others might only accept checks or ACH. A big part of streamlining your payments is finding a system that lets your vendors accept payments from you in a way that’s convenient for them.
FINSYNC Pay is one such system that provides both convenience and security. Your vendors don’t even need to sign up for an account to get paid, and they can receive payments directly into their bank account. With a system like FINSYNC, you can even use your credit card to pay for goods and services that typically are cash-only.
Sync Payments and Accounts Automatically
Once you’ve made sure that your customers can pay you with ease and your vendors are getting paid on time, it’s time to make sure all those payments are recorded the right way. A lot of that work will fall under the responsibilities of your bookkeeper. You, as a business owner, can make that job easier for them.
An all-in-one solution such as FINSYNC will help you along the way. Because the system incorporates payments, bookkeeping, accounting, and more, the payments that you make and receive will be automatically matched with corresponding invoices, and accounting entries for sales accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash, and more occur automatically as you work.
Streamline Your Payments With FINSYNC
If you’re looking to simplify your business payments, FINSYNC might be a solution for you. This all-in-one platform combines accounting, payments management, bookkeeping, and cash flow management. You can also optionally upgrade with projects and payroll. FINSYNC allows you to automate your back office. That way, you can focus on the most important tasks as a small business owner.