Despite the recent trend to buck the tradition of setting new year’s resolutions, let’s be honest: most of us still see the start of a new year as an opportunity for new beginnings, improvements, and positive change. And why shouldn’t we?
In business, the new year can present the right time to reevaluate everything from daily operations, to how you communicate with your customers, to income and expense management. In this article we take a look at one thing that we can comfortably say concerns most small business owners, freelancers, and sole traders: getting paid.
A stricter approach to payment
If you’ve recently started a business, getting paid by your customers on-time can be of crucial importance for the continued success of your business. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. A recent study revealed that in the UK, small businesses are owed over £14 billion in late/missing payments!
Late payments from customers aren’t just a nuisance, they can be crippling to a business. While some customers actively avoid payment, others do simply forget.
In the new year, one way to get paid faster is to be more concrete about payment terms. This means that if your customer hasn’t paid by the payment date specified on the invoice, you follow up regularly with reminders.
Reminders should become progressively more assertive before the pursuit of payment is taken further. Read more about the steps you can take to recover late and missing payments.
Putting your foot down on late payments seems like a simple business resolution for the new year but is one that can have a big impact on your business.
Make it easier for customers to pay
When getting paid is the goal, another easy way to ensure that your payments come in on-time and quickly is to make it as fast and convenient as possible for your customers to pay for your products or service.
With online invoicing software like Debitoor, this can be done by connecting an online payment option to your account. Choose from popular solutions like PayPal and SumUp, and your invoices will automatically send with a link so that your customers can pay you instantly online.
By removing the often tedious process of exchanging banking details and waiting for the bank transfer to then appear on your bank statement, you could be receiving your payments, imported and matched directly in your Debitoor account. How about that for meeting resolutions?
Accept card payments: online and face-to-face
This year, it is easier than ever to get paid, thanks to the new integration with SumUp. A leader in the card reader market, SumUp’s highly portable and affordable device connects seamlessly with a mobile app to let you accept credit, debit, and contactless payments both in person and online.
And you can now connect it directly to your Debitoor account, managing your invoicing and payments automatically.
So if you’ve been looking at 2018 as the year to launch a brick-and-mortar or start up a stand at the local market but weren’t sure how to manage the payments, this solution gives you the tools to stick to that resolution easily.
Manage payments
While it’s not getting paid, it is part of running a successful business. And if you’re like many small business owners, reconciling payments is likely not your favourite part of running your business.
One of your resolutions might be to stop putting off managing your payments. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to ensure you achieve this resolution (that doesn’t take up hours of your time every week): automatic bank reconciliation.
In Debitoor, your payments are matched automatically when you upload a bank statement, saving you countless tedious hours of matching payment to invoice or expense. A resolution that’s easy to accomplish and time-saving in the process :D.
Your business in 2018
No matter your new year’s resolutions, Debitoor is here to provide you with the tools to help your business thrive. Whether that means easy ways to follow up on late payments, accept payments from customers, manage your payments, or easy and professional invoicing, we’re here to help. If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch! All the best for 2018.
