As a small business owner or freelance professional, don’t you want to streamline your administrative processes, offer customers or clients improved services, get paid more quickly, and make every dollar count? All of that’s possible with mobile phone invoices.

What Is Mobile Invoicing?

Mobile Invoicing uses your smartphone to send bills to your clients or customers electronically so they can pay you. There are many benefits from this technology for you and other small business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. If you provide services on the go or travel to clients’ offices, mobile invoicing software applications are a light-speed way to deliver your invoices to the people who need to receive them. Mobile phone invoices can save you time and money, valuable commodities for you. And you can choose from mobile invoicing apps available that tie in directly to online accounting software, such as QuickBooks Online.

Streamline Your Administrative Process

If you’re looking for a solution to reduce paperwork on the administrative side of your business, mobile invoicing can help. Say you’re a tech consultant with your own business. Your work requires that you travel to clients’ offices, but their offices aren’t near your office. You want to follow up with timely invoices, but you can only issue invoices from your office computer. What should you do?

You could go back to your office between field appointments or return to your office after a long day on the road. That was then.

Now mobile invoicing is an option that lets you send an invoice immediately after a service call. Sending invoices using your mobile phone saves you a huge chunk of time, especially if you’re on an extended work trip that keeps you away from your office for several days.

Improved Services for Customers and Clients

You offer your customers high-quality service quickly and respond to their concerns immediately, which keeps them happy. That’s why they do business with you. They’ll be more likely to pay invoices when they receive them right after you repair their computer, replace their leaking water heater, install their new flooring, or groom their cat.

And once you send your invoice, connecting to QuickBooks Online lets you see exactly when your customer views the invoice. If you want to get real-time alerts when your customers view and pay your invoices, they’re at your fingertips. Your clients can call or text you instantly, and you can answer their questions or resolve any issues while they’re fresh in their minds and yours. Sending your customers mobile invoices makes it more convenient for them to pay you. They don’t have to wait or hunt for your paper invoice and remember to take their cheque books with them to pay for it. Everything they need is in their hands, on their phone. When you have happy customers or clients, they can mean repeat business and be a powerful source of potential referrals.

Get Paid Faster With Mobile Invoicing Software

Cash flow is the essence that keeps your business going. That’s why you should bill your clients or customers immediately after providing your service or product to them. Waiting until the end of the month to send your invoices puts your money on hold in your client’s pocket instead of in yours. Until then, your customer has your service or product and your money. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?

Business experts from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada recommend invoicing customers immediately. Mobile phone invoicing can help improve your cash flow position by sending your customers or clients what they need to pay you more quickly. Instant mobile invoicing could mean your small business gets paid for your work up to two times faster than if you use regular paper invoicing. And getting money two times faster can boost your cash flow, making a big difference in managing finances for your small business.

Client Incentives for Paying Invoices

You may want to give your clients a little encouragement for paying your mobile invoices soon after they receive them. If they’re used to getting your invoice 30 days after they receive their service, getting it 15 minutes after you leave their door might take an adjustment.

Along with sending invoices immediately, Canadian business experts suggest offering an early payment incentive. It’s one way of easing your customers into your new approach to business finances. For example, they suggest you might offer 2% off the pre-tax invoice to your customers who pay within 10 days. Do you want to balance off the discount so you don’t lose money? Increasing your prices by 2% before implementing the mobile invoice promotion program helps you avoid a drop in your sales revenue.

Save Money With Mobile Invoices

Using mobile invoicing saves you money while helping you operate more efficiently and increase your cash flow. There’s no more waiting until you return from a week-long business trip, printing and mailing an invoice, and waiting for a cheque. By invoicing through a mobile app, you save the cost of printing and mailing a traditional paper bill. And QuickBooks mobile invoicing makes it easy to send reminders fast, letting your customers know their payments are due.

Get Serious About Your Invoicing System With Mobile

You strive to give your clients or customers the best service possible. Don’t you want your full compensation for it, on time? Making it clear to your customers that you’re serious about your billing is a good thing that they can appreciate. And while updating your invoicing system, it’s a good time to develop a financial emergency plan if you don’t have one. You should have a way to gain access to cash in an emergency in the event that ATMs aren’t working.

Late-paying customers are a fact of life, but with some simple steps, you can have fewer in your life. Everybody runs into times when finances get tight, and you should demonstrate compassion when it happens to your clients. But you want to be ready to deal with chronic late payers if such challenges arise. Consider how you might create a policy for late payment and inform your customers about it so they’re not surprised.

Small business experts from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada suggest steps you may want to take, including:

• Ensuring each of your invoices states clearly the amount due and the repayment terms
• Collecting customers’ contact information from them when you deliver your service or make a sale and developing a plan for keeping it secure
• Informing clients how and when you plan to contact them if their payment is late (likely by phone, email, or regular mail)
• Choosing a number of times and frequency of attempts to contact customer with late payments. For example, you might decide to make contact with a customer when their payment is exactly 30 days late, and after that, every 14 days until you receive their payment. You should keep detailed notes of each interaction.

When it’s appropriate to a situation, you might start requesting that your customers pay half of their payment up front and the remaining half when you deliver the product or service.

Saving Time and Other Benefits of Electronic Invoicing

It’s easy to integrate your mobile invoicing app with your online accounting software. You can transmit information from the app to your accounting software and from your accounting software to the mobile app. Automatic record-keeping simplifies gathering what you need at tax time.

Smart Invoicing allows your customers to pay by credit card right in the invoice, and QuickBooks matches payments with your invoices for you. Then it updates your books and deposits the money in your bank account. So now you can skip making those trips to the bank, standing in line to deposit cheques, and losing precious time. You’re free to spend that time doing what you do best.

Enjoy Custom Invoices and Secure Payments

QuickBooks lets you incorporate your business logo and choose accent colours to create exciting custom invoices from a variety of templates. With your seamlessly integrated system of mobile invoicing software and accounting software, you can send and track invoices, verify payments, and transmit electronic payments to your own suppliers. You and your customers can enjoy peace of mind, because all payments are encrypted. Everyone’s transactions remain secure.

Mobile invoicing can enhance the operating efficiency of your enterprise, help keep your customers happy, and make your business life easier. QuickBooks Online helps you create and send smart invoices that help you get paid 2x faster. Try it free today