Creating invoices for customers is an important process in your accounting routine. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com Bernard Roesch shares ways that you can manage your billing process more efficiently with unique QuickBooks features.
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There are a number of ways in which you can use QuickBooks to better manage your billing process. We discuss some of these QuickBooks features in the subsequent paragraphs.
The Typical Billing Process
Most businesses are not aware of the various QuickBooks features that can make billing easier. Their typical billing process goes something like this;
- Visit the customer record within QuickBooks.
- Create a new invoice.
- Select the items and rates for the invoice.
- Send the invoice either via email or by printing and mailing it.
- Get payment from the customer.
While this billing process accomplishes the goal of billing your customers, it can be very time-consuming and repetitive if you have a large number of customers.
Create Invoices Faster in QuickBooks
There are a number of features in QuickBooks that enable you to create invoices more efficiently. If you have individual clients that you’re creating invoices for, you can do one of the following.
Copy the most recent invoice – You can copy the most recent invoice, which creates a new invoice with the same item, notes, and rate information as the previous invoice. You can then edit that information, and send the invoice directly to the client.
Create memorized transactions – You can also create memorized transactions, which enables you to memorize the structure of an invoice, and use that for multiple clients in the future.
- If you create the same invoice for multiple clients, such as for a subscription-based business, you can use batch invoicing to create all of the invoices at once.
- With batch invoicing, you determine the structure of the invoice, select a group of customers, and then create all the invoices for each of those customers at once.
With these features of QuickBooks, you can make the process of creating your clients’ invoices much more efficient.
Send QuickBooks Invoices Automatically
Once the invoices are created using some of the features above, you can also send all of them at once.
- By using the Batch Send feature in QuickBooks, you can send multiple invoices at once to different clients, rather than sending all of them one by one.
Make Payments Easy in QuickBooks
Once the invoices have been sent to the customer, you need to be able to receive payments. While a mailed check accomplishes the goal of receiving the payment, there are faster and easier ways to receive payment.
Intuit Payment Network – You can use the Intuit Payment Network to;
- Include a link on your emailed invoices that enables your clients to pay right away online.
- Payments only cost 50 cents to you, and cost nothing to the client.
- In addition, the client’s payment information is kept secure, so that you’re not able to access it.
Using the Intuit Payment Network, you can enable your clients to pay you fast, securely, and in a way that makes collections easy for you.
Recurring credit card payments – In addition to collecting payments through the Intuit Payment Network above, you may want to automatically bill your clients’ credit cards each month.
- Intuit’s Merchant Service enables you to process credit card payments within QuickBooks.
- You can configure the Merchant Service to automatically bill customers’ credit cards each month for recurring payments.
With this feature;
- You can create a memorized invoice to get it entered into QuickBooks before the credit card charge,
- Have a scheduled recurring credit card charge take place shortly after, and then
- Download the transactions into QuickBooks periodically to match them up.
This enables you to streamline the billing process from invoice to payment for clients that pay you each month.
Let’s Make Your QuickBooks Billing Process Easier
If you’re interested in using QuickBooks more effectively in your business contact Bernard today and learn more about how to make your QuickBooks billing process easier.
We would also encourage you to visit MissionBusinessPodcast.com to get access to a wealth of information that Bernard has been sharing with us in the past.
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