How an Invoice Payment Portal Can Help Collections
What Is an Invoice Payment Portal?
An invoice payment portal is an all-in-one platform for customers to view and pay invoices, manage account and payment types, and access archived invoices of past transactions. Whether you’re operating a B2B or B2C business, this is an important feature to have. An invoice payment portal not only makes it easier for your customers to complete payments—it also helps you keep track of different invoices.
Top 5 Benefits of an Invoice Payment Portal
There are many different reasons to consider an invoice payment portal. We’ll go over the top five benefits we’ve seen when our customers implement a JD Edwards integrated epayments solution.
Automated Invoice Reconciliation
One of the biggest advantages of an invoice payment portal is that it’ll reconcile invoice payments for you. Payment portals automatically keep track of how much a purchase was, how much has been paid, and match payments to the correct invoice in JD Edwards.
Rather than manually reconciling payments to the correct invoice, your clients will be able to select which invoices they want to pay themselves, and the system will take care of the rest. This eliminates the risk of human error and saves you time and money spent by trying to do it internally. By negating the room for error, you build trust and confidence with your customers and protect yourself from costly mistakes.
Faster, On-Time Payments
Online payments through credit cards and direct bank transfers (ACH/EFT) are becoming more and more common for all businesses. There’s a factor of convenience for customers when they can complete payments online—it’s fast, easy, and familiar. With an online invoice portal, you bring this same convenience and familiarity to your customers. Knowing that they’ll be able to pay their invoices quickly and easily increases the likelihood of faster payments that are on time.
An online invoice payment portal can also help reduce the number of late payments by sending out automated due date reminders. Sometimes, an invoice may just slip your customer’s mind—thinking they have plenty of time to pay it before the due date, they put it on the back burner and forget about it. Getting an automated reminder for their invoice due date helps put it back in the forefront of their mind. Keeping these customers from slipping through the cracks helps result in on-time invoice payments.
Real-Time Paper Trail
Paper trails are vital for the organizational health of your company, but they can be challenging to manage on your own. It takes a lot of time and money to manually keep track of paper trails and can be prone to human error. A JD Edwards invoice payment portal helps bridge this gap.
Payment portals automatically collect payment amounts, payments already made, and transaction information—leaving a real-time paper trail. This will give you and your customers a bird’s eye view of what invoices are outstanding, which are due, and which are overdue. This not only helps your customers keep track of their own invoices and where their money is going, but it also provides you with accurate information to protect your company should any issues arise.
Lower Business Costs
Traditionally, invoices are sent through the mail. The cost of paper and postage quickly adds up and becomes a time-consuming task—not to mention the extra cost should there be a mistake on the physical invoice. Instead of spending extra money to send paper invoices, an online invoice payment portal eliminates paper and postage costs. While you’ll have some costs to set up and run a payment portal, you’ll be saving money in the long run in comparison to paper invoices. On average, paper invoices cost around $30 each while digital invoices cost $3.50 each—nearly 10x the savings!
Furthermore, decreasing the amount of paper your company is using reduces your carbon footprint. If environmental protection is important to you or your company, this is an easy step to take to help the environment.
Business Anywhere, Anytime
Because payment portals are online, you are no longer restricted by time zones or location. Customers can pay their invoices at any time from anywhere, helping them feel valued by your company.
Online payments also open the door to international business opportunities. If you’re looking to expand your business into the global market, an invoice payment portal is a must. You’ll no longer be restricted by your business hours to accept payments. Even when your company is closed, you can generate money through online payments.