Most small business owners have heard the term “subscription billing”, but few make use of it or know what advantages it can hold for their business. Let’s start off with getting a precise idea of what subscription is and then move on to investigating how implementing it in your business can increase your cash-flow and save you money.
Ask yourself, what is recurring billing? Subscription billing is used by businesses to charge customers a specified amount more than once. The amount can differ, but is usually the same on every recurrence and the term on which the charge is submitted can recur on any frequency e.g. weekly, monthly, annually etc. Charges can be submitted to your credit card, bank account or account with a payment gateway.
We know what it is now, but what can subscription billing do for you and your business?
Keeping your cash-flow healthy
Subscription billing is not just for big corporate or enterprise type businesses. You as a small business owner or freelancer can also implement subscription billing procedures in your business at an extremely low cost. Recurring billing for the SMME really does pay off.
Subscription billing for your SMME means a healthy, improved cash-flow. Billing on a recurring term is also much less hassle compared to manual collection. Manual collection usually means leaving your client in control of payment e.g. Wire transfers or bank deposits. This can often lead to late payment and haphazard small payments that incur transaction fees for both you and the customer.
This means you are uncertain of your cash-flow. This in turn leads to you not being able to plan in advance. Not being able to project what your income will look like over the next few months will hinder you from being able to schedule your own debits and plan the growth of your business.
Get paid now, ask us how
Subscription billing allows you to control when you get paid. It’s easy, when client’s sign up you specify the debit amount and recurrence. Then sit back and relax and you watch funds being automatically debited on the dates specified. This means no more late payment or waiting for urgently needed money to clear. You now know exactly when you are going to get paid.
Decrease administration
It does what it says on the box; recurring billing allows you to save money and your customer to save time. Clients no longer need to trek to banks to make deposits or need to remember to login to Internet banking in order to make a manual wire transfer. That is all automated with recurring billing. You as business owner also save time on reconciliation of accounts and save money as you do not need to employ so many staff in your accounts department.
Wow, that sounds great! But how do I get started? Joining a payment gateway and payment facilitating system is step one. Find a gateway with competitive fees and a facilitator that allows automatic account reconciliation.
Susan Bapsnill is an expert at business billing. She recommends a subscription billing system to automate your billing procedures. Click here to try subscription billing for free.