Guide to Automating Your Billing System

If you have a business where your customers are billed the same amount at regular intervals, a fully automated recurring bill-pay system is the way to go. For companies offering a wider variety of products or services at different price points, a more hands-on system that helps you track and send bills is the best bet. Popular billing options include:

1. Email billing
2. Automatic withdrawal from customer bank accounts
3. Automatic credit card charges
4. Bills mailed through a contract with a third-party service.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Sending e-mail bills that offer an option to pay instantly can be efficient and cost-effective, but it also has two problems: Your customers may not be ready to receive and process invoices via e-mail, and your invoices may get filtered by anti-spam solutions and not get properly noticed by your customers. Choose your automatic billing solution based on your customer needs.
• Some billing services let you use their online billing and e-mail billing services for free but charge a fee for paper bill processing. Since many businesses need a blend of electronic and paper billing, make sure you understand the costs of each fully before you spend too much time learning to use a particular system.
• If a third-party solution provider has access to your customer accounts, make sure adequate security features are in place to protect your customers before you begin using their automated billing services.
• While e-mail billing can be the most appealing option on the surface, some customers may have concerns about receiving e-mail bills due to fraudulent phishing scams.

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