Use the Power of Automation to Reduce Accounts Receivable
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Let your accounting software bug your customers for payment with automated email and SMS payment reminders.
Accounts Receivable…
AR… More like ARGH! High Accounts Receivable numbers can Cripple Your BusinessAll that potential revenue tied up in unpaid invoices limits your cash flow. And to make it worse, you’ve already invested time, money, or both in producing and delivering the goods or services invoiced for.
Maintaining a healthy cash flow is vital to the success of any business – and outstanding invoices and late payments can be life-threatening to your company. |
Ref: Nagging Panda (unpaid work sample)
The Solution – Regular Reminders
Customers are much more likely to pay on time and catch up on overdue payments if they are regularly reminded about their outstanding debt to you.
The more you bug them, the faster they will pay. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” It’s a cliché, but like most of them, it’s true.
But sending reminders takes time and it’s unpleasant. All those manual follow-ups tie up valuable manpower, and what happens if the person tasked with doing it is too busy, off sick, on leave, or just plain forgets?
Also, who wants to be the bad guy (or girl) that does the bugging? It’s not fun, and sometimes customers get irritated and are rude to you.
The more you bug them, the faster they will pay. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” It’s a cliché, but like most of them, it’s true.
But sending reminders takes time and it’s unpleasant. All those manual follow-ups tie up valuable manpower, and what happens if the person tasked with doing it is too busy, off sick, on leave, or just plain forgets?
Also, who wants to be the bad guy (or girl) that does the bugging? It’s not fun, and sometimes customers get irritated and are rude to you.
Let the System Do the Work
Most up-to-date accounting software packages, especially the cloud-based ones, allow you to harness the power of automation by sending payment reminders at specified intervals.
If the package you are using doesn’t have this functionality built-in, investigate third-party solutions that do this. Often these can be directly connected to your accounting software, allowing you to automatically send payment reminders to your customers by email or SMS.
If a customer gets annoyed at receiving a payment reminder email or SMS, just blame it on “The System.”
After all, what’s the point of getting angry with a system? It doesn’t care.
If the package you are using doesn’t have this functionality built-in, investigate third-party solutions that do this. Often these can be directly connected to your accounting software, allowing you to automatically send payment reminders to your customers by email or SMS.
If a customer gets annoyed at receiving a payment reminder email or SMS, just blame it on “The System.”
After all, what’s the point of getting angry with a system? It doesn’t care.
Benefits of using Automated Payment Reminders as a Debtors Management Tool
- Better Cash Flow. Regular automated payment reminders encourage faster payment and improved collection rates.
- A More Efficient Organisation. Eliminating or substantially reducing the need for manual follow-ups frees up time, manpower, and other resources that can be better utilised elsewhere, and streamlines your overall accounts receivable management process.
- Better Customer Relationships. Your customers will begin to anticipate and even look forward to those gentle but persistent reminders. Customers are busy people too. Most don’t intend to pay you late, it just happens. The good ones will appreciate you helping them remember to make payments, increasing trust and loyalty in the long run.
Pssst...Hi, it's me, Darrell, website copywriter...yeah, that guy...
By now you've probably figured out that this site has nothing to do with reducing accounts receivable, debtors management, automation, automated email/SMS payment reminders, etc. - and that the CTA (call to action) buttons do nothing when you click on them, nada, zip, squat, niks nie (for my fellow South Africans).
So why is this page on a website about website content and copywriting?
By now you've probably figured out that this site has nothing to do with reducing accounts receivable, debtors management, automation, automated email/SMS payment reminders, etc. - and that the CTA (call to action) buttons do nothing when you click on them, nada, zip, squat, niks nie (for my fellow South Africans).
So why is this page on a website about website content and copywriting?
Good Question...
It's just an experiment I'm amusing myself with.
I wrote the landing page copy above as a sample (unpaid) for a potential client that proceeded to ghost me 😃
It's just an experiment I'm amusing myself with.
I wrote the landing page copy above as a sample (unpaid) for a potential client that proceeded to ghost me 😃
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I half-expected that, there were a number of red flags present.
But I was bored and I liked the business model and tone of the conversation I had with two honchos at the company so I decided to go ahead, knowing that if I didn't hear back from them I could turn it into a sample and run an SEO experiment using it - as I have now done. |
Of course, I removed the company/product name from the copy, and changed the wording a bit to make it more generic and not out the company involved. Name and shame is not my game. Waste of time and emotional energy. I have enough other clients that I just move on to a better project.
So what was the experiment...
Simple, to see how the copy would perform on a website unrelated to the topic, and whether it would rank for any of the keywords I included in the copy.
This page does not appear in the navigation bar of my site so if you are reading this it must be because you found the page in Google search (or using another search engine), meaning it's indexed and ranking - experiment successful.
Cheers and thanks for playing along.
PS. In case you are interested, the keywords I used when optimizing the copy for search engines are:
Main: reduce accounts receivable
Secondary: accounts receivable, payment reminders, automated payment reminders, accounts receivable automation, cash flow, reminder email, payment reminders, payment reminder email, outstanding invoices, unpaid invoices, debtors management
Nagging Panda
Simple, to see how the copy would perform on a website unrelated to the topic, and whether it would rank for any of the keywords I included in the copy.
This page does not appear in the navigation bar of my site so if you are reading this it must be because you found the page in Google search (or using another search engine), meaning it's indexed and ranking - experiment successful.
Cheers and thanks for playing along.
PS. In case you are interested, the keywords I used when optimizing the copy for search engines are:
Main: reduce accounts receivable
Secondary: accounts receivable, payment reminders, automated payment reminders, accounts receivable automation, cash flow, reminder email, payment reminders, payment reminder email, outstanding invoices, unpaid invoices, debtors management
Nagging Panda