Written by Any business owner can vouch that running a business is made up of multiple moving parts. Between creating, marketing, and selling a viable product or service, some parts are prioritized over others. And according to a survey conducted by PYMNTS.com in 2015, improving payment systems through new or existing payment technology is low on that priority list. In fact, they actively avoid it.
In the same survey, 44% of small to medium businesses stated their wariness of new technologies for managing payments, and only 4 percent of small to medium businesses had completely automated their invoicing process. However, business owners don’t realize the exorbitant amount of time and money drained from using old-fashioned methods.
However, just because something has worked in the past doesn’t mean it’s the best option. Here are three reasons why payment integration, which allows you to process payments directly within accounting software, will save you time, money, and a whole lot of headache both instantly and in the long run.
What is Payment Integration?
1. E-Invoicing
The days of mailing invoices out and receiving paper checks are over. With electronic invoicing, you can send customers invoices to be paid online anytime, anywhere. This saves time for both parties, allowing an average company to get paid 7 to 21 days faster.
2. Elimination of Manual Labor
Without payment integration, it can take 4 to 5 minutes to manually reconcile and process invoice statements. By itself, this number may not look large at all. But imagine having to process 100 to 500 invoices per month, which is roughly the amount an average company will process. That’s 8 to 40 hours of work, and only if it’s done accurately the first time around. Furthermore, the larger your company grows, the larger that number will be. You need a streamlined, scalable process, and manual reconciliation just won’t cut it.
With payment integration, manual data entry is reduced and double entry errors are eliminated since you never have to leave your accounting program to process a payment, saving you a large chunk of time and money to be better spent elsewhere. But how much money can you really save? Here’s what a small company’s savings might look like:
Take a moment to calculate your company’s true cost. How much would you save by implementing payment integration?
3. Payment Security
In the Sage Payment Solutions 2017 Payment Landscape Report, the payment methods expected to be the most popular in 2020 are credit cards, debit cards and mobile payments. From the same report, 78% of consumers said they had concerns about fraud from online payments, and 65% of businesses are concerned about cyber security. With so many options for payment methods, security and fraud prevention is more important than ever.
Most businesses that do not use payment integration do not or can not securely store credit card numbers anywhere, and are at risk of payment breaches and not upholding the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). Even if credit card numbers are saved in a password-protected QuickBooks file, this is not enough, as passwords can be easily hacked. This kind of sensitive information must be stored in a secure and responsible way.
Luckily, with payment integration modules, credit card information doesn’t need to be unsafely stored in Quickbooks nor your, or anyone’s computer. Instead, they can be encrypted then stored in an online PCI secure vault, an impenetrable location that will keep your customer data safe and protect you from security breaches and fines that range from $5,000 to $500,000. (Read more about the importance of payment security and PCI compliance here.)
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If your payment systems could use an upgrade, consider payment integration with Skyline Payment Systems. With faster invoicing cycles, time freed up from manual labor, and a secure online vault that puts security responsibility on us, not you, your business will have the means to grow and thrive upon an efficient, strong, and trustworthy foundation—the right way.