Manual vs. Automatic Billing and Invoices

Creating invoices and handling other billing issues is an essential part of getting paid. That goes without saying. But what may be less obvious is how you can benefit from introducing automation into the billing process. Let’s give voice to this important issue.

Manual:

If you have an inventory management solution that is disconnected from your accounting solution and you receive purchase orders, you will have to manually enter the same billing information into both solutions. Only when you have finished doing that will the accounting solution generate the appropriate invoices and the inventory solution will also have the necessary information in it.

Problems:

Double data entry can lead to many complications. The wrong numbers could be added to one solution or both, meaning that they won’t match up with each other. This could lead to billing discrepancies and other serious problems. Plus, manually entering the same numbers twice is a waste of time that could be spent on more-pressing tasks.

Automatic:

When you integrate your inventory and accounting solutions together, it’s much easier to handle purchase orders. Incoming purchase orders trigger the accounting solution to create invoices that apply to the right customers. Completed purchase orders get sent directly to QuickBooks or Xero and are recorded in the general ledger without having to manually enter those figures.

Solutions:

Eliminating double data entry is one of the key benefits of a business automation platform. No more time spent on duplicating the same work, no more errors from accidentally typing in the wrong numbers in either solution, and no more effort to ensure disparate solutions have all of the information they need. Just scan the information into a single solution and it gets automatically pushed out to all of the others.