Congratulations! You’ve taken the leap and you’re following your dreams. You’re your own boss—a freelancer, an entrepreneur. Times were tough at first, but then you got some clients. And you’re working hard to make sure your clients are happy. Things are looking pretty good.
But then one day an invoice slips into “overdue” status… then another, and another. Suddenly the sky is not so blue, and you find yourself awake at night wondering what you’ll do if these clients don’t pay up—and fast.
The bottom line is that all businesses need a regular inflow of money to stay alive. Sadly, the facts show that the majority of businesses fail in the first few years because of cash-flow issues. If you can better predict your cash-flow, and decrease the amount of time it takes to get paid, you’ll have more freedom to stop worrying and more time and energy for dreaming and planning.
FreshBooks can help. You may know FreshBooks for its super-easy invoicing. But did you also know there are additional built-in features to help you get paid faster, too?
Check out these three features from FreshBooks below and see if you can incorporate one, two—or all three into your workflow.
In today’s online world, accepting online payments from your clients like credit cards, Stripe and Paypal just makes good business sense. On average, FreshBooks users who accept online payments get paid five days faster. That’s a full business week faster that you’ll get the funds you need to pay bills and employees, or expand your business. With FreshBooks, invoices paid online by your clients are also automatically marked as paid so that you won’t need to worry about mistakes with your books. And the best part? You’ll have more time to focus on your business instead of following up with your clients for their payment.
Recurring Invoicing is a FreshBooks feature that enables you to issue regular invoices—effectively putting your billing on “cruise control.” This is a great feature if your fees are set each month or if you run a subscription-based business.
When you combine Recurring Invoicing with Auto-Billing, things really start rolling. With Auto-Billing, you’re able to automatically charge the invoice to your client’s credit card. This makes things seamless for your client and you can better predict your income since you know exactly when their card will be charged. This lets you see into the financial future so you can plan for long-term success and avoid cash-flow crunches.
No one enjoys reminding clients to pay their invoices. It can be awkward, time-consuming and could negatively affect your relationship. With FreshBooks Late Payment Reminder emails you can automate this process by easily creating up to three personalized reminders that give your clients the gentle nudge they need, while maintaining the relationship you worked hard to build.
These emails can even link to the invoice in question, removing the need for them to hunt down the original email. With a late payment reminder, your client can easily pay their overdue invoice, and you don’t have to break your workflow to remind them. Simple and professional!
These are just a few of the ways you can use FreshBooks to help bring home the bacon—but the possibilities are endless. How do you use FreshBooks to get paid faster? Share your advice below.
This article was contributed by our partners at FreshBooks.
