Why Small Businesses Should Consider Automatic Payments
Automatic payments have become a staple of everyday life for the average American. From rent and utilities to healthcare costs and even purchases, if you need to pay for it, chances are you can “set it and forget it” with automated recurring payments.
And it might be time for your company to consider doing the same.
Automatic payments – not just to your company, but from your company to other vendors – can provide a laundry list of benefits. Read on as we explain.
How Automatic Payments Can Help Small Businesses
Improved Cash Flow
When you facilitate automatic payments for your customers, you’re immediately giving the consistency of your cash flow a shot in the arm. Rather than payments coming in within a wide window every month, you can pinpoint each customer’s payments to a specific day, ensuring you have more clarity into how much money you’re collecting, and when.
Not to mention that automatic payments also sharply reduce the chances for receiving payments late.
Better Security
Every time a bill is sent out or returned, that’s effectively a shot on goal for identity theft. Plus, it’s an easy thing to swipe from any unlocked mailbox. While banking/credit card information is naturally at risk of hacking, encryption and other fraud prevention tools can help keep your and your customers’ sensitive information more secure.
Improved Credit Score
Like with individuals, businesses have credit scores, and automatic payments can help you improve yours. If any of your vendors report payments to the major credit bureaus, prioritize paying these vendors on time – which you can easily do by setting up automatic payments that take the guesswork out of it.
Less Waste
For businesses looking to get a little greener, automatic payments make a small but clear difference. Not only is less paper getting used in the process (both in the bills you send out and in the checks being written), but less gas is being used in both the manufacture and transport of that paper.
Less Work
This one is pretty easy to visualize. In the old days of doing bills, you would sit down with your checkbook, your bills and some stamps, and get to writing. A long slog? Hardly. But it’s time out of your day, stamps out of your pocket and yet another chance for human error. By setting up automatic payments, whether it’s for you or for those who you pay, you’re saving people time.
Are Automatic Payments Right for You?
Are you trying to determine whether you can set up automatic payments for your small business, or how to go about it? Consider asking a trusted partner for small businesses whose experts boast decades of experience.
McManamon & Co. is a full-service accounting, tax, fraud, forensic and consulting firm for small and midsize businesses, and our consulting team can provide answers to myriad questions such as this, not to mention show you many other ways to reduce paper use in your office.
Interested in learning more? Call us now at 440.892.8900 or contact us online.
Tags: McManamon, McManamon & Co., small business, small business finances | Posted in Small business finances