Posted: 02/27/12 3:51 PM

Due to technological advancements, payments can now be made online through electronic billing systems. Never the less, these billing systems have been faced with many challenges due to the alarming increases in fraud cases. There are a number of safety measures that can be taken by an individual or any other group of persons who regularly use these services in order to protect their information, identity etc online. These measures include the following:

Use of strong passwords- one should be able to not only come up with a unique password but also a complex one that is totally different from the passwords he/she regularly uses. A strong password is at least 8 characters long and contains both upper and lowercase letters alongside having numeric and special characters. This reduces the capacity of another user to guess the passwords correctly and effect any transactions illegally.

Keeping secrets- it is highly recommended that one keeps secrets of their account information which includes their passwords. User names, passwords and security questions should remain to be personal and only known to the owner alone.

Reviewing transaction history- one should be able to review their transaction history to ensure that everything is okay. In cases where one detects some illegal transactions, they should immediately change their passwords and if possible contact the relevant authorities for proper action.

Protecting ones computer- irrespective of how diligent one can be online, it is advisable for one to keep his/her hardware secure through the use of antivirus software’s and firewalls to bar intruders from accessing your network or computer. Files from unknown sources and executable files should never be opened.

Signing out- when operating online accounts, it is recommended that once through, one should sign out immediately. You should not just close the browser’s window without signing out as this offers an opportunity for other users to sign into your account once they get access to your computer.

Avoiding public computers- you should not make use of online billing systems while using public computers like the ones at a cyber café because the security of such computers is not guaranteed.

Email scams- one should avoid giving personal & confidential details to scammers who tend to trick online billing users’ to later use the information to defraud them.

Choose a trustworthy system- before using an online billing and payment system, be sure to check the credibilty and security of the system. Read user reviews, blogs and the system’s website to verify how trustworthy it is. If there are any red flags, you may want to think twice before using.

Always be wary of submitting personal information. If you follow these simple tips, you will protect your confidentiality and your bank account and enjoy the many benefits of using an online billing system.

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Posted: 02/24/12 5:32 PM

Have you gotten any fake emails posing as a bank or credit card provider? What about emails for winning a contest or scoring a great online deal? Many of these may be phishing attacks. Phishing works by persuading individuals to give away their personal, confidential information like credit card details or online banking passwords. Users want and expect security when using the Internet and entering their personal information. Unfortunately, there are many dangers on the Internet that can do major damage to your bank account. Here are a few tips to protect yourself from phishing attacks and to keep your information safe and secure.

Does the email look too good to be true? – Many of the advertisements and emails that you receive will have very enticing opportunities or deals. These will direct you to a site where you can fill out your credit card information to redeem your free car, gift card, trip, etc. Stop right there! Most of the time, these “deals” are a scam. If it sounds or looks too good to be true, then it probably is.

URL Check – If you receive an email from an unknown company or bank, be careful before you fill out any personal information. A quick way to check validity is to run your cursor over the click-able content. If the website does not seem to match the company or bank’s information, then don’t click through.

Don’t Open That – Be careful when opening attachments in unknown emails. Only open file attachments that you are expecting to receive.

Check with Friends – If you receive an unusual looking email from a trustworthy source, such as a friend, co-worker or family member don’t open it. Check with them to see if they have sent you anything.

Change Up Your Passwords – In the case that you do give out your personal information, you will be in a lot less trouble if you do not use the same password for all of your accounts. Be sure to use a few different passwords to maximize security to all of your online accounts.

Don’t Store Information Online – Many sites give you the option to store your credit card information on your computer so that it is easier to access for the next time you visit their site. It may save you time in the future, but if that company has a data breach, your personal information could be at risk. Take the extra minutes to retype your card information each time you shop. It is still shorter than the drive to the store.

Anti-Phishing Toolbars – Many browsers have downloadable anti-phishing toolbars for users to utilize. Beware, some are not as effective as you may expect them to be, so don’t depend on them 100% for your security, but they can help. Usually they give safety ratings to websites and update you about current phishing attacks.

As you can see, there are many steps you can take in order to protect yourself and your confidential information from being exploited by a phishing attack. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to fill in their information and respond to them. Join the 95% of online users. By following these tips, you can help to protect yourself from unsafe emails and websites on the Internet.

Posted: 02/20/12 4:20 PM

SmartPay will be hosting a free webinar titled “Small Steps to Going Paperless” on February 24th at 2:00 pm CST. Technology and the environment are two focus areas making their way up the priority list for nearly all businesses, and we would like to show you how easy it is to utilize technology and reduce paper waste in the workplace.

SmartPay believes that client education is a foundation to delivering an unparalleled customer experience. That is why we offer resources for our customers, such as “Small Steps to Going Paperless” webinar, blog posts and infographics for example.

We encourage businesses of any kind or size to sign up to attend. The “Small Steps to Going Paperless” webinar will focus on why your office should be paperless, how easy it is to go paperless, and how to implement this change in the workplace. Learn how you can impact your businesses efficiency, customer and employee satisfaction, finances and the environment. Registration is required to attend.

Posted: 02/16/12 10:33 PM

Adapting to Change
In our lives we are often going to be asked to adapt to change. Adapting in the workplace can be one of the most difficult changes to adjust to. In today’s job market it’s essential to adapt to change quickly. This is easier for some and harder for others. As an employer, leading your staff in honing on or gaining stronger adaptation skills is important. Their ability to quickly adapt to change will become increasingly beneficial to your company. Highlighting benefits of adapting to change, makes it easier for employees to move forward and succeed.

Employee Benefits of Adapting

1) Learn how to act, rather than react, in constructive ways to unplanned events and destructive actions.
2) Increases employ-ability and attractiveness to employers.
3) The ability in adapting to change strengthens continued successful job performance and job satisfaction.
4) Gain skills to look at everything with a fresh outlook and perspective.
5) The ability to adapt easily and quickly to change helps you actually feel more secure at your job, not less so.

Communication

Not understanding why change and adapting is being asked of us often makes it harder to face. Wasn’t I doing my job correctly? Haven’t I always been a good and loyal employee? Am I going to lose my job? These are frequently questions employees ask themselves when they are asked to adapt and change in the workplace. Without communication, rumors spread and take on a life of their own.

Straight forward, open communication between employers and their staff is very essential to calming fears and answering questions or concerns. With open, honest communication it’s easier to accept and understand the expectation of all to quickly adapt and change.

Steps to open communication include:
1) Listen. One of the easiest ways to motivate is to listen. Hearing an employees ideas, fears, concerns and needs makes them feel heard. It makes them feel like they belong, are part of the team and you value their input.
2) Explain why changes are happening. Being kept in the dark does not foster any reason or incentive to change for an employee. An informed employee is much more able to adapt quickly to change.
3) Give examples of how they may be asked to change.
4) Keep the lines of communication open by encouraging employees suggestions and input. Understanding and communication eliminates fear and distrust.

Change is going on at all times, sometimes it is almost imperceptible and at others, with lightening speed. The ability of employees to adapt and change quickly will be increasingly important to your company. Give staff members the tools they need to succeed such as:
1) Cross training – the more flexible we are in the work place, the better.
2) Regular on going training – Changes are not going to slow down in our foreseeable future. Staying informed and up to date with all the latest methods, makes adapting to change easier.
3) Genuinely acknowledge and appreciate your employees – A word of praise, provides a powerful incentive for staff to continue to give you, their employer, their personal best.

Your employees understanding of why they’re being asked to quickly adapt to change, is very important to their attitudes and perceptions. If they see change as a negative thing, or perceive the request for change as a personal assault, it will be hard for them to adapt. When asked to adapt and change, the message they can choose to take away, is they are an employee of value.

As an employer asking your employees to adapt quickly to change, it is your job to lead by example. Work with your team – it can be easier than you may think.

Posted: 02/8/12 4:16 PM

Every business owner wants customers who pay their bills on time, but we all know that we will probably have at least one customer who fails to pay up. When it comes to collecting late payments, you want to make sure that you approach getting your money in the appropriate, most effective way. Here are a few tips on how to deal with customers who have outstanding payments.

Be Clear – The due dates on your invoices and statements should be clearly stated. Even more importantly, you always want to make sure that you have outlined your company’s late fee policies in a place that is easily accessible for customers. The consumer should be aware of the actions that you will be taking in the event that they are late on making payments.

Don’t Blindside – Do not blindside your customers with additional late fees. You want to maintain a positive relationship with your customers even if they aren’t paying on time. They will still share their experiences working with you with their friends, families and coworkers if they have a negative experience. Keep them aware of why they are being charged a late fee and why. Be sure that you can show them where and why they are being charged, if asked.

Follow Up and Check In – You want to be sure to check in with your customers. Start with a friendly reminder letter, email, phone call, or text message, but you don’t want to overwhelm them with nagging messages. This is only going to frustrate them. Sometimes all they need is a friendly reminder. With new web based software like SmartPay, you can even automate friendly email reminders to be sent automatically to customers who owe money.
Most importantly, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Have you ever forgotten to make a payment because it wasn’t high on your priority list for the week? Would you like to receive three emails per day until you pay your bill? Think about that before you blast emails, call endlessly and text your customers into a state of annoyance.

Respect Hours – When calling customers on the phone, take care that you are being appropriate. According to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA), you may only call your customers between the hours of 8 am and 9 pm. There are no regulations or guidelines for sending text message alerts, but take into consideration that some individuals sleep with their cell phones near their beds and may not silence them.

Consumer Privacy – This one should be a no-brainer but be sure to respect your customer’s privacy. Don’t leave messages with friends or family and do not contact them at work. Messages, account details and notices of late payments should only be viewed and discussed with the individual who owes money.

Seek Legal Help – If your customer still has not paid after your emails, phone calls, and or text messages after 90 days, it may be time to seek legal help. Before taking this type of action, try to understand why they cannot or have not paid. Help them understand their options for paying their outstanding bill and try to come up with solutions.

The person you are collecting from may be embarrassed or stressed out about the late payment. Find out why they haven’t paid and what you can do to help them. By following these tips and being an effective listener, you will be more likely to collect outstanding payments and maintain a positive relationship with your customers.

Posted: 02/6/12 3:49 PM

Customization can do great things for your business. It gives your business that professional look and feel that you are looking for. However, it can be easy to neglect customization options or avoid them due to it seeming too difficult. Don’t let the rumors and assumptions sway you. Many customization options are easier than you think and very beneficial to you and your business.

SmartPay offers your business great opportunities for customization. Here are a few of the ways that you can customize SmartPay for your business.

Custom Portal – SmartPay will customize a portal for your business that can include your brand and color scheme. Providing your customers with this type of personalized portal will help reinforce your brand. Every time your customers log in, they will have a consistent experience, and it will display the look and feel of your company and brand. This will add a level of professionalism to your electronic bill presentment and payment system.

Integration Options – Integration options from SmartPay have many benefits to both your business, your employees, and your customers. SmartPay can integrate with your back office accounting system and merchant processors like Authorize.Net. Through this integration, SmartPay can pass customer, invoice, payment, settings and other data between your existing back office accounting system. Integrating with your back office system can help to eliminate silly but serious errors like duplicate entries, which can save you from making costly mistakes.

Personalized Reminders – SmartPay gives you the option to create, set, and forget automated emails for your customers. These can automatically be sent to your customers, which comes in handy when anyone begins to fall behind on payments. You can also create individual messages to send to users who may need additional support. Not only is this great for customer relations, but it takes the hassle of trying to get a hold of a customer off of you and your employees.

Customization can help to reinforce your brand, lessen the workload of you and your employees and create a positive customer experience. Optimizing the use of customization can help to create the personalized experience and results that work best for you and your customers.

Interested to see what SmartPay could look like branded for your company?  Check it out.

Posted: 02/3/12 3:01 PM

One aspect of the Internet that customers have come to happily embrace is the idea of electronic billing. More than two-thirds of Americans now pay at least some of their bills online, and increasing numbers are coming to demand e-billing as a service they expect from a 21^st Century company. However, if your business has not yet invested in an electronic bill presentment system, you may have noticed that there are a wide, and often confusing, variety of options.

So, here is a quick guide to the three primary electronic bill presentment options, along with their pros and cons.

Direct Biller

This is exactly what it sounds like. All billing is hosted on your own website and you process the payment transactions directly. Customers log onto your website and pay straight from it.

Pros

• You are in direct control of the billing along with its presentation and accompanying ads.
• The bill presented is in a format that’s familiar to most customers.
• No need to pay for outside services.

Cons

• You must be certified to handle the transactions, a time-consuming process.
• Significant cost can be involved in creating and maintaining your billing system.
• This can be inconvenient for customers, who have to have a separate login for every direct biller they use.

Consolidator Model

This is the totally outsourced model. You hire a third party, called a consolidator, who handles all your billing for you. You send them the billing information, and the customer logs into their systems to pay.

Pros

• Outsourcing means you don’t have to worry about maintaining the software and servers.
• It’s convenient for customers, who can pay multiple bills in one place with one login

Cons

• You lose control of the process, and lose contact with the customer. There can be significant delays in customer service response to problems.
• These sites are often self-branded, disrupting your own branding message.
• Customers’ bills are often abbreviated or not in a familiar format.
• You have to convert your data to match their systems, which can be a challenge.
• You get paid according to the Consolidator’s timetable.

Managed Service Provider (MSP)

This solution attempts to provide the “best of both worlds” from the previous two electronic bill presentment options, and generally succeeds. The billing is handled by a third party, but their systems are closely integrated with yours, using standardized data sets.

Pros

• You retain your own branding throughout the site, choose the bill presentation format, and can include your own advertising along with the bill.
• Consistent branding makes the transition to the external site invisible to the customer.
• In-bill marketing campaign performance can be tracked directly.
• It makes multi-channel billing (both electronic and paper) viable.
• Customers still have full access to their billing history and integrated support.
• Standardized systems make for easy integration with your back office.
• It allows for easy integration of reminders such as expired credit card warnings.

Cons

• You still lose some measure of ownership over the customers, although not as much as under the Consolidator Model.
• Payments aren’t necessarily posted to you on the same day.
• Customers lose the convenience of one-stop bill payment.

For most businesses today, the MSP model is the best overall electronic bill presentment option. There is some minimal loss of customer control, but your business still retains nearly all of benefits of direct billing without the major drawbacks. Given the time and cost involved in setting up a direct billing system, the tradeoffs are fairly minor. Unless your business has a compelling reason to need a direct billing system, this is likely the electronic bill presentment model you would want to first investigate. Want to learn more about your online billing options?

Posted: 02/1/12 4:58 PM

There are many benefits of using the electronic bill presentment and payment system, including that it saves time and money. No one wants to spend extra time creating, printing and mailing invoices. Completing these tasks electronically is virtually as easy as pushing a button, and it means saving money for your business. Here is a list of the many ways electronic bill presentment and payment can help you.

Reduces Paper Expenses

Less paper means more profit. Allowing customers to receive and pay their bills electronically means you don’t incur the cost of paper and you don’t waste time printing dozens and even thousands of invoices. This option also helps your business achieve a more environmentally friendly standard, something most of your customers will thank you for.

Reduces Postage Expenses

If you aren’t printing invoices, you won’t need to mail them either. Postage can be expensive, and electronic bill presentment and payment reduces these expenses as well. Imagine replacing those printed emails, envelopes and stamps with something much more simple. With the click of a button, you’ll have all your invoices sent, whether you have one to send or a few thousand.

Easy and Secure for Customers

Your customers will thank you for making their payment options easier as well. They simply log in and pay their bill; they don’t have to hassle with writing checks, buying stamps and mailing payments back to you. Even better, payments can never get lost in the mail. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved. The transactions are easy and secure.

Convenient

How often have you wished you could offer customers the ability to pay via debit or credit card? This electronic bill presentment and payment option makes it easy to do just that. This allows you to be paid even sooner in most cases. Debit and credit card payments mean instant money, while waiting for a check to come in the mail, going to the bank to deposit it, and then waiting for funds to be released means time and money.

Enhances Existing Accounting Software

Don’t say goodbye to your existing software, especially if it works well for you. This electronic bill presentment and payment option integrates seamlessly with your existing software, or you can use our in-house system.

Hundreds of businesses are using this system every day and love it. Make your accounting practices more streamlined and effective by integrating this system into your practices. It is easy to integrate and simple to use.

Want to Learn More? Download our Infographic!

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