Recently we read about a veterinarian who installed electronic invoicing. She had a worker take a minute to review the charges at the end of the day.

This wouldn't be practical in an office that relied on paper billing. It might take half an hour to go through all the invoices, and there was no reason to think there was anything wrong. But it worked fine with an e-billing solution. It could be done in just a minute or two as part of the routine of closing up the office.

The vet had a big surprise coming. The office averaged $200 a month in missed billing.

You'd have been surprised, too, if you found something like that in your office.

But you can see how it could come about. Someone would call in with a question about a pet. The vet would ask for a stool sample. The pet owner would drop by with the sample, saying the vet had asked him to drop it off.

The person who received the sample wasn't necessarily the same one who had relayed the request from the vet. Still another person might prepare the sample to send to the lab. In a busy office, it could easily happen that no one realized the lab work hadn't been charged.

Several little errors like this could take place in the course of the month. By reviewing the charges at the end of the day, the vet's staff could catch them.

Add to these savings the savings on staff time, postage, and stationery, the quicker turnaround on receivables, and the reduction of stress and storage that come from a more paper-free office, and you can see that it adds up.

We don't know what e-billing system this vet used. But we can say for sure that SmartPay would cost less than the amount that she saved. Using SmartPay instead of paper invoices would, for this professional office, be free.

Let us calculate the ROI you could expect from using SmartPay in your business. Fill out our simple contact form and we'll call you.

Having something tailor made for you, custom designed to be perfect for your business -- it's a sign of quality and success.

And yet web usability expert Jakob Nielsen reports that most people don't use the customization features available to them. Those who do, according to Nielsen, get just as good an experience as those who don't. Using customization features doesn't interfere with usability or cause people to regret taking the chance.

So why don't people choose to use those features? According to Nielsen's research, people feel lost -- almost frightened -- when they try to set custom options online.

At SmartPay, we know that there are some important benefits to customization.

• A custom portal reinforces your brand. Having a consistent look and feel every time you communicate with your customers makes you look professional and serious about your business.
• Your customers recognize your look, and they feel confident about the security of the process. It increases their trust and comfort with you, and encourages them to use the electronic invoicing system, giving your business and the environment the advantages of SmartPay's EIPP solution. 
• Customization makes SmartPay work better with your business.
  

These are significant benefits. Fortunately, you can have the benefits without having to feel lost. When you call us to set up your SmartPay system, we ask you a few questions and get everything arranged for you.

You can still make changes if you want to; you have control over the system. But you don't have to. If you ever need to adjust the system to make it work better for you, we're only a phone call away.

There are still some people who worry about online security in relation to electronic invoicing. As people learn more about the level of security possible with e-invoicing, this becomes less and less of a concern. Most of us know -- and the rest will soon learn -- that e-billing is far safer than paper invoicing.

Not only is EIPP (Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment) far safer from the point of view of security,it's also safer from human error.

As long as people are involved in business, there'll be room for human error. We're not suggesting that it's impossible to type the wrong information into your SmartPay forms, or that no one will ever push the wrong button at the wrong moment again.

But just think of all the opportunities for error in a typical paper invoicing transaction!

You make a note -- or a verbal request -- for your accountant to bill a client. Your accountant prepares the invoice, probably using accounting software. A clerk prints, copies, folds, and prepares the invoice for mailing. He or she probably also files that invoice, but someone else may actually mail it. It goes through numerous hands in the mail between you and the recipient.

Someone collects the mail on the other end, and delivers it to the accounts payable division, where someone opens it and routes it to the accountant. The accountant processes it, perhaps sending it out for approval or confirmation at some point. Someone cuts a check, folds it, mails it, perhaps files it, and gets it in the mail to you. More hands touch that paper.

Just as every one of those points of contact has the potential for theft of information or even of the check, each of those points of contact is also a chance to make an error.

A lost invoice, a lost check. A small error that someone else catches and -- probably acting without full information -- magnifies along the way. A slip of the pen when writing the address, or one department's failure to pass along the word that your address has changed. 

One recent estimate claimed that each little human error in the course of billing can cost $100 before it's straightened out. We can't track down the raw data on that, but we've seen plenty of small errors snowball into big problems.

Electronic invoicing with SmartPay requires far fewer steps, and is more direct. Fewer people are involved. Recurring invoices can be set up to go automatically, without the opportunity to amass any errors along the way.

Electronic invoices don't get lost. Neither do electronic payments.

Reduce stress in your life, as well as costs in your office, with SmartPay electronic billing solutions.