SmartPay is a product of Fargo, ND, web development firm Onsharp. The Onsharp staff is usually a law-abiding bunch, but just about a week ago our Matt Sharp and Tami Dowers were hauled in for nefarious crimes.

Tami was found guilty of prank calling her neighbors and not letting her cat Ezra sleep on the bed while she was at work-- a shock to all of us -- and Matt won't even admit to his crimes. 

We're proud to say that really Tami and Matt were guilty only of helping out the March of Dimes. The March of Dimes funds research to reduce the problems of premature babies and support children's health across the nation. Their annual Jail and Bail fundraiser has been an important part of the March of Dimes calendar since 1957.

In the past  53 years, more than five million honest citizens have volunteered to spend time in the pokey (or in Matt and Tami's case, the Texas Roadhouse) for this excellent cause.

Thanks to all who contributed to Matt and Tami's bail!

As our population ages,medical professionals are increasing their training in the special needs of the elderly. Individuals with dementia or Alzheimers may be receiving care from spouses, sons, or daughters who are themselves elderly.

Unfortunately, billing practices don't always keep pace with these needs.

"Older people call us up in helpless confusion," says one office worker. "They don't know what any column means, whether it's a bill or not, or whether or not they need to send us money"

Helpers may be equally confused by bills and statements. 

"You can hear how distressed they are," the worker continued.

Often, paper bills are complex and confusing because of insurance requirements. 

Managing piles of paper bills can be confusing on its own. Elderly patients who rely on family members living in other towns may try to sort out the difficulties over the phone, and be defeated by the number of papers from different places, with different dates. 

One doctor found, in spite of her own knowledge base, that it was impossible for her to determine whether her elderly parents were having duplicate tests which they didn't need. She described the experience as "feeling like you're standing in a busy crossroads with no idea which direction to go in."

Electronic health records should, once they're perfected, help with these issues. Until then, electronic billing can already give a starting point. SmartPay bills, for example, have a clear interface that shows the patient's current balance immediately, and other details can be explored or excluded as needed, rather than being bunched together on a single page. Patients can choose to give a son or daughter or other helper access to the bills, rather than trying to find needed information on a paper bill and relaying it over the phone. And there is no need to file or keep track of paper bills -- nor to worry that some bills may have been mislaid.

Older patients who have difficulty actually paying the bill online can, with SmartPay, be assisted by the office to use phone payments instead.

Onsharp's Tami Dowers and Matthew Sharp are taking part in the Fargo Jail and Bail at the Texas Roadhouse. These two desperadoes will be locked up in the hoosegow till they raise enough for their bail.

That bail money goes to the March of Dimes.  Since 1939, the March of Dimes has been working to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. Through research, community service, education and advocacy, the March of Dimes has made amazing strides for children's health.

Learn more about the organization on the March of Dimes YouTube channel.

The North Dakota chapter of the March of Dimes is holding the Jail and Bail event to help arrest prematurity. Bringing together the community’s most wanted leaders and citizens to raise money for the important cause of infant health, the event will be at the Texas Roadhouse, 4971 13th Ave S
Fargo, ND, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on November 17th.  

If you're in town, of course, you can visit the jailbirds. But if you're not on hand, you can still help get them out of the slammer -- and do your bit for healthier babies -- by donating toward their bail. Visit Matthew's Jail and Bail page  or Tami's Jail and Bail page, and join the fight against birth defects and premature births. 

Recently we spoke with the manager of a franchise operation. She'd had a negative experience with online invoicing. Naturally, we wanted to know all about it. We think electronic invoicing is a great choice for businesses -- cost-cutting, convenient for customers, and environmentally responsible. If someone has a bad experience with e-billing, we want to know all about it, and to offer a solution if we can. So we got the details from this manager.

The EIPP company she signed up with offered different price points for different numbers of invoices. SmartPay does, too. It makes sense to us -- the company that sends out a few dozen invoices should pay less than the company that sends out hundreds. So far, so good.

However, this person's company had a nice little growth spurt and needed to send out more invoices than they had anticipated. They signed up new customers, prepared to invoice them -- and got cut off.

The e-invoicing solution they chose would only allow them to send the number of invoices they had expected they'd send. They had new customers to serve, new businesses to take care of, new inventory to order -- and they couldn't bill their clients with their electronic invoicing system. Once the next month arrived, with their new limit, they could invoice customers again. But for a couple of weeks there, the paperless sytem they had carefully set up just wasn't working. No funds were coming in to cover the costs associated with the new business they were generating.

Some, hearing this story, said the manager should have had a paper invoicing backup plan. We don't agree. We think they should have checked on the system before signing up. 

SmartPay, for example, is priced according to the number of invoices you send out.  If you expect to send out 100 invoices, you'll pay $89 a month. If things go really well at work and you send out 200, you'll automatically be billed at the higher rate of $129 for that month -- not cut off after your first 100.

Before you choose an electronic invoicing solution, ask a few "what if" questions.  What if I need to make a manual payment for a customer? What if I change to a new accounting system? What if I get more business than I expected?

Make sure you're satisfied with the answers before you commit to your system. You can contact SmartPay with any questions, and real live human beings will answer them for you. Insist on that, whichever service you choose.