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Guide to Invoice Management

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedDec 20212 min read

For businesses small and large, some of the most important operations include paying your suppliers and collecting payments. After all, without them, you would be unable to continue running the business. That’s why staying on top of your invoices is such an essential process, and also why you should aim to streamline this as much as possible. Finance departments are often overwhelmed by the number of invoices they need to process, which can result in late payments.

You can make life easier for yourself by using invoice management software. GoCardless makes it easy for merchants to make and collect payments on their due date, avoiding cash flow issues and saving you the time you would have spent chasing these up. Keep reading to find out more about invoice management systems and how they can benefit your business.

What is invoice management?

First of all, it’s important to give a definition of vendor invoice management before getting into the various invoice management systems that you can use. Put simply, invoice management refers to the processes that companies use to distribute invoices and to track and pay their supplier invoices. This can be broken down into the following basic stages:

Receiving the invoice from the third party, such as the supplier.
Validation of the invoice, meaning that you should check whether you actually received the goods or services that you are being charged for.
Payment to the third party.
Recording the payment in your own company records.

While this may seem simple, things can get complicated when you’re dealing with large volumes of invoices. This is especially the case if processing is being done manually, which creates a possibility of human error. That’s why invoice management software is essential for growing businesses.

GoCardless and invoice management

GoCardless actually offers an easy-to-use invoice management platform that can make the whole process intuitive, saving you time. The steps involved are as follows:

Customers should input their payment details online and provide authorization for you to collect debit payments from their account. The invoice management platform allows you to customize this payment page or choose from pre-existing templates. Customers will only have to do this once when they set up, and after this the payments can be automated.
Set flexible payment schedules. You can customize these according to your business needs.
Payments will then be automatically collected from the customer’s account and delivered to you, reducing the work for both you and the customer.

With GoCardless invoice management, you can generate real-time insights as you process invoices. This provides you with valuable tools for data analysis, informing your business strategy and helping you to encourage growth.

Xero and invoice management

GoCardless also partners with Xero, software for vendor invoice management that can be seamlessly integrated with the functionality of GoCardless.

First of all, you send an invoice to the customer using the Xero software with GoCardless attached. They will receive an invoice complete with a ‘Pay Now’ button that makes it quick and simple for them to make a payment. There is also functionality to allow for recurring payments or to schedule future ones.

What are the benefits of invoice management?

There are a number of different advantages to using invoice management software for your business. First of all, it makes the process easier for you, saving you time and money. Rather than having accountants trawling through countless invoices, you can manage these all quickly and automatically with intelligent software. You also don’t need to worry about reminding customers to pay, as the software can do this for you.

What’s more, these solutions make things easier for your customers too. It’s easy to pay with invoices submitted through GoCardless and Xero, meaning that they’re much more likely to make these payments on time.

We can help

GoCardless helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin your team needs to deal with when chasing invoices. Find out how GoCardless can help you with ad hoc payments or recurring payments.