Accounts Receivable Software Should Be Flexible

Now that you’re making money and seeing it come in from various streams, accounts receivable software can be your best friend when it comes to achieving your greatest capacity for income. You probably already know you want software to help you integrate, track and grow your business, so the question may be what are your must have accounting software features when it comes to accounts receivable software, and what’s on your wish list? If you’re not sure, here are some basic descriptions that might help you decide.

Basics of Accounts Receivable Software

Every month, you should be able to pull the ledger from your accounts receivable software, giving you details for what your customers should pay you, including exact identifiers like invoice number, date the bill was issued and the amount owed.

Regular updates are also key to your accounts receivable software, such as inputting recent invoicing activity plus logging payments you’ve received. You may find it helpful to be able to log even partial payments to a specific invoice, or any other situation that might arise regarding multiple invoices to multiple customers.

As the money flows in to your business, look for accounts receivable software that will differentiate timeframes easily and in a visual manner, such as columns for this month, past three months or other categories. These ranges of dates will need to go into your accounts receivable aged listing report, and this report could take precious hours if you don’t have this feature. This tool is also another way to know how many old receivables (past three months) you’ve acquired, which could factor in to required information for your business loan.

Since you will want to send friendly reminders to customers who need to pay you, investigate how the accounts receivable software handles statements and how it processes batches of past-due statements, i.e. fifteen days after a 30-day past due notice. You may want your software to customize these batches with different letter verbage if the delays in payment continue.

Beyond the Basics of Accounts Receivable Software

Statistics, fancy reports and other tools can help you get greater returns on your accounts receivable software investment.  In keeping with your brand image, you can add logos or designer touches to your invoices in some accounts receivable software packages. Some systems will even let you design and write your letters in other formats, like Microsoft, and then import them in with a click.

If delinquency of payment might be a concern, find accounts receivable software that lets you add features like interest or a service charge. Another feature to consider is looking for software that lets you log “IOU” or payment plans outlined by your customers. The capacity to send out invoices, past due notices and other information straight to your customers’ email accounts is also important.

As you make plans and predictions for months ahead, the accounts receivable software you have selected should be right there with you. Many packages can log current statistics and past trends and then present these to you in an attractive chart or graph. Some can even establish key groups of customers to give you the most useful reports possible.

A general rule for choosing accounts receivable software is flexibility. From sales tax to global shipping addresses and multiple contacts with customers, and even interfacing with your bank, your accounts receivable and accounts payable software should be on your side when it comes to managing your money.