Your humble blogger, hard as it is to admit, can be a stubborn fellow when learning a new video game. This problem goes way back to childhood.
For years, your blogger would scoff at his younger brother who insisted you could hop the wall in at the very beginning of a lap in Mario Kart 64’s Wario Stadium. “Nonsense! It’s not possible!”
But then the younger brother would demonstrate that shortcut not just once, or twice, but all three laps of the race. His final time shaved off more than 3 minutes off his personal best, which is an eternity in Mario Kart time.
So your blogger started practicing. And eventually, he got so good at it to the point where he never messes it up, even to this day. It just goes to show that sometimes new ideas that seem like a bridge too far really do end up being revolutionary (relatively speaking, pardon the pun).
Shot of a young businesswoman using a digital tablet in an office
But why bring up any of this? Well, this story can function as a modern-day allegory for rethinking payment automation. The shortcut on Lap 1 is payment automation. In this allegory, I am the younger brother telling you that payment automation is not only possible but consistently awesome. You, dear reader, are the stubborn blogger as a kid. Now it’s the younger brother’s turn to enlighten you once more.
Here’s why you should automate payment immediately:
- Speed
- Accuracy
- Data
(Yeah, yeah, I know it forms the acronym SAD, but it’s far from anything sad! Trust me!)
Life Moves Pretty Fast…
The most noticeable effect you’ll see right away from payment automation an improvement in invoice approval rate. That’s going to speed up a lot. Under the old manual regimes of most companies, unpaid invoices start to pile up because they simply can’t clear them out fast enough. The process is too slow, too cumbersome, and the best employees are only human when being asked to do something way beyond what’s expected of them.
Unpaid invoices can disrupt the daily flow of your company and can damage reputations if they start to affect the speed at which you do business.
By putting in payment automation, you’re cutting out a lot of that legwork because the computer has got you covered.
From Way Downtown, Bang!
Maybe it’s age shows, but your blogger gets extraordinarily happy when something new goes perfectly right the very first time. Consider it one of those serendipitous life chances. You don’t expect it, but you’re over the moon when it does.
Automating payments can give you this experience, too. When you use software with basic algorithms, you’re simply going to be far more accurate every single time you process an invoice. A human employee, even your best one, is going to make an occasional mistake because stuff happens sometimes. It doesn’t mean that person’s a failure by any stretch at all! It’s just that even the most reliable detail-oriented people can’t get it right all the time. Computers on the other hand have a far better chance at making that happen.
Besides, think about how much easier everyone will be resting once they realize that payments won’t be overlooked or missed. No one will have to come into the office knowing that a simple oversight can wreck the day’s progress. The software will have you covered.
Give Me “ALL” The Data
Hunches work occasionally on the job, but the long run suggests you’re better off using data to inform your decisions. By using automation software, programs can pull pretty much any kind of report you’re looking for.
You can often filter this data, too. You can apply a set of conditions for any given situation and see how your business is performing. Then, you can clear those conditions and try a new set. Simply put, if you want to know how your business is doing in any scenario, payment automation software can be a critical source of information. That’s smart business decision-making.
Is it apprehension that’s stopping you? What’s the point in waiting? Make the switch to payment automation today. Let us know how it’s going on our social media pages, and keep checking our blog for more info.