Imagine this. You don’t have to worry about missing invoice errors, you don’t have to lay a finger to pay for your invoices, and you can access a user friendly dashboard to view all activity regarding your utility bills. Technology is not only changing the way we communicate at the office but it’s increasing efficiencies in our finance departments. The other thing is, it will save you so much money!
1. Avoid late fees
In the utility bill payment world, we know that invoice mistakes happen. For example, if a payment is made to the wrong account, you are stuck spending an unnecessary amount of time on the phone getting the issue resolved and reallocating the costs internally for budgeting purposes. In this process, your service may even be disconnected resulting in disconnection fees and time wasted trying to resolve the issue.
Having a bill management system that you use, whether it’s through a company like Valicom or setting up ACH internally, it ensures that your payment gets to your carrier(s) quickly and accurately. And in the long run, avoiding late fees and misapplied payments saves your organization a lot of time and headaches.
2. misplaceD invoices
When you have five different carriers and 2,000 invoices arriving in your inbox every month. Questions can arise like:
“When is invoice X due?” and…
“Was our check from last month correctly applied to the previous bill?”
Once an invoice is misplaced, there are other issues you need to consider. This is another instance where your AP department will have to be on the phone with your utility carrier to ask for a replacement invoice. If there’s more than one missing, you can see how this gets confusing and complicated fast. If you have misplaced or lost invoices and your company is audited, this can also be a big problem. Honestly, we just want to keep you from looking like this guy..
3. Avoid overpayment
It’s easy to make errors that result in over payment. When bills are paid manually, we often see company personnel making a simple mistake like misplacing a decimal point. This seems innocent but one decimal can mean the difference between $10,000 and $100,000!
Contractual errors are another common error we see. Especially, if you are working with a de-regulated third party supplier.
A bill payment study by Forrester says:
87% of organizations aren’t satisfied with their current invoice management process... billing errors average 5% to 12% of ongoing telecom services budgets.
4. avoid duplicate payments
This is similar to avoiding over payments. One of the top causes for payment errors is due to manual processes, or in the reverse, over-automated processes without review or assessment. When we set up a bill management and payment service ahead of time, we don’t have to worry about potential over payment or double payments.
A customized dashboard that shows you items like what was paid, to which carrier, and on which days, allows you to identify anything that may look fishy in a matter or seconds. If set up correctly, you shouldn’t have to check on these payments at all. Working with a utility bill management vendor will assure accuracy in set up and continued utility bill pay services.
5. lost early payment discount capture
As explained by PrimeRevenue, “An early payment discount is one form of trade finance and a way for companies to obtain a discount on a supplier's invoice in exchange for paying the supplier early. In other words, a company pays less than the full amount due while the supplier receives payment earlier than they would under standard payment terms.”
We believe that if you pay a bill early, that discount should be applied - no excuses! Unfortunately, too often that discount is forgotten and your early payment goes unrecognized.
It is a guarantee that the discount will be applied when using a utility bill management software, like Clearview.
Whether you decide to work with Valicom or choose another bill management provider, we can’t recommend it enough. You will save time, money, and frustration by having someone else do it for you. Companies who work with a utility bill management provider immediately see administrative cost reductions of 30%.
Errors within our bill payments processes should be a headache of the past. This is why many companies are automating their workflows and choosing companies to manage their abundance of invoices.
BENEFITS OF UTILITY BILL MANAGEMENT continued…
Invoice Loading: We receive and load invoices with 24-hour Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to build a central repository for your invoices.
Threshold Alerts: This trend analysis alert occurs when invoices exceed X% (organized at setup) to draw attention to variance for invoice/service review for a proactive approach to spend management.
Cost Allocation: Divide your expenses by location to allocate costs per facility for budgeting, usage, and reporting by expense type, facility, vendor, and customized data.
Invoice Approval Feature: Create a streamlined and efficient way for your team to approve and pay invoices. Clearview's invoice engine offers:
Simplified invoice approval and bill pay
Multi-tiered approval at pre-defined spend threshold(s)
Automated email reminders sent monthly to approvers
Decentralized management hierarchy for vendor invoice approval
Custom Reports: With digestible reports, you can gain clear insight into your spend for budget forecasting and spend control.
Bill Payment: Offload the time-consuming task of monthly utility payment and avoid late fees.
EASY INVOICE APPROVAL WITH CLEARVIEW
So, what does a bill payment tool look like? We’ve listened to our client’s feedback and have made approving invoices easier than ever before. Valicom has developed an easy 3-step process to streamline your internal invoice approval:
STEP 1: ASSIGN APPROVERS
The first step in streamlining the invoice review process is to assign approvers. The average business requires two to five people to review and approve one invoice. Approvers can be assigned by spend thresholds, device or service type, general ledger or department codes, location/buildings.
STEP 2: RECEIVE EMAIL NOTIFICATION
After we processes your invoice, an email is dispatched to your assigned approvers with a link to the Clearview Invoice Approval feature, prompting the user with a list of invoices pending their approval. Invoices can be sorted by charge amount, variance, or account info.
STEP 3: CLICK APPROVE!
To promote corporate workflow efficiencies, invoices can be approved individually or all at once! Following approval the invoice is added to the bill pay queue for your team to make a formal payment, or for us to continue to make payments on your behalf.
CHANGE THROUGH A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
AP departments that have relied on in-person processes have found that some methods are quickly outdated during the 2020 pandemic. Organizations are looking for new ways to handle remote operations and obtain better control over their processes. Ultimately, clients of all shapes and sizes are concerned with getting precise knowledge about upcoming payment obligations and want greater visibility and control over their payment timelines.
How will you spend your extra time and money each month?
Are you ready to talk with a utility bill payment professional?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: BRITTANY PECKHAM
Brittany grew up in Oregon, Wisconsin and graduated from the University of Wisconsin Business School with a Bachelor’s degree in Management and Human Resources with an emphasis in entrepreneurship. Brittany has been working with Valicom for many years creating content for the TEM industry to deliver the many benefits users and organizations can experience in utilizing TEM services. With a passion for social media marketing, Brittany enjoys applying creativity throughout various areas of her life while expressing creativity in everything she does and loves being consumed in projects, from start to finish.