The Little App That Could!

Before I started using InvoiceSherpa, my accounts receivable at the end of tax season was close to $20,000 and I had no time to follow up because I prepare almost 600 tax returns annually.  Yes, in most of these cases, the returns hadn't been E-filed yet, but my time had been spent and the work had been done, and I had yet to be paid.  Now, 2 years later at the same time, my accounts receivable is less than $2500.  I still don't have time to follow up for the signed documents and payments and my process hasn't changed.  What has changed is that the automatic reminder set to specific intervals, of my choosing are automatically sent to customers.  They know their returns won't be E-filed until I receive both signed documents and payments, but when things are out of sight, they seem to be out of mind, and while the income is important to me, this is not a concern, or probably not even a passing thought for my tax clients as they have their own priorities.  The customized email reminders are a nice nudge and I didn't have to do a thing as the app integrates beautifully with my QuickBooks Online account.  

I also use InvoiceSherpa as a marketing tool for my bookkeeping services.  Cash flow is a major pain point for a lot of service based companies.  I offer this as a tool to my clients, or as part of my packages, depending on the client.  Think big picture, if you could offer a flat fee full accounts receivables option to your customers that are experiencing cash flow issues, this would be very valuable to them.  You may need to make a few calls in the beginning, but once things are going, the app does the rest.  Both you and your customers' profit from this type of arrangement.  They would get more cash in their pockets quicker as well as lower the amount of debt they write off, and you are able to profit from a service that you are pricing based on the value this service provides, not the amount of time you are actually working making the calls for customers.

Talk about extra features.  Add in a merchant account integration, and your customers' can click on the email to pay either via credit card, pay pal or ACH if you are in the US.  You can set up account specific options in the back end if you have a customer who only uses PayPal and you want the rest to use either credit card or ACH.  The customer enters the credit card information and it is secure and saved by token, which means that it is not showing in the system, and you don't have to worry about your office or software being compromised and someone having access to your customers’ credit card information.  Late fees are also a great feature that calculate automatically and push into QBO, which any QBO ProAdvisor knows that QBO doesn't calculate late fees.  Want to offer automatic credit card payments which withdrawal on an invoice due date rather than the issue date?  InvoiceSherpa can handle this as well.    

In short, if you haven't tried out InvoiceSherpa yet, in my opinion, it is a must have app that offers very valuable services and is a great revenue generator for the right customers.  Check them out to see all the features that this "little app that does", offers.

Tanya Hilts

QBO Specialist

Cloud Bookkeeping Services

About Tanya:

Tanya is an advanced certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, with over 20 years bookkeeping and income tax experience.  She is also the founder of Cloud Bookkeeping Services, and the newly launched Bookkeepers Bootcamp.  Tanya is proud to be a 2016 Intuit sponsored Black Swan, mentoring under Ron Baker (of the VeraSage Institute) who is the Grandfather of Value Pricing.  Tanya also volunteers her time as a volunteer mentor for Futurepreneur Canada.

This was originally posted at cloudbookkeepingservices.ca

Before I started using InvoiceSherpa, my accounts receivable at the end of tax season was close to $20,000 and I had no time to follow up because I prepare almost 600 tax returns annually.  Yes, in most of these cases, the returns hadn't been E-filed yet, but my time had been spent and the work had been done, and I had yet to be paid.  Now, 2 years later at the same time, my accounts receivable is less than $2500.  I still don't have time to follow up for the signed documents and payments and my process hasn't changed.  What has changed is that the automatic reminder set to specific intervals, of my choosing are automatically sent to customers.  They know their returns won't be E-filed until I receive both signed documents and payments, but when things are out of sight, they seem to be out of mind, and while the income is important to me, this is not a concern, or probably not even a passing thought for my tax clients as they have their own priorities.  The customized email reminders are a nice nudge and I didn't have to do a thing as the app integrates beautifully with my QuickBooks Online account.  I also use InvoiceSherpa as a marketing tool for my bookkeeping services.  Cash flow is a major pain point for a lot of service based companies.  I offer this as a tool to my clients, or as part of my packages, depending on the client.  Think big picture, if you could offer a flat fee full accounts receivables option to your customers that are experiencing cash flow issues, this would be very valuable to them.  You may need to make a few calls in the beginning, but once things are going, the app does the rest.  Both you and your customers' profit from this type of arrangement.  They would get more cash in their pockets quicker as well as lower the amount of debt they write off, and you are able to profit from a service that you are pricing based on the value this service provides, not the amount of time you are actually working making the calls for customers.Talk about extra features.  Add in a merchant account integration, and your customers' can click on the email to pay either via credit card, pay pal or ACH if you are in the US.  You can set up account specific options in the back end if you have a customer who only uses PayPal and you want the rest to use either credit card or ACH.  The customer enters the credit card information and it is secure and saved by token, which means that it is not showing in the system, and you don't have to worry about your office or software being compromised and someone having access to your customers’ credit card information.  Late fees are also a great feature that calculate automatically and push into QBO, which any QBO ProAdvisor knows that QBO doesn't calculate late fees.  Want to offer automatic credit card payments which withdrawal on an invoice due date rather than the issue date?  InvoiceSherpa can handle this as well.    In short, if you haven't tried out InvoiceSherpa yet, in my opinion, it is a must have app that offers very valuable services and is a great revenue generator for the right customers.  Check them out to see all the features that this "little app that does", offers.Tanya HiltsQBO SpecialistCloud Bookkeeping ServicesAbout Tanya: