Electronic invoicing is the coming thing. It's cleaner, faster, cheaper, more secure, and more environmentally responsible.

But how is EIPP different from the email system you've already cobbled together yourself? "I can already attach a PDF file to an email for delivering invoices," you may be thinking, "so why do I need SmartPay?"

SmartPay provides more than just the distribution of invoices. 

True, you can send email invoices with your regular email. This saves the resources involved in printing out the invoice and mailing it, and that's a good thing. But it's not the same as electronic invoicing. Recently, a small business owner in Fargo sent out a bill in this way. Later in the month, she met with the client whose invoice she had emailed. Since he was paying by check, he waited till their meeting to pay her rather than mailing the check. He printed out copies of the invoice to keep the accounting tidy -- one for himself and one for her, which he put together with the check into an envelope to hand to her.

Since she had an accountant prepare the invoice in the first place, the total savings of time and money was about 64 cents and ten minutes. She also waited a week longer than the two weeks she'd normally expect to wait, so the client could save a stamp and hand her his payment.

SmartPay allows your customers not only to access their invoice via email, but it also allows them to make a secure payment on that invoice simply by clicking on a link in the email and entering their payment information.

That's not all. Look at the other options SmartPay gives your customers:

• They can update their contact information
• They can make payments on their preferred schedule
• They can save bank accounts and credit card information securely for future use
• They can set up their invoices for automatic payment

And they can do all this from a secure customer portal, with your logo and address to add to their confidence.

SmartPay makes your invoices faster and cheaper. Instead of having to prepare invoices with one software package, save them with another, and then use an email system to send them, you accomplish all these tasks easily from within SmartPay. You don't even need an accounting background.

You'll also cut down on your accounts receivable by encouraging your customers to pay faster than they would from an invoice sent via standard mail. When customers can pay from checking accounts or credit cards with a few clicks, you get your money faster -- with less processing time than required by paper checks.

It's easy to find discussions of electronic invoicing. Kiplinger's says that 77% of consumers now use an EIPP system. E-billing is being hailed as the next big thing in customer convenience, an essential part of a green office, and the answer to security and staffing woes.

While it's easy to find these discussions, it isn't always easy to understand what they're talking about. If you're new to the concept, you may run into some terms that aren't completely familiar. Since businesspeople with a broad range of backgrounds can successfully use online invoicing, you might want to read about the topic without having the kind of vocabulary the writers have. Here's a glossary of the common terms. This should make it easier to join discussions of the value of electronic invoicing, even if you're not a specialist.

• AP: accounts payable, money owed by the company.
• AR: accounts receivable, money owed to the company.
• B2B: business to business, referring to companies that sell goods ad services to other businesses, rather than to end consumers.
• Bank aggregator: a service that allows a consumer to pay bills to multiple companies, often the consumer's bank.
• Biller-direct: a service that allows a business to provide electronic invoices to their customers. Consumers visit the company's website or portal to make the payment. Onsharp's SmartPay is an example of this type of service.
• CSP: customer service provider. A company that provides EBPP services, such as SmartPay.
• DSO: days sales outstanding, or the average amount of time between a sale and the collection of the money due for the sale. E-invoicing reduces DSO.
  
• EBPP: electronic bill presentment and payment, referring most often to business-to-consumer uses.
• EDI: electronic data interchange, systems for sending information electronically. SmartPay's web-based system allows businesses http://www.onsharp.com/blog/to do their invoicing electronically without EDI.
• EIPP: electronic invoice presentment and payment. Similar to EBPP, but referring more to business-to-business uses.
• IFX: interactive financial exchange, an open standard for financial data exchange currently being developed.
• Portal: an entryway to the web. A secure portal, such as that provided by SmartPay, allows users to send information online without being open to ordinary, insecure online access. While users are online, they aren't in the open information stream, and the information they exchange can't be seen by others. 
• Presentment: the seller produces the invoice and presents it, or sends it, to the buyer. In electronic invoicing, presentment is done electronically, through email or by an email alert directing the buyer to a secure portal to see the invoice. 
• Revenue cycles: the length of time from invoicing to payment of the invoice. E-invoicing shortens the revenue cycle, so businesses receive payment faster.

Your company has a face.

It might be your face, your logo, your store or office, or something else entirely, but your company brings a visual image to the minds of your customers.

When they see your colors, your logo, your style, they think of you. The way they feel about you comes to mind. They respond to your business items as they would respond to you, in person. They open that envelope, use that coupon, and trust that email, because they recognize that it comes from you.

There are businesses that go with the stock business card, choose office stationery off the shelf, and pick a template for their website.

This is false economy. They're losing out on the benefits of effective branding because they hope to save a few cents. The result is less trust in the business. Even when customers aren't consciously aware of it, they feel less confidence in dealing with a company that doesn't give that consistent brand image. The effect is less professional, less solid.

Customers may not even recognize the business -- and the letter goes in the wastebasket, the email goes unread, the ad goes unnoticed.

Don't be that company.

Here are some branding opportunities:

• Your stationery. Your logo and letterhead can be featured on all your communications, including email.
• Your packaging. Your colors and overall style can be reflected in the bags, wrap, or mailing containers you use.
• Your promotional items. Don't pick something new every time; you may get tired of the same look, but your customers won't. Vary the overall effect or change the item, but keep your brand consistent.
• Your website. If you have a brick and mortar store or office, visiting your website should feel like visiting your place of business. If your online presence is your major presence, then it's the face of your business. Don't jeapardize your brand by relying on a stock template everyone else is using.
  
• Your invoicing. SmartPay's electronic invoicing system gives your customers a custom portal to visit when they check their balance or pay their bills. It's reassuring to your clients, since they recognize you when they reach it. It also reinforces your brand, adding to the solidity and professionalism of your company's image. 

Talk with people who have gone to electronic invoices from paper billing, and you'll generally hear very positive things.

They'll tell you about the money they've saved, the way the new system has freed up their workers' time, even the increased level of satisfaction from workers who now spend less time on mundane paperwork and concentrate on more satisfying tasks. If they have a gripe, though, it will almost always be about the time involved in getting the data from their old system into the new one.

One large medical office that went with a different online billing system had a highly qualified worker inputting data for three months. SmartPay doesn't do that to you.

First, the system for adding customers is very efficient. You can see here that the interface is smooth and simple. Adding a customer is intuitive and quick, and doesn't require lots of clicking back and forth the way clunky older systems sometimes do. Click on "Add New Customer" as you see it on this screen, and you get an equally straightforward screen to work with. One click saves the data.

Second, if you already have your clients, customers, or patients in a database or spreadsheet, you can simply import them. SmartPay supports all the major systems that use CSV formats. That includes Excel, for example, and probably the system that you use in your office, too.

Not only does this friendly interface cut down on the time involved in moving your information into SmartPay, it also cuts down on the time involved in training staff, and the stress of the switch.