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.