Virtually all advanced businesses are now using digital invoices for receiving their payments and other transactions. If you are a business owner who wants to improve the image of your business and wants to simplify the payment system, using a digital invoice system will help you achieve your goals. A digital invoice is an online or on-screen invoice that can be sent online to the receiver through email, a Whatsapp message or by any other online platform; it can be viewed and processed digitally without having to use paper. Digital invoicing is a better way to go about your business; it's economical, quicker, has a lower chance of errors, gets registered into your accounting process seamlessly, and is more environmentally friendly than the conventional paper invoicing. Electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops that are connected to the internet are in abundance. So, it is more than likely that some operations and procedures that were typically done manually on paper or by physical work are going to become computerized. (Like many other jobs being devoured by automation, invoicing too is moving towards digitalization) Computerization of these manual processes that are essential for a business usually allows you to optimize the working of your enterprise and enables it to run more efficiently - and sending invoices is no exception. You can have your own digital invoice made and customized over at Fresh Books. Below are some ways of how digital invoicing will help your business:

  • It's a cheaper option

As the name tells you, digital invoicing is done by digital means. Meaning no or very less paper is used. Yes, the paper gets used occasionally in the world of digital invoicing but not so often and so it has a negligible effect. Having the privilege of sending all your invoices digitally, you have to spend almost no amount of money purchasing paper to make your invoices and no amount of money to send these invoices to your customers. The cost of sending the conventional manual invoices is a lot more than digital invoices. A manual invoice system has a lot of costs, first, the direct costs of paper, ink, printing the invoice and then all the costs related to mailing the invoice to the customers; these are the indirect costs associated with completing any given task. In manual invoicing, you have to pay an employee to write or type in the particular data to produce each invoice and then pack the invoice in a mailing envelope and then take the envelope to the mailing company. What looks a simple and easy procedure on the surface is a lot more complex and costly when you dig in. This is why manual invoicing costs more as it takes a lot of labor to do the job. Digital invoicing is a lot cheaper than its conventional counterpart, bringing costs significantly down. With virtually no cost for paper, printing, and mailing, digital invoicing is done through telecommunications, meaning it will be carried by signals rather than mail, which costs next to nothing. With less money spent on invoicing, you will have a greater amount that you can invest elsewhere in your business.

  • Gets you paid faster

It's obvious that digital invoicing is faster than paper invoicing. But how much faster? Let's view the paper invoicing method in greater detail and then compare it to digital invoicing. Whenever a product or service has been fully provided and it's time to request for payment, a document is created that has the details of the products or services provided and their respective costs are mentioned. The sum of all these costs is mentioned in the invoice. This process of creating the invoice manually can either be done by hand or by typing the details into a spreadsheet or document. After this document is made it is printed on paper and then put into an envelope if the invoice has to go somewhere else to reach the customer. There are cases when customers are physically present at the place and can get their invoice directly but that's an exception. So after it has been enveloped and the address of the client is mentioned over it, the envelope is either given to a courier service or is transported to its destination by an employee of the firm. The delivery of the invoice can either take a few hours or a few weeks, depending on the location of the customer and how fast the means of transport are. The average time taken for local first-class mail to be delivered is 2 or 3 days, local refers to the same city or state. The average time taken for mail to be delivered within the country is 3 to 5 days. The transfer of the invoice from the firm to its client is subject to delay due to weekend holidays and can only be processed on business days. Eventually, when it reaches the customer, the customer may take their time to make their payment and the time that payment takes to reach back to the company varies. Contrarily, using a digital invoicing system significantly compresses the time period between the provision of a good or service to a customer and their payment reaching the provider. Digital invoicing has ready-made invoice templates all you have to do is add the specific product or service that has been sold and its details will automatically be written as all details are already fed in the system. You will be able to instantly deliver the invoice to the customer by e-mail or by any other means. Your customer will receive the invoice as an email notification pops and you will be paid soon after. 

While these are just two, there are a handful of other ways in which your business can be benefitted by adopting a digital invoicing system, which includes seamless compatibility with your accounts and payment systems and how digital invoicing has a low chance of errors. No doubt digital invoicing is the way to a successful future for your business.