e-Invoices

[eckhocreative]

As a small business we tend not to use huge amounts of energy, except for electricity to run computers.

However, as a small green accolade, we launched our CRM system where our customers can view all invoices and letters on the internet. We no longer send anything in the post, and the majority of our contact is by email.

Has anybody else tried this? If so, how did your customers respond to the change?

So far, the feedback we have had has been positive, and its quite nice to have all of our correspondence in one place.

Id be interested in hearing other peoples similar stories.

 

[panachesols]

I work for a recycling company and our clients now prefer emailed invoices. Its fast and effecient.

 

[Snippa]

I do all my invoicing via email. It saves paper, expense, and time. I love it, and I've never had a client complaint once.

 

[lightbeing creations]

We hardly ever send out paper these days and do most things online. Haven't quite yet got round to using a full-blown online CRM as I've not yet found the right one.

Is yours for your use only, or do you offer it as a service also? If so, I'd be interested in taking a look

 

[eckhocreative]

Our CRM was written in-house with the intention to sell it to businesses in the very near future or hosted service, we can certainly let you have a look and a demo, the same goes for any others who may be interested.

 

[lightbeing creations]

That sounds interesting....

 

[Naughty Vend]

Yes we have done the same since 2007 but a few months ago I had a conversation with a local (and senior) tax inspector down our local pub and according to him, onilne invoices are not acceptable as a "record" and should be printed out...

I questioned that as surely the government policy on green issues would have adapted to encapsulate online commerce and he confirmed again, no all invoices need printed. Again, but HMCE are going all online April 2010 so what's the gig with this... you need to keep records for seven years and the law states that these are physical records in an archive not data.

As to the accuracy of this statement, perhaps it should be investigated as it would also be a massive media report.

 

[eckhocreative]

Any invoices created in our system can be downloaded as a PDF or printed out for purposes you may require, other benefits of our CRM are secure customer record keeping of details, login details, website hosting tracking and of course invoice and payment tracking, alot better than maybe spreadsheets or pieces of paper floating around

 

[astutiumRob]

We no longer send anything in the post, and the majority of our contact is by email.
Has anybody else tried this?

We've been entirely "online" for invoices and customer communications for well over 10 years

had a conversation with a local (and senior) tax inspector down our local pub and according to him, onilne invoices are not acceptable as a "record" and should be printed out...

Items that can *only* be viewed online are not permanent records (as they can be changed) so *may* not be acceptable - you should download them or get them sent to you as attached PDFs etc - you do not need to print them ( HMRC inspectors are very happy to get a copy of all invoices on a CD rather than 84 ring binders of paper )

 

[jaffab]

I would love to have all my invoices (and statements and everything else) by email. This tends to be fine for the smaller companies, but whenever we have emailed invoices to the bigger companies, they end up not being payed and we have been asked to post copies of invoices.

Emailed invoices etc not only saves paper, but its faster and of course saves on the cost of a stamp so it works for us. Why the bigger companies we deal with cant deal with e-invoices is something I really cant understand.

 

[She Says]

This was something we thought a lot about, but as we sending orders containing on average 4-5 products, we decided we needed to send the customer a paper record of the order in with the order so they can make sure everything is there.
Our wholesale customers get electronic invoices but we still need to include a paper packing slip.

 

[Muktistudios]

agree with Jaffab

 

[seanstevens]

Many larger companies will not accept emailed invoices as they require the original to be in paper for their records. If you are receiving a few hundred invoices per month, printing them out is a pain and it is easier to have your suppliers send them via the post. It also gives you an instant excuse to delay payment for a few days.

Company I consult for sends out around 600 invoices per month, currently there are only 10 customers who accept e-invoices without the need for paper.

 

[camweb]

I email invoices as PDFs which clients seem to like, if I send them as Word docs not everyone has Word or the correct version of Word.

One advantage of sending invoices out in the post is that you can put leaflets with offers on in the same envelope as the invoice.

 

[greeneast]

We are purely and online business so all our customers receive invoices via email and can log into their account to check all their past invoices, but generally don't even need them. Only occasionally do we get a business request for an invoice before payment on larger orders - even then we email if possible. Most businesses are still happy to pay online using a credit card.

Packing however is as 'she says' says - A necessity to pick and pack multiple orders. We need to pull the items together then check and double check the items and customer before sealing the box and labelling for post. The packing slip also means the customer can double check the order when it arrives.

The only other paper included is a colourful postcard with our details on. We place one in every parcel, even repeat orders and have found this helps word of mouth sales. It's nice to suddenly see several customers with the same name or different names from the same street suddenly appear in the order list. If the cost of a postcard means one or more customers doing more to help the environment - it's worth while.

 

[KateCB]

One advantage of sending invoices out in the post is that you can put leaflets with offers on in the same envelope as the invoice.

We send out a PDF invoice, AND a PDF newsletter/offer/leaflet etc - been doing it for around 5 years now......