5 Bill Pay Programs for Small Businesses
You might enjoy various aspects of running your small business – helping others, the challenge, being your own boss. But ultimately, most people also want to get paid. And setting up bill pay services makes it that much easier to do so.
Whether you’re a B2B or B2C, adding bill pay functions make it easy on individuals or other businesses to get you paid in full and on time. That’s because it drastically reduces human error. Rather than you sending a paper invoice that could get lost in the mail, to someone who could drag their feet or forget to pay it, bill pay services ensure that you are paid regularly and reliably.
Also a plus: Companies that provide bill pay typically offer a wider variety of financial services that make running your small business all the easier.
Here are five bill pay providers your small business might want to consider.
Bill.com
Bill.com’s offerings help your small business both receive and send payments.
On the accounts payable (AP) side, Bill.com helps you save time by paying domestic and international vendors electronically. It offers digital invoices, automatic invoices, and organizational features such as being able to find past invoices, proof of payment and other documents. You can also access Bill.com’s solutions via its mobile app.
On the accounts receivable (AR) side, Bill.com allows you to receive payments directly in your bank account via ACH or credit card. You can create professional invoices, and send them by either U.S. mail or email. You can also set up a regular, recurring schedule for your invoices to better ensure you’re paid on time.
Melio
Melio offers a number of AP and AR options.
Melio allows your business to pay invoices both by bank transfer or your credit card – even if your vendor doesn’t accept credit cards. Member businesses can pay utilities, phone bills and more via the firm’s Melio Network, which spans 7,000 providers including American Express, AT&T, First Progress and more. It also lets small businesses pay multiple bills at once, and even split bills into multiple payments.
On the AR side, Melio lets your small business see every stage of your invoice’s lifecycle, from the second it’s generated to the moment it’s paid. You can sync invoices with your accounting software or add them manually, and you can send out invoices with built-in payment buttons. Then receivables are automatically reconciled on the accounting software.
Plastiq
Plastiq offers both Plastiq Pay and Plastiq Accept services.
Plastiq Pay allows your business to pay suppliers and vendors via credit, debt, ACH or wire. It offers automated invoice ingestion. You can set permissions to ensure that only certain personnel are able to authorize different payments. You can schedule and set recurring payments, track all of your payments and approve payments via the system’s mobile app.
Plastiq Accept, meanwhile, allows you to create and send personalized payment requests within minutes, add custom payment links to both invoices, web pages, emails and even texts, and set up QR codes for in-person payment needs. It also offers a virtual terminal that allows you accept and process payments from any phone, computer or mobile device.
Stripe
Stripe’s solutions primarily focus on helping your small business add bill pay and other AR functions.
Stripe can support small businesses of any sort, from subscription businesses to e-commerce stores to marketplaces. It supports dozens of payment methods, spanning more than 135 currencies, that all can be deposited into your bank account. Small businesses can quickly be set up with card, ACH and other payment methods for one-time or recurring payments. It also offers features such as automated failed-payment emails, automatic credit card updater and smart retries. The company claims that in 2019, it helped businesses recover 41% of failed invoices on average.
Wave
Wave is another AR-focused app. The company allows small businesses to get paid in as fast as two business days via all major credit cards, bank payments and even Apple Pay. Invoices can include secure “Pay Now” buttons, and payments will automatically flow into accounting records. Credit card payments can be accepted over the phone, online or in person. And Wave also allows small businesses to set up recurring billing with automatic payments.
Need More Help? Call Us.
Your small business could offer the greatest product or service in the world, but if it’s not supported by reliable payment services and other back-end financial and accounting programs, it might not realize its true potential.
We can help. McManamon & Co. provides a wide array of consulting services to small and midsize businesses, including helping companies determine the best systems and programs to suit their business needs.
If you’d like to learn more about what we can do for your firm, call us at 440.892.8900 or contact us online today.
Tags: bill pay, McManamon, McManamon & Co., small business, small business accounting, small business finances | Posted in accounting, McManamon & Co., small business