Get paid faster, save money, have happier customers

John Kowalonek

Reading time: 2 mins

Most packaged food manufacturers and distributors like yourself find that wholesale customers expect to receive and pay their bills online. And they want to pay in a way that’s most convenient to them; credit cards, debit cards, single-use cards, or bank accounts. What’s most interesting is that customers appreciate an excellent online experience. Some call it consumerization; I call it common sense.

One of our clients, a major beverage manufacturer/distributor, moved from an old, home-built online bill and payment solution to Sorriso Smart Pay and received kudos like this from clients:

“Thank you for finally creating a system that makes it easy for me to see what I spend, what I need to pay and when its due, I love it.”

Customer adoption multiplied, and the solution paid for itself in months, allowing this packaged foods company to:

  • reassign several people in their call center,
  • eliminate the need for their drivers to collect payments,
  • accept credit card payments at no cost to them, and
  • dramatically reduce delinquencies.

The lesson? Clarity and simplicity win. Customers go online when billing information is at their fingertips, and the payment process is simple. And you both win.

Sorriso can put your accounts receivable online in just a few weeks, regardless of what financial system you use for billing your clients. We’ll deliver a Fortune 100 proven, modern, mobile-ready user experience that customers will thank you for. You can use your existing payment provider or ours.

Whether you supply specialty foods locally or manufacture and deliver internationally, there’s a Sorriso Smart Pay solution that meets your needs.

Join our mailing list, or schedule a 15-minute discovery call with one of our industry experts. Let’s see if Sorriso Smart Pay is right for your business!

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Accept credit card payments at no cost to you

John Kowalonek

Reading time: 2 mins

A few weeks ago I introduced Sorriso Smart Pay and the success that one of our clients has achieved. Today I’d like to speak a little about credit card payments.

As a packaged food manufacturer or distributor you need to keep your prices in line with the expectations of retail outlets. And retail outlets want to pay in a way that’s most convenient to them, credit cards, debit cards, single-use cards, or bank accounts. The cost of credit card processing presents you with a dilemma, do you offer credit cards and increase prices so you can cover the expenses, and then offer a discount for bank payments, or do you just eat it? Will your prices be non-competitive? What about your margins?

Credit card expenses can be high. When a customer uses a credit card, you pay two sets of fees, a non-negotiable base fee that pays the card issuer and the card network, and then fees to the payment provider that gives you access to the network. Base fees average anywhere from 1.5% to 3.5% depending on the card used and your business type; you have no control over them. Payment providers charge a much smaller fee, often based on total expected volume. Accept cards and that mom and pop retailer will use their travel card to pay their $10,000 bill; and at 3.5% that would be $350!

With Sorriso Smart Pay, customers can use credit cards at no charge to you. As long as you also offer payment by debit card or bank ACH, 48 states allow you to recover your credit card fees through direct charges to the customer, up to 4% of the customer payment (2% for customers in Colorado).

When your customer’s billing or delivery address is in one of the 48 states (Connecticut and Massachusetts excepted), Sorriso Smart Pay will calculate, display, and charge the legally compliant surcharge. You keep your price competitive; your customer sees the fee before paying, they can switch to a different payment method if it’s too much.

Convenience for all!

Join our mailing list, or schedule a 15-minute discovery call with one of our industry experts. Let’s see if Sorriso Smart Pay is right for your business!

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There’s magic in automatic payments

John Kowalonek

Reading time: 2 mins

Your CFO’s eyes will light up when your online A/R solution supports automatic payments.

With automatic payments, customers create a set of rules that monitor their accounts and then pay bills for those accounts automatically. Bills can vary in amount and arrive at different times, so automatic payments accommodate variability in customer spending. Rules can include when to pay the bill, pay the minimum due, the full amount, another amount, or up to a maximum amount. Automatic payment solutions keep customers informed of upcoming payments and issues using notifications, let customers change their payment rules to address cash availability, but are generally hands-off and happen without human intervention.

With automatic payments, the A/R department gets a good insight into cash flow for customers that sign up for the feature. With incentives such as discounts, automatic payments can dominate your customer’s payment methods and help eliminate delinquencies. It’s almost magic for your CFO.

Don’t confuse automatic payments with recurring charges supported by many payment providers. Where automatic payments are triggered by bill arrival, bill amount, and due date, and allow the customer to establish payment rules, provider-supported recurring charges usually charge a fixed amount on a specific day of the month and are used mostly for subscriptions. Automatic payments are a far more advanced feature, designed to handle variability in customer spending and payment dates.

During the Great Recession, one of our Financial Services clients used automatic payments as a way of bringing delinquent customers into compliance. They promised not to report the delinquency on their loan or lease to credit agencies if the customer set up automatic payments and made those payments for 6 months. The program was a success, bringing the vast majority of delinquent customers back into compliance within months.

Automatic payments are built into Sorriso Smart Pay. Join our mailing list, or schedule a 15-minute discovery call with one of our industry experts. Let’s see if Sorriso Smart Pay is right for your business!

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How you present bills online matters to your customers and wallet

John Kowalonek

Reading time: 2 mins

Your customer’s experience is key, and how they view your bills makes a difference in how they understand your bills, their ability to request clarification or dispute charges, their proclivity toward early payment, and as a result, your cost to serve them.

Several factors determine the best possible presentation model;

  • Complexity — are your bills simple and always the same, or have variable line items and layers of charges?
  • Clarity — do your bills sometimes need clarification, like a first bill, change in service, or last bill?
  • Bill Type — is your billing based on periodic statements that sum up products or services delivered or invoices, where each delivery is paid separately?
  • Opportunity — do your bills present an opportunity for additional sales with individually targeted offers that vary over time?
  • Media — do your bills need to display properly on a variety of devices?

These factors determine whether a simple summary backed by a PDF of the bill or a more sophisticated and dynamic presentation with sorting, filtering, charts, and drill-ins makes sense.

In short, the more sophisticated and variable your billing, and the more you want to use the bill as a way to communicate timely, personalized offers, the more you’ll benefit from a dynamic presentation. A well-considered dynamic bill presentation can reduce calls and disputes AND create new sales, saving you time and money while improving cash flow.

But remember, always keep it simple. Give customers a quick summary and a quick way to pay. If it looks good at the top level, they won’t bother to drill in and you’re more likely to get paid early.

Sorriso Smart Suite supports all these models. Join our mailing list, or schedule a 15-minute discovery call with one of our industry experts. Let’s see if Sorriso Smart Smart Suite is right for your business!

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Sorriso & GDPR – Privacy By Design & By Default

Brendan McEvoy

Sorriso GDPR

Sorriso Smart Suite products have always had data protection as part of their DNA and the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) confirms our long standing belief that the best way to safeguard someone’s personal data is to design solutions that way from the start. We have always incorporated industry best practice in our products including data encryption (at rest and in transit), audit trails, data retention and purge rules and self-service subject access requests.

  • Privacy as a default setting – it is built in.
  • Proactive approach to privacy – privacy at the forefront.
  • Full functionality – privacy without impairment.
  • End to end security – securely obtained, securely retained & securely destroyed.

It is important to note that GDPR compliance is not solely down to the products you use in your organisation (although they can help) – it is a culture.  Privacy By Design is a key feature of GDPR with the onus on all to put privacy at the heart of everything you do. Proper policies and procedures are needed across the whole organisation to ensure GDPR compliance. Privacy By Design has been part of the Sorriso culture for many years and it remains at the forefront of our minds while designing and developing our Smart Suite products.

 

Further reading:

GDPR – Information Commissioner’s Office

GDPR – How to be prepared on 25 May

Data Protection By Design: GDPR Compliance Starts With Software

GDPR – 14 things you wanted to know and were afraid to ask

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