automatic payments

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!

Email this to someoneShare on FacebookTweet about this on TwitterShare on Google+Share on LinkedInShare on TumblrShare on RedditPrint this pageDigg this

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!

Email this to someoneShare on FacebookTweet about this on TwitterShare on Google+Share on LinkedInShare on TumblrShare on RedditPrint this pageDigg this