Invoicing becomes the heart of every business when it comes to its financial success! It doesn’t make any difference if your job role caters to being a freelancer or a business owner – managing invoices forms the basis of your customer satisfaction and retention. Most of the businesses manage invoices manually through paper documents, spreadsheets, or word processors. This causes heavy chaos and leads to receipts being misplaced. Here’s when online invoicing software plays a crucial role.
Invoicing software completely transforms the way you create, manage, and send invoices to your clients. Let’s scroll down to understand both manual invoicing and digital invoicing in detail.
Introduction to Manual Invoicing!
Manual invoicing refers to creating and managing invoices manually, which involves human intervention. These invoices are normally managed using handwritten paper documents, Mircosoft Excel, and Word.
For paper bills, write down the client’s name, services or products bought, prices, and taxes; compute the total amount to be paid for each transaction by yourself or using a calculator. With Microsoft Excel and Word, you can customize the fields and insert the computation formula to make it easier and more time-saving.
While manual invoicing offers full control and customization, it consumes more human efforts and time. Also, it is prone to human errors and mistakes, which might lead to heavy losses for the business.
Introduction to Online Invoicing Software!
Cloud billing software is a digital tool that digitizes creating, sending, and managing invoices with just a few clicks. It automatically computes totals, fetches product details, customer details, sends payment reminders, schedules recurring payments, and generates reports to streamline billing process.
Best GST Invoicing Software offer GST compliant receipts to the customers and can be integrated with accounting solutions. Also, they offer multiple payment gateways for customer satisfaction.
Manual Invoicing Vs Online Invoicing Software!
| Manual Invoicing | Online Invoicing Software |
| Manual invoicing is time consuming as it involves human efforts. | Invoicing software offers automated creation and management of invoices saving time. |
| Handwritten invoices are prone to errors and can lead to heavy loss. | Digital invoices are automated and have high accuracy reducing errors and losses. |
| These invoices are completely managed by humans, they can be fully customized based on requirements. | These invoices can be customized depending on the solution providers. But, there are only a few invoicing software which can be tailored to your needs. |
| Manual invoicing generally incurs no or low cost. | Online invoicing software comes with free plans as well as subscription based modules. |
| Tracking payments becomes a difficult task when bills are managed manually. | It facilitates automating payment tracking and sending reminders unpaid invoices. |
| For growing businesses manual invoices become inefficient as it turns difficult to manage business needs. | The best GST invoicing software can be scaled based on your growing business needs. |
| Compliance needs should be handled manually which is hectic and time-consuming. | Invoicing software comes with inbuilt GST support that simplify return filing, track your tax liabilities, and generate compliance reports. Also, they notify you about the approaching GST deadlines ensuring your file returns on time to avoid penalties. |
| It becomes difficult to sync invoicing data with accounting, GST, and other industry specific systems. | The cloud invoicing solutions can be easily integrated with accounting, tax filing, and other systems ensuring data sync. |
| Tracking and reporting of all the sales data is done manually. | Real-time dashboard and reports offer insights that drive strategic decision making eliminating human efforts. |
| Manual invoicing can be good if you are just starting your business and have only a few clients. | As your business grows, it’s better to migrate to the online invoicing software to satisfy increasing needs. |
| Maintaining professionalism in invoices becomes impossible. | Online invoicing software allows you to create professional invoices using the read-templates. You can also customize invoices based on your brand theme. |
| Physically maintaining invoices and skimming through them takes a lot of time. | It is easier to maintain all the invoices and find a specific invoice detail is just a matter of a few clicks. |
When to Use Manual Invoicing?
- If you are just starting your business and have only a few clients to count on, fingers!
- You create only a couple of invoices each month.
- You wish for full control of invoice design and format.
- Your budget constraints are tight.
- You don’t want to rely on software solutions and don’t feel comfortable to use digital tools.
- You don’t need to track your invoices and have pending payments.
When to Migrate to Online Invoicing Software?
- Your business is progressing; your invoice number and client base is increasing.
- Issuing GST-compliant invoices has become a routine for you.
- You are investing most of you time in tracking payments and due dates.
- You want real-time insights into your tax revenue and tax liabilities for strategic decision-making.
- You always end up with late payments and thus need payment reminders to avoid delays.
- You need solutions to handle your accounts, taxes, and massive data records.
Which is Better Manual Invoicing or Online Invoicing Software?
Invoicing software is much better than manual invoicing as it saves time and effort! Let’s check out why you should choose a digital invoicing solution over manual invoices.
- Get branded invoicing templates that match your business theme and help you enhance your brand presence.
- Avoid payment delays through auto-alerts sent to the clients for payment dues.
- A central repository for all the invoices facilitates easier access to the specific details.
- The built-in dashboard gives real-time insights into sales, taxes, and payment dues that help in making improved decisions.
- Doesn’t matter you produce 10 or 1000 invoices, it can be scaled based on your growing business demands.
- Get auto-updates on tax changes, government circulars, and filing due dates. This eliminates the need to keep a check manually.
- Online invoicing software is environment friendly as it encourages paperless invoices, reducing physical storage costs and printing expenses.
- It supports multiple payment gateways ranging from QRs to card payments, ensuring faster checkouts.
Let’s Conclude!
Manual invoices are good but only until your business size is too small. Growing businesses leverage online invoicing software that saves time, efforts, and environment. It not only helps you create branded invoices but also assists in eliminating payment delays. Invoicing software has multiple benefits over manual invoicing, so choose your solution wisely.
