Invoicing

Too often small businesses do amazing work and forget to invoice their clients after the work is done. That's why our first tip is to make it a habit to invoice your client as soon as you have completed your work.

Send invoice to the client as soon as the work has been completed.

This may come as a shock to you but small businesses can often wait up to 14 weeks to get paid by their clients. To combat late payments, introduce payment terms, set reminders for overdue payments and follow up with the client to determine when payment will be made.

Set your invoice payment terms to a minimum of 28 days.
Set reminders for overdue invoices at 14, 30 and 60 days.

Payment methods

Having multiple ways to accept payments from your clients is essential to improving your cash flow. Our first payment tip is to accept credit cards, yes there is a small fee per transaction, but it is a small cost to greatly improve your cash flow. To accept credit cards you will have to register with a merchant. Braintree, WorldPay and Global Payments to name a few.

Sometimes clients are eager to pay their invoice but can't find an option to pay online. Often clients will go to your website to pay their invoice. We suggest offering an online payment option on your website. Many merchants offer online payment options with their services but the most common online payment service is PayPal.

Pro Tip: Connect your online payment service to your cloud accounting software to offer online payment options attached directly to the invoice you send.

If your services are charged on a monthly basis then why not request to they set up a direct debit. Direct debits make it simple and easy for your clients to pay you on a regular basis. Find Out More.

Outgoing Payments

Your business expenses are the biggest burden on your business' cash flow. Sometimes it helps to reassess your business expenses to ensure you're not paying too much for a product or service. Try to reduce your capital expenses and spread the cost of a purchase to improve your monthly cash flow. In other words its better for your business' cash flow to have multiple small payments in a month than to have one large payment.

Software

Cloud accounting software makes a huge difference when trying to improve your cash flow. The software has an array of features to help business owners monitor their business on the go, making it easier to create invoices, set reminders and offer easy payment options. Find Out More.