In today’s ever-changing business landscape, adapting your payment methods to fit your specific business approach is crucial. Equally important is providing flexibility for your customers. Offering flexible payment choices has gone beyond convenience to an absolute necessity.
That’s where our latest solution, Payment Plans comes into play. Payment Plans are designed precisely to bring ease to accepting and collecting instalment payments while ensuring simplicity in setup and management.
Taking instalment payments has been a complicated process for many accounts receivables teams
Businesses often require structured payment plans spread over time, aiding struggling customers needing extended payment periods and aligning with specific business processes. These could include:
- Instalment-based invoice settlements with customers
- Monthly subscription plans
- Annual commitments paid in quarterly instalments, such as school/tuition fees.
Although most accounting software excels in accepting invoice/ one-off payments, automating recurring payments has previously been a challenge. This often leads to using spreadsheets and manual methods by accounts teams.
The problem with manual processes is more than the time they consume; they’re also prone to errors that trigger disputes, thereby elongating payment cycles.
Calculating instalment amounts may seem straightforward, but a range of scenarios can make it complicated – and often, these are situations that businesses must implement:
- Incorporating a deposit/ down payment on top of instalments
- Adjusting instalment amounts according to a specified end date
- Changing instalment dates according to banking or working days based on location/region
What if you can ditch creating spreadsheet formulas and cross-referring to calendars? With Payment Plans, you’ll now have an automated process to optimise how you’re setting up your instalment and recurring payments.
What are the types of Payment Plans in ezyCollect?
Currently, you can choose three payment structures to enable when setting up Payment Plans for your customers:
- Fixed instalment amounts – Payment plan based on the instalment amounts your customer needs to pay until the total balance amount is completed. The system adjusts the number of instalment payments based on the amount.
- Fixed number of instalments – Payment plan based on the number of instalments to complete the total balance amount. The system adjusts the instalment amount based on the number of instalments.
- Subscription plans – Ongoing payments based on subscription to a product or service. It ends only when a subscription is cancelled.
What makes Payment Plans different?
With Payment Plans, you can offer payment solutions that suit your customers and still have complete control over your accounts receivables.
Payment Plans involve three steps:
- Your customer authorises you to collect the instalment payments by submitting a Direct Debit Authorisation.
- You set up recurring payments at the invoice or customer level by selecting the Payment Plan type, frequency, and start and end dates. The system computes instalment amount in real-time as you make adjustments.
- Once set up, customers receive email notifications about their Payment Plan arrangement, including payment schedules and an instalment amounts table.
Seems simple, right? That’s because it is. And because it’s integrated into the ezyCollect accounts receivable automation platform, Payment Plans provide an array of benefits:
Minimise unpaid invoices
By offering convenient payment options, you encourage customers to pay their bills according to their preferences, helping you decrease the number of unpaid invoices.
Simplify Recurring Payments
Wave goodbye to manual calculations and spreadsheets. Set up recurring payments effortlessly in weekly, fortnightly, and monthly frequencies and let the system do the maths of computing for instalment amounts.
Customise flexibility
Tailor payment structures to fit your business and customers’ needs. You can offer fixed monthly amounts, adjust the number of instalments, or even subscription-based plans.
Gain financial control
Apply Payment Plans at the invoice or customer level. This control enables you to optimise your accounts receivables in a way that works best for your business.
Get valuable insights into payment behaviours
Understanding payment trends and tracking progress is critical to making informed decisions. Our Payment Schedule Reporting functionality provides insights to help you confidently drive flexible payment strategies.
Automate your reconciliation
Instalment payments for invoices are reconciled as soon as the complete balance is settled. This isn’t a dream but the reality of Payment Plans, freeing up your time and energy.
Breeze through setbacks
Ensuring a seamless recovery process is crucial when instalment payments encounter a hiccup. “Collect Now” functionality swiftly guides you back to balance, ensuring minimal disruptions in payments.
Get started with Payment Plans
Please get in touch with your Customer Success Manager to learn more about adding Payment Plans to your ezyCollect account.
Not an ezyCollect user?
It’s about time you and your customer experience flexibility in payments. Speak with our payments experts to learn more about options for your business.
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