The business office of a media company often spends considerable time and effort on manual processes. These pain points impact your cash flow and productivity. Modernizing your workflows with integrated electronic payments can break this cycle and improve your financial performance.
Paper Invoices and Checks Create Headaches
Many radio stations still print out paper invoices, mail them and await checks in the mail. As a result, the time for payment can exceed 60 days. That’s not the only disadvantage.
There’s also considerable manual work involved. Staff must print invoices, seal them, add postage and deliver them to the post office. We’ve heard from customers that this alone can take up to two business days!
When checks do come in, there’s more work to enter them and prepare them for deposit. It’s an endless cycle of inefficiency. It puts more strain on your staff and keeps them from working on more strategic operations and collection activities.
There are hard costs associated with this as well. These include:
- Paper and envelopes
- Ink and toner
- Postage
- Labor
Even if you’ve adopted some forms of electronic payments, you’ll still face pain points in manual work if they aren’t integrated.
Manual Credit Card Payments Create More Pain Points
If staff currently enter customers’ credit card numbers to make payments, there’s a risk of making an error. Should this occur, discrepancies are hard to pinpoint, and customers can get upset. Overall, it slows down the payment cycle even more.
Manual credit card runs also open you up to disputes. Advertisers may inadvertently not recognize a charge and file a dispute. Your station may incur fees due to this, and you’ll have to sort things out with the customer. It can create a negative experience that could jeopardize future business.
Without integrated electronic payments that enable customers to pay online securely, you may be keeping credit card numbers in unsecure places. These numbers could be on paper or a computer with no security to protect them. If these fall into the wrong hands, there’s the potential for fraud, and you’ll be liable.
No matter the source of manual pain points, you can mitigate risk, deliver a secure payment portal and reduce days outstanding by modernizing your processes.
Integrated Electronic Payments End the Cycle of Manual Pain Points
An integrated electronic payment solution streamlines the entire process. Here’s how it works:
- You generate the invoices each month, and the system emails them to customers automatically.
- Customers receive their statements and can easily pay them online. They can create an account or use guest checkout. The latter option is convenient for customers, and we’ve seen payments occur within minutes!
- After customers make payments, funding can be as fast as the next day.
- Reconciliation within your AR and/or traffic system occurs.
The advertiser portal has more features that support the integrated process. Customers can pay multiple invoices, which is very beneficial for agencies. They can manage their account and review their payment history. As a result, you may see fewer phone calls from advertisers about these questions.
Another positive is that all transactions are secure and compliant. Advanced security like end-to-end encryption and tokenization protects credit card numbers. Your customers can feel confident making online payments with you.
Make Electronic Payments a Priority
Manual practices are overwhelming your financial staff and slowing down your cash flow. You can break this cycle by adopting integrated electronic payment solutions like PayNow. It has all the features and security you need and connects with each of our radio traffic platforms.
