Manage Accounts Receivable remotely using an online invoicing tool
[et_pb_section fb_built="1" _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_row _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_column _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" type="4_4"][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"]Remote work has been steadily on the rise over the past decade. Recent research by GetApp found that remote work nearly quadrupled over the past 10 years. With added impetus from the COVID-19 situation, remote work has become the new normal for many workers. This shift may be here to stay—a recent survey by Gartner found that 74% of CFOs intend to shift some employees to remote work permanently.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_column _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" type="4_4"][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"]As a business owner, your primary concern about remote work may be the productivity of your employees. The good news is that there’s a lot you can do to help them be productive. If you put the proper tools in place to allow them to carry out their usual tasks efficiently while working remotely, they’re more likely to show the kind of productivity you’re looking for. This is especially true for Accounts Receivable, which is an area where many businesses end up using Excel for invoicing. A 2017 article by Small Business Trends revealed that a whopping 69 percent of small businesses trust spreadsheets to track their invoices and spending. The reasons are obvious—Excel is good with numbers. Calculations are easy, and it’s simple to manually correct small errors like an item value that’s entered wrongly. But for an invoicing team to function remotely, it needs more than a tool that can calculate. Team members need to be able to send estimates and invoices, collect payments, share insights and information easily, and most of all, stay up to date. This is where spreadsheets tend to fail, and where online invoicing tools can help. In this article, we’ll look at the different aspects of the invoicing process and how online invoicing tools offer an edge over Excel for remote work.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_column _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" type="4_4"][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"]1. Collaboration In a traditional office setting, a lot of information gets exchanged during face-to-face interactions. Since this is out of the question with remote work, it’s important to ensure that your team members are still able to collaborate and keep the show running. Shared notes: If messages regarding financial transactions are exchanged via collaboration tools like a chat group or email thread, it means they are not linked with the corresponding transactions. As a result, your team members have to go back and forth between their messages and their invoicing tasks to get the right information. Since online invoicing tools are designed for a multi-user environment, they allow your team members to communicate in a space that’s connected to the work they’re doing. Users can record important details regarding invoices or estimates as comments that can be viewed by other users in the organization. Shared access: With Excel, it’s challenging to provide your team members with access to the information they need, while maintaining the security of sensitive financial information. Online invoicing tools, on the other hand, allow you to give users specific role-based access—you can define what they can and cannot view or modify. Shared reports: Collaboration is not just about conversations—it’s also about making sure everyone is in the loop. Online invoicing tools allow you to schedule sales and other reports to be automatically emailed to your team members. This helps them stay up-to-date on the team’s activities, wherever they are.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url="https://go.zoho.com/KwD" url_new_window="on" button_text="Access Free Invoicing Software" button_alignment="center" _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" custom_button="on" button_text_color="#FFFFFF" button_bg_color="#0C71C3" button_border_width="0px" button_border_radius="22px" button_use_icon="off" filter_saturate="74%" button_text_shadow_style="preset2" box_shadow_style="preset3"][/et_pb_button][et_pb_image src="https://blog.gotmenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/WhatsApp-Image-2021-07-09-at-11.04.45.jpeg" _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_column _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" type="4_4"][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"]2. Organization If your company does invoices in Excel, each invoice has to be created in a separate file for recordkeeping and sending to the customer. Organizing separate files for each invoice means a lot of nested folders, which makes it hard to find the individual files later. A better solution would be a central repository where all the invoices are stored, searchable, and available for your team members whenever they’re needed. Online invoicing tools provide this setup by default—since they are cloud-based, all the transactions are saved on secure servers, and team members with permission to access them can find and view them instantaneously.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_column _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" type="4_4"][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"]3. Keeping track of invoice numbers Accidentally duplicating invoice numbers can cause a huge and possibly expensive headache for your company. Besides making it difficult to match up incoming payments, it can also cause confusion during the end of the fiscal year and tax season. Keeping track of invoice numbers becomes more challenging during remote work when employees are working less closely with each other. You can avoid duplication by assigning number batches to different staff, but that requires an extra layer of manual coordination, and it makes it more likely that you’ll have gaps in your invoice numbers (which in turn makes it harder to check for duplicates). Online invoicing tools eliminate this problem by centralizing the invoice numbering system. Once you set up how you want the invoices to be numbered, the application ensures that all your invoice numbers are unique and continuous, even if multiple users are creating invoices concurrently. This eliminates gaps and duplicates, making it easy for you to find and match transactions.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url="https://go.zoho.com/KwD" url_new_window="on" button_text="Access Free Invoicing Software" button_alignment="center" _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" custom_button="on" button_text_color="#FFFFFF" button_bg_color="#0C71C3" button_border_width="0px" button_border_radius="22px" button_use_icon="off" filter_saturate="74%" button_text_shadow_style="preset2" box_shadow_style="preset3"][/et_pb_button][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_column _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" type="4_4"][et_pb_video src="https://youtu.be/4g9T20wRdio" _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"][/et_pb_video][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" hover_enabled="0" sticky_enabled="0"]4. Errors in transactions Excel, as good as it is for calculation, can’t keep track of your customers and items. When you create invoices in a spreadsheet, these details are mostly copied from other sources, like emails or previous transactions. It’s easy for errors to happen during this copy-paste process, especially if you have a high volume of invoices. If you find one mistake, you can advise your team members to be more careful. But if you see these errors happening often, maybe it’s time to question the tool! Online invoicing tools give you the option to save your customer Read MoreExploring Zoho Invoice
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”4px|||0px||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” custom_padding=”||0px|0px||”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” min_height=”450px” custom_margin=”-20px|||3px||” custom_padding=”7px|||2px||”] Zoho Invoice is an easy to use invoicing platform where you can send invoices to your customers and collect payments. We’ve focussed on keeping things simple yet packed with everything you would need to stay focussed on growing your business. We give you carefully designed invoices, remind you to collect payments, track the time you spend on projects and help you keep a record of expenses. You don’t have to worry about crunching numbers to figure your sales is doing, we do it for you. Let’s get started and see how you can make the most of Zoho Invoice, shall we? Before You Get Started There are a few things that you need before you get started with Zoho Invoice. If you’re reading this, you probably have it all. Anyway, you would need: a device – computer / laptop / mobile phone / tablet; a stable internet connection; and a browser or the Zoho Invoice mobile app in your mobile device. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” min_height=”399.6px” custom_margin=”-50px|auto||auto||”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_video src=”https://youtu.be/4g9T20wRdio” _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”-32px|||||”][/et_pb_video][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”] Browser Support Zoho Invoice supports the latest version of the following browsers: Chrome Firefox Safari Edge [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”] Signing Up Since you have all that you need to start using Zoho Invoice, let’s go to www.zoho.com/invoice. Signing up in Zoho Invoice is as simple as creating an email account. To sign up: Click the SIGN UP FOR FREE button in the Zoho Invoice Home page. Enter your Company Name, your email address and a secure password. Select your business location and click the CREATE ACCOUNT button. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https://blog.gotmenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Invoicing-made-easy-with-Zoho-Invoice.png” alt=”zoho invoice” title_text=”Invoicing made easy, with Zoho Invoice” url=”https://go.zoho.com/KwD” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”] Setting Up your Organization In this page, you need to enter the basic information about your business to set up your organization in Zoho Invoice. Enter your Organization Name and a Portal Name. Select your Business Location and enter your business address. Select the appropriate Currency and the Language. Select a Time Zone. Click the Upload your logo button to upload your business’s logo. This logo will be displayed in the transactions you create. Click Save. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”] Signing In If you’ve already signed up in Zoho Invoice, you can directly sign in to Zoho Invoice using your email address. To sign in: Click SIGN IN in the top-right corner of the window. Enter your email address and your password. Click Sign In. If you’ve configured the TFA (Two Factor Authtication), enter the OTP (One Time Password) that is sent to your mobile phone and click Verify Code. If you’ve not configured the TFA, click the Manage TFA button to configure TFA. Learn more. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”] Get to know Zoho Invoice Let’s take a look at where we’ve placed things in Zoho Invoice home so that you can navigate without a fuss. Dashboard – Gives you an overview of your company’s sales and expenses; top projects; due receivables, and a lot more. To know more about various sections of the dashboard, click here. Sidebar – Allows you to switch between different modules of the product easily. You can raise estimates, invoices, record expenses directly from these modules. Quick Create – Enables you to instantly create any transaction from any page with a single click. Gear Icon – Lets you access the application settings to configure and customize it for your business. Help Icon – Gives you quick access to help documentation or our Support team. Notifications – Notifies you on what’s happening in the application, your client portal and also updates you on the new features that has been added to the product. Organization – Allows you to manage/switch between multiple Zoho Invoice organizations. Recent History – View and go to the recently visited transactions or contacts. [/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https://blog.gotmenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Zoho-Invoice-a-one-stop-solution-to-all-your-invoicing-requirements.png” alt=”zoho invoice” title_text=”Zoho Invoice – a one-stop solution to all your invoicing requirements” url=”https://go.zoho.com/KwD” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”] Navigation in a Module We’ve designed the module home page to make it very easy for you to create transactions, filter them, navigate to module settings and perform other functions. Page Filters – Enables you to filter the list in the module based on a certain criteria, even based on your own criteria. Creation Button – Helps you to create a transaction or contact or item depending on the module you’re in. Hamburger Icon – Contains the options to sort the module based on created time, last modified time, date, invoice number etc., and options to import and export the data of the respective module. It also contains the option to go to the preferences and a link to the frequently asked questions of the respective module. Action Buttons – Allows you to perform various actions on a transaction in the respective module. Collapse Button – Allows you to collapse the sidebar providing more space to navigate within modules. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”-82px|||||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_post_slider posts_number=”10″ include_categories=”139″ bg_overlay_color=”#0C71C3″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”-4px|||||” custom_padding=”||45px|||”][/et_pb_post_slider][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_social_media_follow _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” global_module=”10723″][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” url=”https://www.facebook.com/zoho” _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#3b5998″ follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]facebook[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” url=”https://www.twitter.com/zoho” _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#00aced” follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]twitter[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”linkedin” url=”https://www.linkedin.com/company/zoho” _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#007bb6″ follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]linkedin[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”instagram” url=”https://www.instagram.com/business_tools_online/” _builder_version=”4.9.3″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#ea2c59″ follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]instagram[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][/et_pb_social_media_follow][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
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