COVID-19 has caused a lot of challenges throughout different business industries, but it also opened lots of opportunities, especially in terms of accounting processes.
Social distancing and work-form-home setup may have shut the doors of many stores but online, it significantly boosted paperless transactions and electronic payments.
Here are some observations from the experiences of surviving companies about the changes brought by the pandemic into their accounting and bookkeeping methods:
Increase in the demand of mailed invoices
According to some trucking businesses, when the pandemic struck, the number of customers requesting mailed invoices skyrocketed. Its effect is generally positive from them because it quickened their billing time and ensured their transactions.
Some owners also reported that shoppers are now more willing to pay with electronic fund transfers.
It is a big relief because all they have to do is give their employees a desktop, clarify work requirements and let them work at home as if nothing happened.
Greater need for Third-party Payment Solutions
Many companies said that payment software are much needed now more than ever. They also emphasized their increasing demand for tools where invoices are exported and properly stored to a cloud system. According to them, this helps in effective data storage and quick sending of copies to customers so they can pay instantly.
The outcome is that they can now offer smooth transactions free of delay and they are even able to give attractive discounts for quick-payments.
This shows that despite the crisis that is going around, people will still purchase because they have needs that they must meet. This is guaranteed by electronic payments.
Rise of Document Collection and Management Through Mobile Apps
Among the trends of 2021 is that certain companies are now equipped with mobile apps which instantly collect data and scan documents. This means through a mobile device connected to an imaging system, billing time for many products and services is now shorter because there is automation in which orders are processed into the system.
Businesses are also able to cut the time it takes to create an invoice from days to minutes. This ensures that the transaction is a done deal and all that’s left to do is to collect payments.
Automated Accounting
Automation is now a best practice in terms of accounting. It gives companies better efficiency and accuracy as it reduces the room for mistakes and makes processes run at the shortest period of time.
Whether the business software used is a hosted system or in the cloud, nothing can discount the fact that automation made billing and payment less complex especially at the time of COVID-19. It taught many owners and managers to be practical and made us realize that operations can still continue without the in-store back offices.
The key is to be agile because the rules of business are subject for change over time so everyone needs to adapt because you’ll never know what may happen next and what impact it may cause you.
