The key differentiator between a successful and growth-oriented IT staffing company and a nose-diving competitor is in their approach to inculcating a culture of constant improvement in their working methodologies. The growth-oriented enterprise always seeks to provide their employees with the latest digital tools that make working simpler for accountants by relegating manual repetitive tasks to machines (computers and software) and empowering teams of accountants and bookkeepers to focus more on core activities such as researching and improving workflow for higher productivity and more profits. This is a general lookout and is much truer in AR (account receivable) processing.
To get paid faster, staffing must first fine-tune their invoicing and dispatching process, but before getting to do this, the firm must focus on streamlining the timesheet submission task. Consultants form the frontline warriors and unless they are digitally enabled to deliver timesheets directly into the automation solution, no effort, however hard, will produce the desired result. Therefore a unified approach is required for getting paid faster with minimum effort. This is what CONSULT strives to achieve.
CONSULT’s unified approach starts with a robust timesheet submission module in which each consultant is allowed a safe and secure direct authenticated entry process. Once properly authenticated, the actual entry can be accomplished easily and in less time. It is not necessary that the entire timesheet submission for a defined period has to be done in a single go; the submitter can do it over a period of time allotted to him. Generally it corresponds to a block of predefined time such as fortnight, week or a month. IT staffing companies also take advantage of timesheet-non-receipt reminder features that consultants are regularly reminded to avoid delinquency.
The second important step for realizing faster payment is submitting a customer invoice that is 100% accurate and has all the annexures that the customer has requested. This can be tricky if the accountant is not using CONSULT – he or she will have to walk through several files and documents to ensure that specifications have been met and are fit for dispatch. Dispatching itself is itself a difficult process, but CONSULT makes it easier because it can be set to automatically dispatch once the invoice is generated and submission dates have been scheduled.
Little do we need to tell IT staffing firm managers why only regular reminders encourage customers to process their payments faster. Here again, you can schedule reminders until payment has been received into the firm’s banking account. You can easily tell when a payment is received because CONSULT invoice automation software is integrated with QuickBooks and uses the accounting software to verify payments and stop reminder invoice from being dispatched accidentally.
Combined with the reminding services for consultants and customers, CONSULT is the most formidable tool that can help your firm to realize payments at least 3X faster than any other method.
