The Accounts Receivable Process involves a few more steps than the Accounts Payable Process to ensure your business stays on top of the money you’re owed. Much like the Payables process, this will include the senior accountant and your business’s management team to ensure accuracy.
Based on our experience, having someone from your company create and finalize customer invoices works best. This ensures accuracy and the ability to make adjustments when they’re needed.
From here, invoices are either sent out or emailed to the customer. In most cases, invoices are emailed and very little mail is involved these days. This has been a big boost for efficiency and cutting down the time involved in the receivables area.
Also included in receivables services is recording payments and deposits.
How Pricing Works for Accounts Receivable
Pricing the accounts receivable tasks has much to do with the volume of invoices that must be processed and who will perform each function of the Accounts Receivable process.
For example, if one business has staff creating and issuing invoices, pricing for this service will be adjusted to match our team’s reduced workload. This may sometimes reduce the cost by 25 – 50%. At the same time, other businesses may prefer to have everything done by the accounting team due to efficiency and to avoid overloading their staff.
Another factor that goes into pricing is whether the invoices are emailed each month. If invoices are paid automatically, you don’t need accounts receivable; you need pricing for general bookkeeping services. Another factor that may affect the price is if invoices have to be sent through the mail. This can increase time and expense for envelopes, paper, and stamps.
It’s good to remember that the cost may be lower to have in-house staff do some of the work, but it may be a better value to pay for the efficiency of a bookkeeper or accountant.