"Paper-based systems consume lots of time and money dealing with printing, stuffing, mailing and more," says Rob Ross, president of Alert Management Systems. "Switching your A/R customers to electronic billing via fax or email (or even through a customer portal on your website) opens up a whole new world of lower administrative cost for your and your customer and accelerated cash flow." The faster you can get bills out to customers, the faster you will get paid, leading to better cash flow, which is extremely important, for obvious reasons. Total customer management allows accounts receivable personnel to manage all touch points with their customer base by tracking customer call logs, quote follow up, open/closed contracts, and cash flow."Īn automated invoicing system is good from an operational standpoint, since it can free employees up for other tasks, but it also offers another very important benefit, which is speed. Complete Contract Maintenance allows the rental store to manage all aspects of the business, from quoting, opening contracts, modifying contracts, closing contracts and cloning contracts. "Auto continuation billing generates cycle bills automatically for all long-term rentals. "With our mass fax and email feature, invoices can be sent automatically to customers at the end of each day via fax or email, with statements sent automatically at the end of each month," explains Bennett. Today's leading systems automate many processes to reduce the potential for human error and to increase efficiencies. This leaves a big possible gap and can cause an unknown amount of missed/late/incorrect billings." "There normally isn't a tie between the tickets/contracts and the invoices unless they are running a package that handles both processes. "A lot of businesses have a manual folder system or spreadsheet process so they know what to bill," says Michael Saint, president of Corporate Services. This results in cumbersome re-entry of ticket/contract information. Some operation personnel have already entered customer, job, equipment and period information on the rental agreement, yet billing personnel often have to manually create invoices based on this same information. A rental store needs a system that not only automates this task but also has processes and procedures in place to provide structure and consistency for the operation." "Some have told us that they hand check each invoice because they can't rely on their system or employees to properly bill the customers. "Inconsistent and inaccurate billing is a big time waster for a rental store manager," says Greg Bennett, vice president of sales for Point-of-Rental Systems. When the system isn't automated, the size and demands of the task can lead to errors, which in turn, further irritate customers. A common complaint centers on the amount of time this task consumes at the end of each month. The rates themselves are based on variables such as an X-day week, and an X-week month."Īnd rental invoices are frustrating for your employees as well. There are many other factors involved in rental, including overtime charges, minimum charges, meter charges and damage waiver. "It's not like a retail sale, where unit price multiplied by quantity equals extended price. Shea, general manager at Solutions by Computer. "Rental transactions are complex by nature," says J.J. Since the beginning of time for the rental industry, customers have been confused and sometimes irritated by their rental invoices, which are not as simple and straightforward as those resulting from any sales transaction. In the context of building a successful equipment rental business, however, they do demand attention. In fact, you might even say they can be a turn off.
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