Smart Invoicing: Benefits & Features for Service Businesses

If your invoicing software integrates seamlessly with your CRM contact records, time-tracking data, and contracts, the entire billing process becomes a breeze.

Even breezier? Having your invoices create themselves.

This is the world of smart invoicing, where invoice management is highly automated to reduce errors, save you time, and more.

Find out why every service business should use smart invoicing to bill their customers. In this article, you’ll learn:

1. What is smart invoicing?
2. Benefits of smart invoicing
3. The best smart invoicing software (top 5)
4. How to let your invoices create themselves

What is smart invoicing?

Smart invoicing technology manages the creation, sending, and tracking of invoices using automation in a secure, digital environment. Invoices can be automated based on certain triggers and parameters set forth by the user and/or the service contract.

The more connected your invoicing is, the ‘smarter’ it gets. For example, if you integrate your time tracking with your invoicing software, a smart invoicing solution can automatically populate your invoices with the billable hours that correspond to each particular project. 

Smart invoicing will also adhere to the billing schedule, either input by you into the software or automatically (if it’s connected to your contract management). 

The main idea behind smart invoicing is to remove the human element as much as possible. In the invoice creation stage, this happens when the software populates the document with the correct itemization, based on parameters set by you, the service contract, billable hours, and any expenses that have been tied to that client in the time frame.

A smart invoicing solution will also take care of sending your invoices, programmed to do so according to the billing cycle set out by the customer and approved by you.

From here, the smart invoicing solution will track your invoice, so you can check on the status at any given time. 

And since smart invoicing is connected with your financial backend– QuickBooks, Xero, etc– the platform will also be alerted once the invoice is paid, and then convey that information to you in the invoice status.

Benefits of Smart Invoicing for Service Businesses

Service businesses that leverage smart invoicing are far more efficient at every facet of the billing process. Especially if your business is growing and scaling, managing your invoices can quickly get out of control if you’re still going it old school with spreadsheets.

Here are the top-line benefits you can expect from adopting a smart invoicing solution:

Save time with automation

The best smart invoicing solutions will let you automate your billing process to the tee. If your contract charges by billable hours, a smart invoice that’s connected to your time tracking data can automatically generate the bill, along with correct itemization and the time billed by the corresponding resources. 

You can also automate invoice approval with certain smart invoicing software. This can help save a lot of time on recurring and installment invoices.

Get paid accurately

Perhaps the best part of the smart invoice is that it increases the accuracy of your billing process. Using the corresponding fee schedule that you’ve set, along with the relevant data like the hourly rates of your resources on that contract, you won’t have to wonder if the correct charges are being billed to your client. This means an hour billed is an hour paid.

Get paid on time

Getting paid on time is important to maintain your cash flow and correctly forecast your spending. Smart invoicing can help you get paid on time, every time, by sending automatic reminders to both the customer and sender. 

The customer will get alerted when an invoice is in danger of being overdue, as will the appropriate person(s) on your team. Just another way smart invoicing helps you avoid trouble before it starts.

Built-in invoice tracking

Say goodbye to dreaded invoices floating in space. Smart invoicing comes with built-in tracking, so you’ll always know the status. 

Because the solution is integrated with your email as well as your accounting software, there’s no need to go hunting around to figure out your next payday. 

If your smart invoicing connects with your CRM, your entire team can see the status with integrated invoice tracking. Before you choose a smart invoicing tool, it’s wise to make sure a native integration is supported with HubSpot, Salesforce, or whichever CRM your business uses. 

Customer experience 

Customers always want to know what to expect when it comes to getting charged. Sending sporadic invoices or billing customers at intervals contrary to their contract is a bad look. Smart invoicing means that you don’t have to keep up with all of this. 

Instead, you can rest easy knowing your clients will automatically get billed according to their contract parameters, i.e billing schedule. Your clients will know what to expect the entire time, while your business comes across as reliable and on top of the game. 

Another thing– If your customer base is global, smart invoicing will make sure the correct currency is used each time you send an invoice. Not only do currency errors inconvenience the customer, but they are also costly to fix. So if you’re a global service business, smart invoicing can make the billing process easier. 

Customization

Smart invoicing solutions are known for letting you customize to your heart’s content: for one, with the invoices themselves. You can curate these to look however you want; the sky’s the limit.

Feel free to edit your invoice labels and put them into multiple languages, if your clients are around the world.

You can also customize the invoicing process. For example, if there’s a complicated project where you aren’t comfortable automating invoices with certain teams in certain areas, simply select where you want to have manual approval and stress less. 

Smart invoicing solutions should also offer functionality on multiple types of invoices, including recurring payments, installments, and retainers. 

The Best Smart Invoicing Software: Our top 5 picks

Smart invoicing has become popular across many industries, as professionals look to automate more and more of the admin process. For service businesses, the best invoicing software will connect with the financial backend as well as the CRM and project management tool. This way, your invoices are ‘smarter’ since they connect with time tracking, resource management, and contracts.  

Here are the top 5 smart invoicing software solutions today that can save service businesses and consultants major time with key automated features:

Zoho

Zoho Invoice is an affordable smart invoicing solution that’s helpful for any small business, but the ones who benefit the most are obviously those already using the Zoho CRM. Zoho offers a client portal and importantly, can connect with your time and expense tracking, so you can automate invoice generation. 

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FreshBooks

FreshBooks isn’t just for accounting; you can use it as your smart invoicing platform, too. For service businesses, you can also make FreshBooks your project management tool, as it offers plenty of planning and collaboration tools for many small agencies. Invoices are automatically tied to the correct projects. 

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PSOhub

PSOhub are expert at automating the project lifecycle for service businesses. Their smart invoicing is one of the best-rated features by users from over 40 countries around the world. PSOhub also provides self-driving time tracking, to help you go from straight from your Google calendar to invoicing. 

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