Key Benefits Of Payment Processing Integration

Payment processing integration can have significant benefits for your business. With integration, tasks that are normally treated separately such as accounting, or even customer relationships management, can be automated, thus reducing the labor involved and lowering the amount of manual accounts administration that you need to carry out.

Detailed below are some of the key benefits to payment processing integration.

Integration Saves You Time

There can’t be many business owners who don’t wish that they have more time to spare, and there’s several ways payment integration can save time, including:

• It’s automated so it’s less labor extensive with no need to enter figures manually.
• If you do the accounts or payroll yourself, there’s less work to do overall; this simplified approach to accounting will save valuable time and leave you free to focus on other areas of your business.
• As there’s less chance of a mistake, you should spend fewer hours trying to reconcile the books due to an accounting error.
• Staff training time can be reduced as there is only one system to use as opposed to two separate ones.
• They’ll be less time spent correcting errors caused by duplicate payments and chasing up payments that were wrongly made/charged in duplicate. Although this is a problem that is believed to affect only a slim number of transactions, duplicate payments can still be costly to businesses and time consuming to follow up.
• You’ll reduce your administrative load. The administrative burden placed on businesses is a recognized problem, and in the United Kingdom it is once estimated that such tasks cost the UK economy £5.7 billion pounds every year.

Integration Improves Accuracy

Human error naturally occurs during the accounting process. According to the Bloomberg BNA whitepaper, Top Tax & Accounting Mistakes That Cost Companies Millions, which was published in 2015, one of the major problems for businesses is the incorrect entry of manual data. And if any of these errors go unnoticed, it could result in inaccurate billing for a customer, or inaccurate accounts keeping, which could cause problems when it comes to filling out your tax returns.

However, automating the process will reduce the chances of missing or duplicate invoices, miscalculating and emission errors, which are a common mistake in accounting.

Integration Aids Your Finances

Payment processing integration can benefit your finances in a number of ways:

• First, it makes the whole process quicker so you can get invoices sent out faster, and hopefully get paid the money you are owed sooner, thus helping with cashflow.
• It can save money on staff as it means you don’t need to hire someone to do payroll/accounts for you.
• If you do already employ someone to help with the accounting side, it will make the process much easier, and integration can make your company more efficient overall.
• You’ll also have a much better idea of your finances, which will help you plan better for your company’s future, and allow you to make sound financial decisions.
• Integration provides a clearer picture of what your business is spending its money on and enables you to better monitor your cashflow, which is especially important to small businesses. Poor cash flow is one of the major reasons behind a business failing but knowing what money you have coming in and out – and a more efficient way of invoicing customers – can help improve your case flow.
• You’ll have access to detailed data that could allow your business to make further savings. For instance, you might be missing out on tax breaks, which will be costing your company money.

Integration Helps You Manage Your Taxes

Integrated payments processing is a valuable when the time comes for completing your tax return. If you are completing them yourself, you’ll have a thorough record of every transaction, and there shouldn’t be any problems with missing figures or invoices that could lead to a tax query. In addition:

• Greater accuracy means you can reduce the risk of an error on your annual tax return. There can be significant penalties for making errors on a tax return, and penalties for an error on a tax return are becoming increasingly common, especially in the UK.
• It is rare that a business is selected for an IRS audit, but if you are, you can be confident that you have a comprehensive set of records to present.
• You’ll have clear records, which means if you do pay an accountant, there should be less work involved, and this should be reflected in the amount you are charged. Accounting rates can vary significantly, but by making your tax return as straight forward as possible, it might be possible to save yourself some money.

Improve Customer Satisfaction & the Running of Your Business

Integrated payment processing has the potential to improve your customer service and the way you run business because:

• Fewer mistakes and greater efficiency will result in greater customer satisfaction, and satisfied customers can often result in higher customer retention.
• If you’re using integrating payment processing as part of a Point of Sales system, you’ll get even more advantages that will improve the running of your business. These benefits include detailed data to allow you to better analyze the major areas of your business, inventory management, and access to loyalty card programs and other options to encourage return customers.

Moreover, while this article concentrates on the accounting side of the business, if payment processing is integrated with CRM software, you’ll also have the option to automate some of the marketing tasks, and you’ll have easy access to customer data that can be analyzed to improve your company’s performance.

Conclusion

Time saving, reduced human error and labor, a clearer picture of your finances and less need for staff training are just some of the numerous advantages to integrated payment processing.

When payment processing is integrated with accounting and/or CRM, you’ll create a simplified system that is seamless and easy to manage, and that can significantly reduce improve how your company works.

Payment processing integration also has the potential to aid your overall company performance, improve your marketing efforts and bolster customer retention through improved customer satisfaction.