I had the chance to learn how to implement my first ERP, SAP R/3, in the mid-90s. I had to fly to London to the SAP training centre near Heathrow and sat for 8 hours a day for weeks listening to the instructor teach us the ins and the outs of Accounts Payable; Accounts Receivable; General Ledger etc… It was incredibly featured rich and focused on accounting data entry. The accounting world was supposed to be revolutionized because we now had a “system of record” for all accounting transactions!
When I look at Accounting solutions like Quick Books; Sage; Intact; NetSuite; Oracle, or billing solutions like Zuora, all I see is Lipstick on an old SAP mainframe. Yes, the user interface has changed; yes, the software is “easier to navigate” but not one new feature has been invented to make the life of an accountant or a collection agent easier. Massive data entry; creating thousands of ever-growing invoices and a collection process done by collection agents sending emails and leaving voicemails and begging for payments of past due to invoices.
Why do software companies ignore everyday users? The ones that spend their days doing the actual work? Developing software is an expensive business and software companies have learned that to charge big fees, they need CFO buy-in. They need the CFOs to see something for them. What do they care about? Financial visibility (Reporting); they need to present to CEOs and boards new “what if” analysis (Analytics); they need to close their books every quarter ASAP to be able to answer the questions of “how did we do last quarter”. In summary, they need features that sit above the deck. They don’t care how difficult it is to work in the engine room; they only need the data out of the ERP/Accounting systems.
Software Companies have been investing in fancy reporting, analytics; fast booking and billing solutions to meet the needs of the CFOs. Now enter new technology. With Cloud; new software development framework, developing great software is easier, cheaper and faster than ever. There is no need to focus on selling software for hundreds of thousands of dollars. This full-feature accounts receivable automation software is for Zero Dollars, Euros or whatever currencies you use. And it’s forever Free. Not a trial period. Zilch;nada; nothing. You don’t owe anything for using these. Why? Because your business deserve it. You, collection agents; accountants, spending your life sending emails manually and leaving voicemails on people’s phones is not a good use of your time and new technology can help.
So how does it work and why to choose such software? Let’s talk about it:
- All such free automation software runs very smoothly and efficiently on Windows PC and Apple Macs and uses the compute and storage resources on your computer to run the software. So really there is no cost for us to run such software. You can create your collection schedule (=workflow) with as many email reminders as you want (fully customizable emails by the way), and send payment reminders for thousands and thousands of customers.
- The reason such automation software is free of cost because they don’t have any sales representatives and usually consists of hired accounts receivable geeks, product managers and developers. And it is seen that the ones benefitting directly from these applications typically have a hard time asking for money without showing results first. So, this is the reason they come jam-packed from all their features in the software and it’s free as long as it does not cost us anything to run it.
- They usually have two beneficial editions for different needs. The Pro/premium/max Edition have the benefits of cloud backup and recovery of all your data and integration to your accounting/billing package to automatically download all your invoices and payment status. And a support system of QuickBooks currently which can be joined by most accounting packages in the coming time. The other feature you can find is the Team/Employee Edition where you can have a team of collection agents work on the same collection process, helping in maintaining the balance of the workload between the collection agents and backup the teams work and data and fully integrated with the accounting and billing solution. And it works, the results are here to show that better software that gives you time back is what our collection heroes are looking for.
Barry Lachey is a Professional Editor at Zobuz. Previously He has also worked for Moxly Sports and Network Resources “Joe Joe.” he is a graduate of the Kings College at the University of Thames Valley London. You can reach Barry via email or by phone.
