Fishbowl is helping small and midsize businesses stay ahead of digital payments by utilizing an integrated payment solution.
One of the most critical questions small and midsize businesses (SMBs) should ask themselves is – are their payments keeping up with digital transformation? With technology becoming more innovative, the best businesses are doing all they can to protect their customers from threats, and giving them the most convenient, secure, and streamlined payment options.
Today, nearly 80% of customers prefer online payments over traditional payment methods. This is where an integrated payment solution shines. An integrated payment processing system, or payment gateway, allows you to accept payments over the phone and online. You can also set reminders for customers through text and email invoices, and set up recurring payments within the payment system.
To stay relevant and to evolve consistently with the future, Fishbowl has created its own integrated payment solution, called Fishbowl Payments. As we pride ourselves on being the industry’s most flexible ERP software solution for warehouse and manufacturing businesses, we want to help businesses give their customers the best payment experience and create long-term retention.
Before diving into what Fishbowl Payments is and how it is helping teams give a flexible and convenient payment experience, let’s talk about the benefits of integrated payments and how SMBs can operate more efficiently by investing in this solution.
The better solution – Integrated Payments
In the warehouse and manufacturing industry, time is essential. And the time that can be put back into teams’ hands to work on more strategic projects and maintain customers can make all the difference. Teams that use manual accounting tasks, such as tracking paper ledgers and invoices to record financial transactions, are not ideal, and it leaves room for human error, which can lead to breaching security vulnerabilities that could cost businesses as much as $500,000 in fines each month, according to American Bar Association.
The more efficient option is choosing an integrated payment solution that will automate the entire payment process and allow businesses to accept payments directly within their existing ERP system. This solution saves your team time and can improve internal workflows because everything is on one platform—no need to waste time switching platforms and creating different silos of your customer’s information.
Provide the best customer experience
As far as customer service goes, an integrated payment solution comes with personalized communication from an assigned account manager that is ready to assist with any questions or issues you may have.
With payment processing integrated into your ERP platform, you can immediately leverage automation to reconcile your inventory, accounts receivable, general ledger, and more. Most bank-provided platforms are hosted outside your typical business management software, meaning you must reconcile between apps to complete your billing process and become another customer ticket in someone else’s system. Customers want speed and simplicity. With the right integrated payment solution, you can give them both.
How payments integration impacts your business
When picking the systems that forms the backbone of your operations, it comes down to the best fit. No business is the same, so choosing an ERP system that fits your operations now and has the tools and functionality you will need as your business evolves is essential.
Fishbowl Payments aims to make the payment process as simple and seamless as possible, by providing an integrated solution that can sit in your ERP solution and immediately impact your customers, internal workflows, and time.
Let’s get into some of the benefits of having a solution, like Fishbowl Payments:
Get your time back
Managing finances is an overwhelming task – add manual labor to it, and it can be downright draining. With Fishbowl Payments, your payment process is integrated into your central workflows in one platform. This ensures that you get paid on time while your inventory and finances are reconciled automatically.
Choosing a solution like Fishbowl with built-in payments can help your business save up to 40 hours a week – otherwise spent reconciling invoices, following up with customers on late payments, and working from multiple systems.
Imagine what you could do with the time you get back in your days with a solution like this. Instead of chasing payments, you could be focused on expanding and retaining more business.
Avoid bank fees
Bank processors may or may not work with your current workflow, requiring your team to facilitate the flow of data in some other way that takes time and resources that a growing company may need help to spare. In addition to time and labor costs, bank processors tend to markup their payment processing with fees and non-transparent pricing.
Every payment solution provider has its own terms of use and fees. Here’s a look at some fees you’ll likely pay with a bank-provided processing solution that you will not incur with an integrated solution, like Fishbowl Payments:
- Gateway setup fee
- Monthly gateway fee
- Merchant account setup
- And more
Integrated solutions, like Fishbowl Payments, are set in the tool’s core functionality at no additional cost. Between that and the standard processing fees, you’ll never have to guess how much you spend on collecting payments.
Increase cash flow
82% of businesses that failed cited cash flow problems as a factor in their failure. Cash flow is how quickly money is moved in and out of your business. Getting paid on time can be difficult; add chasing down late-paying customers, and your business can be delayed from receiving payments for days, maybe weeks.
A solution like Fishbowl Payments is meant to get you paid faster and speed up your cash flow. Up to 30% of SMBs expect to face the negative impact of late payments that may affect the company’s suppliers, staff, and investments.
Considering an integrated payment solution is staying proactive and can limit that percentage compared to businesses that still need to take advantage of this type of payment process.
Keep up with the times and stay ahead of the competition
Digital payments are only expected to scale and become the new normal. Our goal at Fishbowl is to transform business operations and to provide tools and services designed to help businesses thrive and grow. The payment process is essential to helping businesses grow and providing the best customer experience.
If you are interested in learning more about how Fishbowl Payments can help improve your internal workflows and payment experience for your customers, book a demo with us today.