Every small business owner and freelancer wants the edge; that thing that’s going to set them apart from their competitors. That magic quality that is going to make their business the success story instead of the cautionary tale. But making it is never as easy as it sounds. In todays completive, fast paced marketplace small business owners and freelancers are faced with many challenges on the way to success.

Many small business owner or freelancers don’t realize that a huge part of attaining success lies in the way you manage your businesses billing and payment collection. It seems almost a no brainer to have efficient systems in place to deal with invoicing, payment collection and management of bad debit. But all too often I come across businesses that overlook this aspect of their success entirely.

Discover the secrets to making your business more profitable, robust, efficient and cost effective.

Keep costs low: Shop around

Chief among the challenges the small business owner or freelancers faces is keeping the cost of operation low. This is doubly true when it comes to keeping the costs of billing and payment collection to a minimum.

Use creative online tools and systems automation to keep the amount of staff you need to employ in your accounts department to a minimum.  There are many systems on the market today that allow you to automate recurring invoicing giving you maximum control over your daily operations with an almost skeleton staff.

Always shop around for payment gateways with the lowest fees. Many payment gateways do not give you the ability to easily export your client’s payment details. This prevents you from switching gateways readily. Shop around for a payment facilitator that stores client payment details on your and the gateways behalf. This makes it easy to move between payment gateways or have more than one, so you always have the cheapest rates and you clients the most choice.