27 apr Why you should start Automating Invoices for your Live Sales
A lot of businesses have started doing live sales to level up their business. However, even though doing live sales is already a big step in leveling up your business, there are still some things that you might be doing that will leave you lagging behind your competitors. One of these things is manual invoicing.
Despite all the new technology out there that will help make the invoice process faster, some businesses are still stuck with manual invoicing. It might be because they are not aware of these solutions that they can use to automate their invoice process, or they just really choose to stick with manual invoicing. Whatever reasons they have, manual invoicing can cost them a lot more than the little amount they will spend on investing in automating their invoice process.
If you’re one of those people who are still doing manual invoicing, then it’s time to get over it. In this article, we will help you see how much manual invoicing is costing you. We will also help you understand why you should start investing in solutions that will automate your invoice process.
Disadvantages of manual invoicing
First, let’s talk about the disadvantages of doing manual invoicing, especially if you’re doing live sales.
manual invoice processing consumes a lot of time
Making and sending invoices is one of the tasks that takes up a lot of time, especially if you are doing it manually. This is the case for all types of businesses.
Just processing one invoice can already take up so much time. From creating an invoice, sending the invoice, waiting for payment, receiving the payment, and then sending the receipt to the customer. These are all the processes for each individual order. Just imagine if you are processing tons of invoices a day. It’s going to take you a lot of hours, patience, and more patience.
Manual invoicing is prone to human error
Accuracy is absolutely necessary when it comes to invoicing. This is not just for the sake of your company but for your customers to have a better shopping experience. You wouldn’t want to lose even a single penny or lose a customer because of a mistake in the invoice, right?
However, since processes are handled by error-prone humans in a manual system, mistakes are inevitable. Duplicate entries, missing information, and miscalculations can all lead to bigger issues. This only means wasted time and money for your business.
If customers aren’t receiving correct amounts of money or items on their invoices, you’re going to have some very dissatisfied customers. And bad customer experiences can do great damage to your brand image.
Slow invoicing leads to abandoned carts
Usually, in live selling, invoices are made and sent after the live sale has ended. Customers have to wait for it before they can send their payment. If you are still doing manual invoicing, this will make the checkout process longer. This is because your customers will need to wait for the invoice before they can make their payment. The more time and effort your buying process requires, the more frustrated your customers will feel and the more likely they will abandon their cart.
Another top issue with manual invoicing is delayed payments. If there is no invoice, there can be no payment. You can’t expect timely payment without timely invoicing. The two work hand in hand.
Waitlists are nearly impossible to maintain
A waitlist is a dynamic queue of interested buyers for a sold-out product. If ever a customer didn’t continue purchasing a product that they have reserved, rather than putting it back in stock, it would be smarter to hand it to the next person who’s willing to buy the product. To be able to do this, you have to record the status of all the orders/reservations to see which item is free for waitlisters. However, manual processing is not an effective way of keeping up with this. This is a very complex and near-impossible mission without automation.
It’s costly
As a business owner, your time and your money are both very valuable resources. Yes, you can do manually invoicing yourself, but you’re taking away time from other equally important aspects of your business. You could also hire someone to do it, but you’re also spending money on their salary. And as long as you’re manually invoicing, you’ll be paying a small fortune with all the hours that it takes to get the job done.
What is the Solution?
Live Butler is a free complete e-commerce solution that simplifies the way businesses sell their products on social media. This includes automated invoicing. We will accept all the reservations made in the comment section and make the invoices through comment selling. We will instantly send the invoices to your customers through Messenger with the checkout link, where they can make their payment.
By automating the invoice process, you are not just making your customers happy, but you’re also saving yourself time, effort, and money.
Some additional benefits of using Live Butler for your live sale:
Improved accuracy
Manual invoice processing has a loop of errors despite cross-checking and careful processes. Now, if you switch to automated invoicing with Live Butler, the information will always be accurate. This is because all the data are passed by Facebook to our system. It cuts the scope of human error in the process.
Faster shopping process leading to greater shopping experience
Since the process is now done automatically, your customers no longer have to wait for your live sale to end before they can receive their invoice and make their payment. This will make your customers happier and more satisfied.
Lowers Labor Cost
When you automate your invoice processing, you won’t have to add another staff you need to pay to do the invoicing. If you’re a big company that needs a lot of people to handle the invoicing, this will save you a lot of money.
Final thoughts
To summarize everything we have discussed above, we have seen how manual invoicing is outdated, frustrating, ineffective, and costly. It will not just affect your business process but also the experience of your customers in shopping with your shop.
In this article, we have also understood how automated invoicing eliminates repetitive and wasteful tasks, improves data accuracies, and enhances customers’ check-out experiences.
So, if you are still using the manual system with your invoice processing, it’s time for you to adopt auto-invoicing. This will help alleviate the pain of manual invoicing while boosting productivity. As they say, work smarter, not harder.
Live selling isn’t the only way you can reach and sell to your customers on Facebook. With Live Butler, you can sell through all types of content so you can always keep customers’ newsfeeds fresh & interesting. This way you won’t just reach more customers but will also make other people aware of your brand.
Live Butler is an all-in-one social commerce solution designed to automate your live selling. From accepting orders, updating inventory to sending invoices, Live Butler will do it for you.
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