Why Should I Use E-Invoicing Rather Than Traditional Invoices?
Sending invoices to your customers is essential to a successful publishing business, but if you are sending traditional paper invoices with a tear-sheet you could be wasting time and money. Now with E-Invoicing there’s a better way! E-Invoicing allows you to send an electronic invoice and tear sheet to your customers. The advantage of E-Invoicing is that the invoice will get to your customer more quickly and directly than by the postal service. E-Invoicing also allows you to track who has received and opened their invoices and, more importantly, who didn’t receive or open their invoices. Gone are the days of paying for postage, licking and sending the envelopes, and waiting for your check to come in the mail. E-Invoicing makes the process much faster and hassle-free for both you and your customer. E-Invoicing is a free feature that’s included with AdSystem Online that we would love to see you use!
What Is E-Invoicing?
Instead of mailing a physical invoice to your customers, you are given the choice of sending them an email with either a PDF invoice or an invoice in an embedded HTML format. HTML embedded invoices are recommended because they allow you to receive confirmation when the customer opens the invoice, as well as including electronic tear sheets. This allows you to track whether the invoice was viewed/opened by the recipient. Customers can optionally download a PDF of their invoice. All views/downloads of invoices are logged in AdSystem providing a history of activity ensuring that invoices are delivered and opened.
Tear Sheets
Ok, so what about tear sheets? For decades it has been an industry practice to tear out the page of the publication that contains the customer’s ad and send it to them with the invoice as physical evidence that you indeed ran the customer’s ad. Obviously you cannot include a physical tear sheet with an emailed invoice unless you mail it separately, but you have a couple other options.
One option is to include a scan or image of the ad with the invoice. Many people are becoming increasingly comfortable with electronic versions of tear sheets, and will readily accept them. Your billing system must allow including a scanned image of a tear sheet with the invoice.
Another option, if it is one that your company practices, is to include a link to an online edition of your publication where the advertiser can see proof of their ad.
How Do I Start Using E-Invoicing?
E-Invoicing is totally free for AdSystem Online customers and only requires a few minutes of your time for the Datafest Support team to set it up. Please send us an email or give us a call at (801) 261-4608 Ext. 3 so we can get started.
This video offers a great tutorial on using E-Invoicing:
E-Invoicing Offers:
- E-Mailed invoices sent individually or in a batch.
- Proof of publishing through digital tear sheets or links to online editions.
- Selective e-mailing: Designate which advertisers receive e-mails and which ones receive mailed invoices.
- Two kinds of e-mailed invoices: HTML embedded E-Invoices and PDF attachments.
- Click-tracking: If you use HTML embedded E-Invoices, AdSystem will track which e-mails are viewed, opened and printed.
- E-Mail Invoice Report showing which invoices were emailed, which were opened, and most importantly, which ones were ignored.