As an equine business owner, you might work with horses, but you work for humans. At Horsebills.com, not only do we provide you – our customer – with customer service that is built on an in-depth knowledge of the industry, but we also provide you with the tools to offer your customers the same benefits.
Customer Service 101: Make the Process Easy
Invoices are Accurate and Efficient
Arguably one of Horsebills.com best client-focused features is also its most basic premise: correct invoices. Invoices are an extraordinarily important part of running any successful business. They are your path to getting paid, so making them as customer friendly as possible is in your best interest.
If your invoices are inaccurate, messy, incomplete, or otherwise unprofessional, not only are you frustrating your owners, but you are delaying payment to yourself. Your clients are also running a business, and they require an accurate invoice before they pay. Since the process to correct one invoice can take weeks, sometimes months, getting it right the first time is invaluable customer service that benefits everyone.
Invoices are your path to getting paid, so making them as customer friendly as possible is in your best interest.
Invoices created and sent through Horsebills.com are always accurate if your ownership percentages are maintained and up to date. (See our last blog post for more info on this.) However, in the event your clients have a question about their bill, they can ask directly through the site, right on the invoice in question (shown in the image below). This feature is super useful in keeping billing questions separate from more operational queries, and if you use a bookkeeper, it ensures the question is going to best person to get the best answer.
Owners Can Process Payments Efficiently
Once your invoices have been sent, your owners will receive an email directing them to their account dashboard where all their outstanding bills will show in one place. From here, they can pay each bill individually, or multiple bills to one sender. The image below shows the dashboard and how easy it is to view and pay each bill.
If they decide to pay multiple bills from the same sender, they will be brought to the next screen where a drop-down menu allows them to choose which sender’s bills they are paying.
They then can select the bills for which they would like to process payment at one time. Horsebills.com automatically tallies the amount due as each bill is selected and allows your client the option to choose how they would like to pay. They can also “View” each bill from this page if desired. The image below shows multiple bills selected, tallied, and the ability to select the preferred payment type.
Additionally, if you have clients who do not possess an email address, you can easily note this when adding them to your roster and the program will remind you to print and mail these invoices as needed. These payments will have to be added manually once they come through, but you will have provided your client with a means to pay that suits their needs best.
One-Time Payment Account Set Up
Have you ever shopped online and entered the payment screen only to have to begrudgingly get up to find your payment information? We can all admit to occasionally abandoning the purchase because we are simply too tired to get our wallet. With horsebills.com, we have removed this roadblock for your clients because their payment information is stored (safely and securely) for use each time a bill is due. Your owners can use ACH/eCheck payments by connecting their bank account directly to Horsebills.com, or they can use a credit card and rack up those points.
We can all admit to occasionally abandoning the purchase because we are simply too tired to get our wallet. With horsebills.com, we have removed this roadblock.
In the image below, we can see a user’s payment accounts that have been stored once they have used it to process payment. They can manage and delete their payment accounts at any time from this page.
Paying via eCheck/ACH and/or credit card are great options, but they are not the only options. Your clients can continue to pay by check, cash, or online transfer if it continues to be their preferred method. You (or your bookkeeper) will just have to manually enter these payments after they are received through whatever means.
Other Features that Benefit Everyone
As mentioned earlier, your owners are also running a business. To help them (and you!) more seamlessly keep track of their expenses and revenues, Horsebills.com offers a built in Profit & Loss Statement. The P&L can be created for any range of dates, can be for a specific horse or horses, or for transactions not tied to any horse at all. By subscribing to Horsebills.com, you provide this service to your owners for FREE. An example of an actual Profit & Loss Statement is shown below (click the thumbnails to expand, names have been altered).
Click the image to see larger view.
Click the image to see larger view.
Our Clients Are Our Family
Now that we have discussed how Horsebills.com sets you up to serve your clients, let us move on to how we serve you.
We Meet You Where You Are
At Horsebills.com, we are all horse owners, and we understand and love all aspects of the horse world. Not only that, but we have a deep knowledge of the intricacies and idiosyncrasies that come along with a horse-oriented business. Because of this, when you use our site and have a question, we will be able to answer it in a way that is specific to your business model. Other bookkeeping and accounting programs simply cannot say the same.
We have a deep knowledge of the intricacies and idiosyncrasies that come along with a horse-oriented business.
To provide you with the answers to your questions, we have gone out of our way to be available to you (and your clients) in the capacity that best suits YOU.
We are available via email, phone, text, webinar, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and our Live Chat feature on every page of the website.
We Act on Your Suggestions
Horsebills.com has been an evolving program since its creation, and we do not intend to change that anytime soon. We are constantly adding new features and updating existing ones, and these changes are born from two avenues. Our own use of the site while fulfilling our duties as full-service bookkeepers, and suggestions that come in from users.
Since we utilize the software every single day throughout the course of business, we regularly come up with ways that we can improve the functionality further. We know that if these changes benefit us, they will also benefit you.
Likewise, as you utilize the software as you go about your billing every cycle you may come across possible upgrade ideas. We always welcome these suggestions and love to implement them whenever its feasible.
We hope it is easy to see from this post that we pride ourselves on our customer service, so if you have any questions or require assistance, we are truly available to any extent necessary. Just email, call, or utilize the chat function located on every page of the site.
