These days every business is looking for ways to save money. The Sage BusinessWorks Accounting "E-mail Forms" feature is one way to increase efficiency and provide better customer service. If you’re not already taking advantage of this included feature, consider the potentially significant savings of replacing the mailing of paper forms with e-mailed forms.
How Much Can I Save?
Traditionally, most businesses have printed and mailed invoices and statements to communicate accounting information to their customers. The cost to print and mail 100 invoices is $52.00 per month, based on postage of $.42 per invoice and paper and envelope costs of $.10 per invoice. Cost to print and mail 50 statements per month is $26.00 per month, based on postage of $.42 and paper and envelope at $.10 per statement. This adds up to a total cost of $936.00 annually. It’s free to e-mail these same invoices and statements with your existing e-mail account, resulting in a significant cost savings over one year even if you generate as few as 100 invoices and 50 statements a month. If your actual volume is higher, the savings are even greater.
In addition to saving money on postage, envelopes, and pre-printed forms, this automation step has other benefits. Cash flow is improved because your customers receive their invoice today, not several days from now. Because you are generally sending the invoice to the person who ordered your product or service, if there are any discrepancies, they will surface sooner. If e-mailing a quote, you’ll get it in front of the prospect while the lead is hot, shorten the sales cycle, and close more business! And you can help ensure timely delivery of key inventory items by e-mailing purchase orders.
How Does It Work?
Virtually every form in the Sage BusinessWorks system can be e-mailed. Here are just a few of the features available with this powerful option.
- E-mail forms in an Acrobat PDF format as a batch or individually. You can even change the recipient on-the-fly or send the e-mail to multiple recipients.
- Preview the attachment to verify the accuracy of the information before transmitting it to your customer or vendor.
- Use custom or standard Sage BusinessWorks forms.
- Filter recipient by delivery method. For example, you can choose to print forms for those customers who do not have valid e-mail addresses and e-mail forms to those customers who have e-mail.
Multiple Contacts
The Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable modules store multiple contacts—this is handy when used with the E-mail Forms feature. You can e-mail accounting forms (e.g. invoices) to one contact, and quotes or sales orders to a different contact. You set up your contacts once and Sage BusinessWorks will automatically e-mail your form to the correct contact.
If you are not yet taking advantage of the simplicity and cost savings realized by e-mailing forms, it could be well worth your time to revise the sample cost analysis to match your company’s actual costs and then compare the savings to see how quickly this feature would pay for itself in your organization. If you would like help getting started, call us today.
Save money and increase productivity with Sage BusinessWorks. To learn more, contact Blytheco by phone at 800.455.1368, extension 2500, by e-mail at solutions@blytheco.com, or visit our website at www.blytheco.com.
Have you outgrown your Sage BusinessWorks system?
If you find that your business operations would benefit from additional scalability (larger number of users or locations), greater functionality, or improved integration capabilities, it might be time to consider migrating to the next level of products in the Sage Software family of business management applications. Staying with Sage means you have an easy transition to a more powerful system, while still enjoying the great support and service you have today as a valued Blytheco client.
For an assessment of your business system needs, contact Blytheco today by phone at 800.455.1368, extension 2500, or by e-mail.