The presence or absence of a Proof of Delivery note can make the difference between getting paid on time or getting paid late. Late payment, of course, comes with the added resource drain of lengthy and uncomfortable interactions with customers. How can you ensure the presence of PODs with invoices to increase the likelihood of timely payment?
Paper to ePOD
The need for low contact solutions during the pandemic caused a surge in the uptake of ePOD software. Many companies, while keen to accelerate their rollout of ePODs across the business or delivery fleet, may be retaining paper systems as a fallback if ePODs fail. Any rollout project entails an uncomfortable crossover period from paper PODs to ePODs. Whether paper PODs are scanned and saved as PDFs or digitised using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), there will be a period during which several types of POD are in use simultaneously. Many of our clients have one ERP system but multiple legacy POD printers and a whole host of formats. One order can easily be split into 4 deliveries, and each can come with a different style of POD. Your eInvoicing solution needs the sophistication to deal with this variety of formats.
Seek, Match, Stitch
Some of our clients have over 7 different formats of POD in use at any one time and often have orders that are split across many deliveries. Nonetheless, for the customer’s convenience and to encourage prompt payment, our clients want invoices to be sent with all related PODs combined into one document. We do this. Our solution actively seeks PODs using invoice reference numbers and sends the invoices and their associated PODs together. It may sound simple, but having this automated has saved them a great deal of time, frustration and invoice queries.
Customer Satisfaction
Whether you sell B2B or B2C, or both, customer reviews and views matter. If customers order online, they complain online. If customers pay online or retrieve invoices online, there is also the risk that they can complain online. This is why everything you do to make your customers’ lives easier matters. We understand this. It is why we offer our clients the option to present invoices stitched together with all associated documents, be they POs or PODs or Ts & Cs, order acknowledgements – you name it, we accommodate it. Clients can present invoices with all documents in one separate bundle or as individual attachments. They can also send the invoice as a separate document with one attachment that combines any number or type of document as one download. The best thing is: whether our client presents an all in one, or a multi-part invoice, the customer can choose how they download documents: they can download all items in one zip file, as one PDF or separate items. The choice for suppliers and choice for their buyers. That is our objective at all times: to help buyer-supplier interactions run more smoothly and efficiently than ever before.
Rollout Without Pressure
Switching to ePODs may be the way to go, but getting there can be complicated. While your business has a variety of formats in use, there will be complications. Partnering with a company like Data Interconnect during this transition eases the pain. It solves the problems so that you know that you have a solution that works for the rollout period and one that holds water if you ever need to revert to paper PODs in a crisis. You have not only future-proofed your delivery note system, but you also have disaster proofed it as well. And, as we all know, auditors like to know you have robust plans for every eventuality.
