What is billing?
Billing is an important part of financial administration with which the seller receives compensation from the buyer for products or services. Billing the customer is administrative work and not the key activity of your company. Billing should be as easy and efficient as possible to leave more time for actual business operations.
How to go about billing?
Billing is organised as agreed between seller and customer. Billing should be done as soon after the sales event, that is, as soon as you've sold or delivered a service or product to a customer, to get the money owed into your company's account as soon as possible.
How does a company's billing work?
Company billing works under the same principles regardless of company form. A private trader bills customers the same way as a limited liability company. Depending on their type of business, companies can choose from a range of billing alternatives. A company can have several ways of collecting money from customers. These include e-invoices; a payment terminal for taking debit card, credit card, contactless or mobile payments; and cash.
Billing with e-invoices
E-invoices are a popular way of billing between companies. The payee can create an e-invoice using their digital service, online bank, mobile bank or bank connection software, and send it to their customer. After this, the e-invoice is transferred securely and quickly through electronic channels: via a digital service, online bank, through bank connection software or, if needed, by using a printing service and posting the bill to the customer's street address.
Paper bills sent to customers cause extra expenses to your company. Companies charge extra for sending paper bills. An invoicing charge must be based on actual expenses incurred from invoicing and be reasonable.
An e-invoice is also easy to pay, so the money will reach your account faster. To learn more about sending e-invoices, go to the op.fi service or OP's mobile apps.
You must agree about e-invoices when making a Corporate Agreement for Digital Transactions with your bank, or when agreeing on bank connection software and the related services. At that point, your company will be given an e-invoice address. If you want to use e-invoices to bill personal customers, you must create a sender info notification enabling them to order e-invoices from your company through the digital service they use.
When you are creating an e-invoice, the software or application you use will guide you in adding the required and mandatory information. It's advisable to use reference numbers in e-invoices. Reference numbers help to ensure that payments match the right bills. In addition, they will cost your company less than e-invoices without reference numbers. A reference number calculator is an easy way of generating reference numbers.
Learn more about OP's reference calculator
Sender info notification for billing of personal customers
Company billing with a card reader
A card reader is a quick and efficient way to charge customers. A card reader is for taking payments if you sell goods or services to private individuals or companies that use either contactless payment or debit or credit cards. Card readers meet a range of needs. You can choose between countertop, portable and wireless or mobile terminals.
The most common approach is to rent a card reader for a monthly charge. Card readers without regular monthly charges, which are connectable to smart devices, may be more suitable for seasonal business activities. A mobile payment terminal uses a card reader with a Bluetooth connection to a mobile phone or tablet. The main difference between traditional card readers and those that connect to smart devices is price. A monthly rental fee and small commission on each card transaction are charged for traditional card readers. There is no monthly charge for card readers that connect to smart devices, but the commission per transaction is larger.
Card readers read normal card payments, contactless payments and mobile payments. You will also need a merchant agreement or acquiring service agreement, giving you the right to take card payments. The same agreement will enable the transfer of customers' payments to your bank account.
Billing in an online store
If you are planning to start an online store, you will need a merchant or equivalent agreement to charge customers. The agreement will state the payment methods usable in your store. For online stores, payment methods (often buttons) include online payment via all Finnish banks, card payment (Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Diners etc), mobile payment methods (Siirto and Mobilepay) and a range of invoicing and hire purchase services (OP Lasku, Svea and Collector etc).
It's worth investing in online store cashier services and payment methods to ensure that you offer a wide range of alternatives from day one – don't miss out on sales due to lack of payment options. You can obtain all the above methods from a single service provider.
Cash payments
Cash remains a legal and accepted payment method, even if cash use has been shrinking by 10 per cent a year over the long term.
However, cash is an unattractive payment option for entrepreneurs, since it is labour intensive to handle, incurs costs, and takes time out of running a business. Besides this, it's risky to keep cash on company premises.
To make cash handling easier, make a cash services agreement with your bank, covering e.g. cashing up, a change service, and a night depository or direct transport service for direct pickup of daily cash receipts from your place of business. You can also use your company's debit card to place cash in a deposit ATM.
We interviewed Account Director Päivi Lehtilä from OP Lounaismaa for this article.
