Bill management has always been a nuisance for a lot of people. Even if you pay the bills on time, handling the paperwork can be tricky and there are times when you end up losing some of that stuff without even knowing. And in that case, it makes a lot of sense to go the digital route. Paper items can easily get lost, but digital stuff is much easier to handle and manage, and that’s exactly what you want to focus on the most.
How did traditional bill management work?
A lot of the time, you had to collect bills from the physical mailbox, and then sort those into drawers and folders. Then, you had to make sure that you would have everything categorized, so you won’t lose it. Sounds simple right? Well, the truth is that such a system is always prone for errors, and you have to narrow down the best way to approach it, as it could be prone to errors.
The thing is, stuff like time consumption, storage issues, a lack of real-time insight and very little scalability could hurt things a lot more than you might expect. It’s very important to manage your bills using a digital solution. For example, a utility bill generator could help you generate a digital copy of your bills. It makes a lot of sense, it’s effective and it could provide a resounding result every single time.
Understanding bill automation
What is bill automation? It’s the use of digital tools in order to help you streamline the end to end process of receiving, paying bills and so on. A lot of the time, it integrates with financial systems, payment gateways, and so on. That way, you can get a copy of the bills, create one on your own, and it just makes it much easier for you to keep a hold of those bills, without losing stuff randomly.
We have to keep in mind the fact that bill automation usually involves multiple components. For example, it uses AI and machine learning, automated payments, accounts payable automation software, along with optical character recognition and e-billing, something we have to take into consideration. It’s very much effective, and it has the potential to deliver exceptional value every single time, once you integrate the best automation system in place.
What technologies are driving the need for automation?
Truthfully, automation is driven by a lot of existing, but also emerging technologies. Having those things in place is extremely effective, and it can provide exceptional benefits. These include:
- Cloud computing makes it easy to access any billing info from anywhere, and it can help with backup storage as well.
- AI and machine learning can automate the approval process, identify any issues, while finding patterns in the billing data as well. Those things are important, and they truly are the benefit that you want to pursue.
- Mobile applications matter, because they offer the mobility you need to make payments sometimes. You can easily upload documents, pay for bills, access notifications about bills and so on. All those things make it much easier to manage stuff, and they can circumvent a lot of potential issues.
- Electronic data interchange is more popular in B2B transactions, because you can exchange documents with other companies. It speeds up that process, while lowering the need for manual entries which could end up having errors.
- Smart contracts and the blockchain are not at their peak, but they are slowly adding a lot of new ways to automate payments. And aside from that, you also get a way to establish and maintain trust, which can prove to be incredibly important in these situations.
Who is bill automation for?
The great thing about automating bill payments is that you can do it in a multitude of ways, and it can provide you with good results every time. The advantage of bill automation is that it can be great for individuals, but also for businesses that have a lot of bills. Even governmental agencies can benefit from automation, because it helps eliminate a lot of hassle. And that’s the thing, you want to implement things correctly, focus on value and quality, and at the same time, ensure that it all works exactly the way you would expect it to.
Is there a challenge from adopting automation?
Of course, automation isn’t exactly the easiest thing to implement. And it’s not about the implementation itself, it’s more about people resisting to change. When there’s already a system in place, it can be difficult for people to get past that and try out something new. It all stems from us being creatures of habit, whose habits are very difficult to change.
Aside from that, you have things like implementation costs which also play a factor, change resistance which can prove to be challenging, and also the integration complexity can be very difficult as well. Plus, we have regulatory compliance and data security risks that can also affect things in different ways, which is a thing that we need to take into consideration here.
What are the benefits of bill automation?
Believe it or not, bill automation can be very useful and effective, not to mention it can help provide a much better value than expected. Here’s what you can expect benefits-wise from it!
- Naturally, automating bills can help you save a ton of time, and it’s very good if you want to focus on more important tasks.
- Moreover, with encryption, user permissions and multi factor authentication, you get to boost the security of bill payments and other similar processes.
- It also has great environmental impact. You’re not relying on paper anymore, which for a lot of people these days is very important.
- Another benefit you will see is the fact that you can better manage your cashflow. These automation tools come with dashboards and analytics that will make it much easier to track everything.
- Bill automation is more accurate, and it will allow you to remove a lot of those errors that come from bill tracking and management.
- Additionally, we have cost reduction, which is important. You don’t have to deal with storage, postage and printing. Instead, going the digital route gives you a lot of freedom, and it can move the needle in the right direction.
Naturally, using automation can help free up resources and it will deter any errors that do appear from time to time. It’s a challenge at times, true, but one that you will appreciate more than you expect. And that’s the thing, you want to focus on the experience and to do things right. That’s why going paperless and automating things is always a great idea.
Conclusion
There’s no denying that going paperless and the automation route can feel tricky at first. However, once you start implementing these systems, you will see how effective they are. And it helps quite a lot, because you get better results, a more comprehensive use case, and the benefits themselves are much better. We highly recommend using these automation tools and implementing them for bill tracking, creation and management. They can save a lot of resources and time, while also delivering exceptional results every single time!
Peyman Khosravani is a global blockchain and digital transformation expert with a passion for marketing, futuristic ideas, analytics insights, startup businesses, and effective communications. He has extensive experience in blockchain and DeFi projects and is committed to using technology to bring justice and fairness to society and promote freedom. Peyman has worked with international organizations to improve digital transformation strategies and data-gathering strategies that help identify customer touchpoints and sources of data that tell the story of what is happening. With his expertise in blockchain, digital transformation, marketing, analytics insights, startup businesses, and effective communications, Peyman is dedicated to helping businesses succeed in the digital age. He believes that technology can be used as a tool for positive change in the world.
