Have you ever thought about how much paper is used to generate invoices, bills, and receipts? Consider these statistics:

Australians use 1.7 million tonnes of printing and writing paper. At an estimated 24 trees per tonne, this amount of paper uses up the equivalent of tens of millions of trees (Paperless Alliance, 2010).

A company issuing 100 bills a month can conserve the greenhouse gas equivalent of 7 trees planted and grown for 10 years by using direct debit (PayItGreen, Green Calculator).

If one million people went paperless for just one account, we would save almost 455,000kg of carbon dioxide each year (G Magazine, The Best of Green, 2010).

According to PayItGreen.org, for a business with 100 customers billed monthly, direct debiting fees instead of issuing paper statements for 1 year can conserve the equivalent of:

• 15.2 kg of paper saved
• 41.3 litres of gas saved by not mailing bills
• 271.7 kg of greenhouse gases avoided
• 7 trees planted (and grown for 10 years)
• 7.7 square metres of forest preserved from deforestation.

As a business you can make a positive impact on the environment by using direct debit, web, and phone payments instead of conventional paper bills. Read more about our electronic payment services.

The biggest benefits of using Ezidebit and direct debit in your business are administrative savings and cash flow improvements. And the more customers you have signed up—the bigger these benefits become.

But how can you encourage all your customers to sign up?

We can help. We’ve got a team of business development managers supported by an internal marketing department who can work with you to develop the appropriate strategies to lift the usage of direct debit in your business.

Every business has a unique customer management culture so it's imperative to adopt the appropriate mix of strategies to optimise your business's ability to be paid on time with minimum fuss. We can:

• Analyse and recommend the appropriate billing processes to reduce your debtor days.
• Create the appropriate communication strategy to encourage your customers to use Ezidebit.
• Help train your staff to confidently market direct debit to your customers.
• Provide on line training so you can maximise your administrative efficiencies and standard of customer service.
• Provide simplified signup processes for mass campaigns.
• Review the process with you by helping you monitor cash flow improvements and customer.

If you wish to take advantage of this free service please contact our business development team by completing our enquiry form.

Recent reports from Dun & Bradstreet (2011) have revealed business to business payments are becoming increasing more difficult to collect.

The data shows average payment days have increased to 55.6 days, the highest it’s been in over three years, with prompt payments declining by 10.5% compared to the same time the previous year.

This has the potential to severely affect the everyday running of small business, with cash flow management becoming increasingly difficult.

One way to counteract this trend is by offering direct debit as a payment method in your business. By guaranteeing you are being paid on time, every time, you regain control over your customers’ payments, improve your cash flow, save time, and are able to focus more on business.

If you’d like to find out more about how direct debit can help your business, complete our enquiry form and one of our sales consultants will be in touch shortly.