Accounting & Pay by Invoice

Whether you are a solopreneur or a small business owner, accounting is a major part of operations and there are always ways to streamline the process and make things simpler. Pay by Invoice* by Amazon Business can help you be on your way to a much easier end-to-end payment and reconciliation process.  

In the past few years, in part due to COVID, more of you probably have gone online to do purchasing for your business needs and you need access to easy-to-use solutions that make it easier to get access to funds, do your book keeping and expense reporting, and reconcile your invoices.

Small business challenges

Let’s talk about some of the accounting pain points you might have faced—or are currently facing as a business owner.

Access to funds

 As a small business, you are probably always trying to optimize your cashflow. Amazon business customers that we surveyed in July 2022 who prefer invoicing to pay cite lack of access as one of their top pain points. Some of you may have access to credit cards for purchases but may struggle with insufficient credit when needing to make an occasional large purchase. Other business owners may still be using checks or debit solutions like bank transfers, which is typically a manual process that takes a lot of precious time. Another issue arises if goods are delayed, not received, or received in poor condition, but payment has already submitted. You then have to go through the process of obtaining refunds and are out that cash that could be used for other business expenses.

Insufficient data

As a small business owner, you might also not have sufficient data on your credit card statement or bank statement to match your orders and payments. This in turn adds hours to your workload and makes what should be a seamless and streamlined process, an overly complicated one. Businesses have different reconciliation processes and receiving invoices in specific formats and with varying level of details impacts the time it takes to reconcile purchases before paying.

Expense reports

Finally, we all know that dealing with expense reports is one of the biggest pain points for small businesses. This is especially true for businesses that allow employees to use personal payment methods due to lack of business alternatives. It is crucial to get a clear picture of your spending to better manage budgets.

Pay by Invoice

Whether you are a solopreneur doing it all or you are responsible for managing accounting within your small business, Pay by Invoice will allow you to optimize cash flow and make bookkeeping, reconciliation, and reporting easier. Pay by Invoice is a customizable invoicing payment method for businesses of all sizes and industries. Let's revisit the pain points above and show you how Pay by Invoice offers solutions that can help tackle them.

Access to funds through Pay by Invoice*

When it comes to access to funds, Pay by invoice allows eligible customers the option to buy now and pay later with payment terms and a purchasing line offered on Amazon Business. Pay by Invoice helps customers easily manage working capital and free up cash flow with net terms that work for you . Customers can request for line increases during certain times of year when cash flow is a concern (e.g., request for additional credit line increase during Nov-Dec time period and then return to the normal line once holidays are over).

Pay by Invoice also offers no upfront fees and no interest (unlike credit cards), giving you buying power and helping you manage your working capital. With a Business Prime membership, you can apply for 45-day terms with the Small and Medium plans. These extended payment terms put time and money back on your side to continue growing your business in today’s hypercompetitive market.

Bookkeeping and account reconciliation

When it comes to your bookkeeping and account reconciliation woes, Pay by Invoice allows you to customize invoice set-up to fit your accounting needs, instead of changing your process to fit a cookie-cutter payment method. At Amazon Business, we recognize that no two businesses are alike. Each one has their own goals, internal policies, and procedures. In particular, businesses have different reconciliation processes and receiving invoices in specific formats and with varying level of details impacts the time it takes to reconcile purchases before paying.

With Pay by Invoice, you can customize invoice set-up to align with your organization structure and AP processes and policies. It enables you to:

•  Receive invoices at multiple and different email addresses.
•  Easily consolidate invoices to a frequency of your choosing (monthly or by purchase order).
•  Easily integrate Pay by Invoice API to automatically sync with Quickbooks® for a complete view of all company invoices in one place.
•  Have the option to add customer defined fields such as Purchasing Order number.

All of these things help you receive, reconcile, and process payments faster – resulting in lower costs and improved cash flow. What’s more, Pay by Invoice enables you to shop and purchase from thousands of third-party sellers on Amazon Business and allows your accounts payable team to pay Amazon Business directly, while we handle the complexities of paying multiple third-party sellers. This allows you to reduce the number of suppliers you have to pay and simplify your accounts payable process.

Digital and itemzied invoiced

Finally, Pay by Invoice simplifies reconciliation even further with digital and itemized invoices. These are on-demand itemized invoices with corresponding POs for easy 3-way matching. The Pay by Invoice portal allows you to check invoices at any time from your account and track status changes and due dates with on-demand reports. It also includes tools to disburse refunds to your business bank account or build customized reports to track spend and reconcile payments. And there are multiple ways to pay invoices including ACH (automated clearing house), wire transfer, or check depending on your business preferences. You can simplify your reconciliation processes by managing your invoicing settings, viewing your account balances, downloading your invoices, and generating reporting to track spend — online with your Amazon Business account. Simply view your account and balances for quick reference or use additional tools to disburse refunds to your business bank account or build customized reporting to track spend and reconcile payments. 

Reporting

Whether you are a person who runs your own business and play the role of accounting or you are a small business with an accounting department, you can access expense reports with built-in analytic tools for enhanced control.

For a small business with multiple employees, you can allow employees to use the company’s Pay by Invoice line for purchases on Amazon Business instead of their personal payment method. This way, and you will not have to deal with individual expense claims and eliminates the need for employees to remember to submit expense reports because digital invoices are automatically emailed to accounting. This results in less time for your AP team to track down expense reports. Your reporting view also allows for visibility into spend across the organization (ex: different groups) which can help aid in spend optimization and cost efficiencies. You can search and download invoices by PO, transaction amount, and date. As far as spending tracking is concerned, this feature also works to provide safe and secure controls. As your business grows, you can easily monitor spend patterns and ensure that buyers are making cost-effective choices.

What are the steps and how does it work?

Upon signing up for an Amazon Business account, your account will automatically be assessed for a Pay by Invoice purchasing line. If approved, the account administrator will receive an email detailing the approved line amount, payment terms, and instructions on how to set up the new payment method. Once notified, don’t wait—you only have 180 days to activate the purchasing line upon approval. If no action is taken, the line will be closed.

Pay by Invoice gives qualified Amazon Business customers an option to get an invoice with a standard 30-day term for payment. Whenever an order ships, businesses will receive a clear, itemized invoice, with the payment due in 30 days on Amazon Business. Pairing the convenience, value, and selection of  Amazon Business with a Pay by Invoice line of credit can help businesses simplify and streamline purchasing. When the accounting process is simplified to such a degree, it’s a major win—giving business owners like you more time to focus on other important tasks.

* subject to approval