Every small business owner will tell you that invoicing and bookkeeping are very time-consuming processes. And with this season shaping up to be the busiest on record for wedding professionals in history, we called in some experts for some advice on helping you save time! Our friends at Maroo (a new payment platform for the weddings and event industry) gave us some of their top tips for streamlining and simplifying your invoicing process for the remainder of the year!
Digitize Your Contracts
The faster a client signs a contract, the faster you can set up your payment milestones. Gone are the days of a paper contract – think digital-first now! Hellosign is a great option if you’re looking to move your contracts into the 21st century.
Set Up All Contracts & Invoices at One Time
One of the best ways to streamline your invoicing is to set up all of a contract’s payment milestones at one time. This is one of Maroo’s most popular features! Maroo makes it easy for you and your team to schedule all of your payment milestones in one sitting. For example, a photographer can request 50% of the contract upon signing and the remaining two payments 12 weeks and four weeks out. Maroo will send reminders to the couple that it’s time to pay the next installment of the contracted amount – nothing else is needed from the wedding pro!
Create Deadlines and Select One Day Per Month for Bookkeeping and Invoicing
Wedding businesses have many expenses and two of the larger expenses are freelancers and payments to other businesses. We recommend setting up “due” dates for freelancers and B2B businesses in that every invoice or payment request is due by this recurring monthly date. This allows you to handle all invoices and outbound payments in one day towards the end of the month! Thus, saving you time and energy.
Get Rid of Payments All Together with Maroo Book Now, Pay Later
What is Book Now, Pay Later? Maroo is proud to be the first company in the wedding industry to offer this option to wedding businesses and vendors! It’s the ability for businesses in the wedding and event industry to offer their couples the option to split their payments at 0% APR over 3, 6, or 12 months, with cancellation insurance included. The fee for wedding professionals varies between 5-10% based on the length of the payments. The best part? Your business gets paid the full contracted amount the following day. Hence, it can save you time because you won’t have to worry about collecting payments again!
Find Out Who’s Paying At Contract Time
Nothing slows down the invoicing (and payout!) process more than an invoice that has to travel between the couple, the planner, and the parents or whoever else is involved. To simplify and streamline, find out who’s paying at contract signing time. While the contract is being signed, confirm who will be paying the invoices and get their contact information on file. You can say something like, “Let us know who the main point of contact will be for payment so that we have their contact info on file!”
Sign up for free for Maroo here and join their mission to modernize money for the wedding industry, all while saving wedding pros time and money!
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