After each ad sale, you're expected to follow through with the production, placement, and delivery necessary to satisfy the advertiser. But unless you're accepting an alternative payment method (such as barter or trade), there is one additional step that is often the most difficult for businesses that sell ads: managing accounts receivable.
Whether your accounting staff is just one person or your team is 100 strong, collecting payment can be a labor-intensive process that quickly eats away at your accounting resources. The good news is there's a better way to handle A/R—and it involves 3 simple steps that can reduce the time and money you spend tracking down the money your business is owed.
Good Accounts Receivable Processes: More Trust, Less Legwork
The answer involves communicating your payment expectations at the time of an ad sale, and it requires a credit card on file from each advertiser. Here's how it works:
- Ask each advertiser to prepay their first ad before it runs, and require them to provide a credit card number to put on file.
- State that each invoice must be paid within 15 days by check.
- If after 15 days the invoice is not paid, charge the credit card for their convenience.
Together, these steps reduce collections and write-offs, protect your cash flow, and—believe it or not—simplify your advertisers' lives, too. The best part is that this process is applicable across all types of advertising sales—magazines and niche publications, broadcast, digital, outdoor, and events.
Card on File? Trust the Process.
Accounting processes are only as effective as their adoption and enforcement. To this point, your ad sales CRM software matters. With Ad Sales Genius, you can store and process credit card securely, send invoices automatically, and transfer contracts into invoices with no additional data entry necessary. We even fully integrate with QuickBooks for seamless company-wide accounting!
Learn more about our software's accounting integrations and features designed to work with all types of advertising sales, including magazines, digital ads, out-of-home, and expo sales. Better yet, check out Ad Sales Genius firsthand—schedule a free demo now using the form below!