S1 Technology x Alternative Payments

Time and Labor-Intensive Process

I handled all tasks related to customer payments. The process looked like this:

• Invoice customers through email.
• Collect checks every day from the mailbox.
• Photograph checks for immediate deposit into our checking account.
• If a customer’s payment was incorrect, I had to go back and adjust the payments.
• Manually enter payments into QBD, which I often forgot about.
• Make bank deposits on the same day to ensure cash flow.
• If I had to be out of the office, everything stopped and we weren’t able to get paid.

Payment Receipts via Mail

It could literally take 10-12 days to get payments from Alaska and other areas, and customers were flagged for non-payment within 10 days of invoicing. All customers are billed at the end of the month in advance for services rendered the following month.

The Perfect Setup for S1’s Systems

Alternative Payments was the only payments provider that integrated with both QBD and ConnectWise. Others integrated with QuickBooks Online, but I don’t like that product as much as the desktop version. Alternative Payments checked all the boxes, and customers seemed to agree that it was a smart choice. After only 3 months, 90% of S1’s clients began checking out through Alternative Payments.

Credit Card Payments are a Game-Changer

My customers love the fact that they can now pay using credit cards because many of them have rewards programs attached to their cards. They didn’t have this option before. And the real beauty here is that Alternative Payments collects the credit card service fees from the customer, so we don’t pay them.

Favorite Features

Alternative Payments offers several features and services that are good for us and good for our customers in addition to credit card payments.

1. Customer Financing Over Time

Customers with large projects can choose to finance their balance over time, instead of having to pay it all at once.

2. Late Notifications

We can specify time intervals for the sending of reminder emails if a customer hasn’t paid an invoice. This really helps us with collections, and we can send multiple reminders if the invoice remains unpaid.

3. Automatic Updates

When we create and send an invoice, QBD automatically updates with no manual intervention. Invoices are paid into our bank account, and the information flows seamlessly from Alternative Payments into QBD, which then updates ConnectWise. Seamless and automatic. All the dashboards are updated in real time, which is amazing.

4. Customer Communications

Prior to launch, Alternative Payments provided brochures for our customers that introduced the new system. Emails clearly laid out what they could expect and how the portal would function. These were scheduled for 60 and 30 days prior to our “go live” date, and they answered any questions our customers could potentially have. Our customers felt totally ready by the time we went live.