Achieve round-the-clock productivity without any constraint at selling.
Bring in the best payment automation solution and attain enhanced visibility and better financial management.
How do you plan to achieve all that?
For this, streamlining customer payments with universally preferred payment methods and gateways couldn’t be enough.
So? I find the need to explore how bringing CRM as a payment automation solution can help streamline your payment. Let’s begin by understanding what truly is payment automation.
Table of Content
How Does Payment Automation Work?
Through automation one aims at increased profitability and acquire a competitive edge in the market. ‘Zero effort & maximum output’ is the professed rule for automation.
By automating repetitive tasks involved to process payments and utilizing advanced technologies, you aim to achieve higher productivity levels while reducing human error.
4 Phases of Payment Automation
Consider this 4-phased payment automation process to implement a payment automation solution without a flaw.
Phase I: Automated Payment Processing
Initiating payment requests, authorization of payments, or payment settlements. You require automation in all these phases of accepting payments from your customers.
We are all familiar with the concept of what is required for the payments to be initiated – you need a set amount, available payment methods, and some identification of the customer. It seems folly having to put all of it manually. Consequently, a payment request is received using this information each time.
After this, a system verifies the payment details, validates the payment methods, and ensures sufficient funds are available for the transaction. This involves interacting with payment gateways, financial institutions, or third-party processors. Then, depending on the payment mode, a transfer can occur in real time or within a specified settlement period.
Phase II: Auto-Sync Contacts
Following the payment settlement, you would require the contacts and other payment data to complete the payment processing. Using this data, you can streamline the invoicing process, recover abandoned carts, and create targetted lists and personalized marketing workflows.
Plus, you have the opportunity to the best utilization of this rich data through CRM — for email marketing campaigns and customer communications regarding order confirmations, delivery updates, or promotional messages.
Auto-syncing of contacts ensures correct send-out in a timely manner. Personalization is another thing which this payment data can be capitalized for. Moreover, you have the option for loyalty rewards, memberships, inbound marketing tactics, RFM segmentation, and every chance of making your customer feel catered well.
Phase III: Automated Invoicing
No worries about invoicing templates, invoicing send-outs, or manually putting in numbers every time there is a sale, and making sure it is error-free. All these worries go away when you have automation in place.
Relying and spending on a workforce that can be utilized for productive tasks other than generating invoices can hold you back if you’re a startup, an SMB, or a big business house (impractically).
Automated invoicing not only nudges the extra burden off you, but also helps with bookkeeping and accounting processes like payment reconciliation. Nonetheless, it also makes you compliant about keeping your invoice records for 7 years, prevalent in leading nations.
Phase IV: Bookkeeping & Accounting
You need to integrate your accounting software to save valuable time on bookkeeping, rather than doing it manually. An automated payment software can integrate with your accounting software (QuickBooks, Xero, etc.), allowing seamless synchronization of payment data.
An automated payment solution maintains a comprehensive audit trail, documenting all payment-related activities.
6 Benefits of Using Payment Automation Solution
Risk-free Payment Processing
The information you put in to initiate the payment can be automated to save resources, hassle, and time. This streamlines the daily eCommerce operations ‘selling’.
For example, when clicking on a ‘add to cart’ button, functionality has to be assigned for the payment page to catch the price for the product and further for the payment system to catch that amount to accept. Then after, customer login information is also required.
Mitigating Human Errors
You can make selling frictionless with payment automation. Here, everything is very fragile if done manually. Once again, the payment initiation requires information and a dedicated payment infrastructure. The key is to put automation on recurring tasks and avoid human errors.
From data acquisition to automation in payment initiation to payment settlement, tracking even a single error can be a hell of a task. And you don’t want any of that in the payment processing process.
No Payment Disputes
Automation in payment processing also puts away payment disputes. As automated payment software would rarely omit an entry, never would fetch wrong card details, or ever find difficulty in tracking data. You can rely on automation and avoid that payment disputes single-handedly.
Increased ERP Efficiency
Automation has a lot to do with saving time & effort. Therefore, an automated payment software will save your team with:
- Faster payments – No manual data entry.
- Improved accuracy – No human error.
- Data integrity – Automated system to validate payment details.
- Enhanced Visibility – Real-time access to cash flow, payment status, outstanding invoices, & more.
Effortless Bookkeeping & Streamlined Invoicing
As discussed earlier, having an integrated system of accounting and payment automation software will generate and send invoices automatically. It will happen on the basis of predetermined schedules or triggered events to initiate invoicing.
Efficiency In Zero Output Tasks
Payment settlement, sending out invoices, bookkeeping, and data segmentation are all hectic tasks. These are very thorough, fragile, and require resources on a large scale.
However, a startup or a small business may find these dull and unproductive, but necessary so as to build solid compliance and operational foundation.
For Example, if you are a subscription-based business, you need to send payment reminders to your customers. Automate these follow-ups and you can significantly improve your cash flow.
How HubSpot CRM can be the best Payment Automation Solution?
The HubSpot CRM is a great choice when you’re looking to automate your payments, besides HubSpot payments. Not only does it give you ease through the payment process by storing & sharing necessary info whenever needed, but also helps you with tasks that follow through.
HubSpot CRM is a sure-shot way to ensure a seamless experience for both the business and the customers. Following are the ways in which HubSpot CRM integration can contribute as a payment automation solution:
Centralized Data Management
HubSpot CRM allows storage and management of customer data. By integrating payment automation software within the CRM, businesses can streamline payment-related data such as transaction history, invoices, and customer payment preferences. This approach enables businesses to have a holistic view of payment activities.
Seamless Payment Integration
If you’re not happy with HubSpot Payments, then there are options. Integrating payment processing directly into HubSpot CRM, eliminates the need for manual data entry or switching between multiple systems. You can initiate and process payments from within the CRM platform, improving efficiency and reducing the risk of errors.
Customer Insights and Personalization
The HubSpot CRM offers valuable customer insights and data analytics capabilities. By combining payment data with customer information, you can gain deeper insights into customer behavior, payment patterns, and preferences. This information can be used to personalize payment experiences, offer targeted promotions, and enhance customer satisfaction.
Automation and Workflow Management
Using HubSpot CRM, you have access to true automation and workflow management features. Businesses can automate payment reminders, invoice generation, and recurring billing processes, reducing manual effort and ensuring timely payments.
Integration with Other Business Processes
CRM software is typically designed to integrate with other business tools and systems such as accounting software, e-commerce platforms, and marketing automation tools. By integrating payment automation within CRM, businesses can ensure smooth data flow across various departments and systems, creating a cohesive and integrated payment ecosystem.
Enhanced Security and Compliance
HubSpot CRM is built with robust security measures to protect customer data. When payment processing is integrated within the CRM, businesses can leverage the existing security features of the CRM platform to ensure the secure handling of payment information.
Automation In Payment Processing by Gateways
Choosing the best payment gateway for your eCommerce is very crucial. You must consider what features you can benefit from and how you can save effort and time. Let’s have a look at how opting for a gateway can give you your payment automation solution.
Authorize.net
Authorize.net is a widely used online payments solution that provides businesses with a secure and efficient way to process online transactions. It is the best payment gateway that enables businesses to accept ACH payments and e-checks. Moreover, the ARB solution, one of the payments processing services by Authorize.net, allows you to create subscriptions that include a payment schedule, the billing amount, and the customer’s payment information.
Amazon Pay
If you’re looking to offer a frictionless checkout experience to your customers, then Amazon Pay as a payment gateway is the way to get it. Moreover, Amazon Pay is a reliable payment provider for subscription-based business models. Furthermore, the one-click payments feature by Amazon Pay is a prime example of payment automation which takes zero input to initiate payments.
PayPal
With PayPal, you have the most popular gateway there is. Choosing PayPal can prove to be the ultimate game changer for your payment mechanism. PayPal’s IPN feature enables you to receive automated notifications about payment-related events, so that you can attend them in time. Most significantly, PapPayl houses the subscription payments facility too, and helps to automate send-outs.
Stripe Payments
Stripe allows you to set up subscription plans and automate recurring billing. You can define the pricing, billing intervals, and other subscription details. Moreover, Stripe’s payments processing services ‘Webhooks’, facilitate automated notifications about payment events, customer updates, or subscription changes.
Square Payments
Square’s Card-on-File feature enables you to securely store customer card information, which is useful for recurring payments or subscription-based businesses. One of the most popular online payment solutions also enables you to set up automated payment notifications to keep customers informed about their transactions. You can configure email or SMS workflows for your customer based on these notifications.
How can MakeWebBetter contribute as Payment Automation Software?
FormPay – A Payment Automation Software
FormPay is an emerging payment automation solution by MakeWebBetter, a HubSpot Elite Solutions Partner. It helps you accept payment anywhere in the world using renowned payment gateways — Amazon Pay, Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, PayU, Razorpay, Adyen, and more.
FormPay is a fabulous alternative to HubSpot payments. It helps you leverage a free HubSpot account and HubSpot forms to create payment forms with ultimate possibilities for customization and branding. Utilizing these payment forms, one can accept one-time payments and recurring payments.
This payment integration software also integrates with Xero to help with automated invoicing, bookkeeping, and accounting process like payment reconciliation.
Moreover, FormPay’s collaboration with Microsoft Clarity and Google Analytics allows reporting, analytics, valuable insights, and generating comprehensive reports.
Choose FormPay for Payments Automation.
With Formpay you can collect payments in HubSpot CRM, anywhere in the world with any gateway.
FormPay Features That Help Through The Payments Automation Phases
Phase I: Automated Payment Processing
When you integrate your online store with the payment integration software ‘FormPay’, the app fetches your store data and creates a complete payment form without any input. In collaboration with the best payment gateways and payment providers, FormPay verifies the payment details and validates the payment methods of your customer. In other words, FormPay doesn’t require any input other than card details from your customer’s end.
Phase II: Auto-Sync Contacts
Whenever there is a successful payment, FormPay retains a variety of data such as – customer information (contacts), transaction details, and payment details (with gateways).
This data is synced to your HubSpot account, where it can be further utilized for invoicing, payment communications, and targeted email marketing campaigns. Moreover, using FormPay Xero integration you can sync these contacts and invoices to Xero.
Phase III: Automated Invoicing
With this payment integration software, you have two options to send out invoices i.e. with HubSpot and with Xero (if you connect your Xero account). The contacts and transaction history is shared with both HubSpot (in contact & timeline events) and Xero (in Contacts).
Use the HubSpot invoice templates to create invoices well-suited to your business, or use Xero’s automated invoicing mechanism for timely send-outs.
Phase IV: Bookkeeping & Accounting
FormPay keeps a complete audit trail and documents all payment-related activities. The integration with Xero also helps you with bookkeeping needs. Moreover, FormPay gives you everything with Xero to streamline and automate recurring accounting processes like payment reconciliation.
Got Questions?
Visit these links and get all your queries resolved.
Perks of Using FormPay For Payment Automation Software
To get the best out of this payment automation solution ‘FormPay’, you must know its full potential. So, let’s see what it has to offer.
- Multiple Gateways – PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Authorize.net, PayU & more.
- XERO Integration – Sync contacts & invoices with Xero.
- Online Payment Reconciliation – Xero enabled payment reconciliation.
- Donation Form Settings – Create specialized donation forms.
- Subscription Business – Accept recurring payments.
- Contact Sync – Sync all your payment data in HubSpot as properties and lists.
- Customizable Payment Forms – Suits branding & versatility.
- Discount Coupons – Coupon functionality with payment forms.
- Product-specific Forms – Create products and sync them with HubSpot.
- Handy Management – Monitor or repurpose forms, coupons & products.
- Transaction Tracking – Monitor transaction data with all the details.
- Global Reach – Accept Payments anywhere in the world.
To Sum It Up
Payment automation isn’t just limited to receiving payments using the best payment integration or payment processing tools. It’s about making optimum utilization of the data you acquire during the process, for marketing, accounting, your organizational goals, and complete eCommerce automation.
By embracing payment automation, you can optimize their cash flow, improve operational efficiency, and enhance overall financial performance.
Now, you know how to reduce the need for manual intervention and the associated risks of human error and choose the best payment integration software with automation.
Got Questions?
Find more help understanding the FormPay app through these links.