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Saasu is about helping you look professional, saving time and bringing forward cashflow. The Automated Statement feature lets you set rules for sending statements automatically via email and apply these to either individuals Contacts or Contact Groups.
In Saasu you have the ability to create CSS/HTML designs to apply to your Templates. We call these design Themes.
How can I use the Automated Statement Engine?
- Payment Reminders
- Monthly Statement Sends
- Statements for Loans/Finance tracking
- Subscription billings
- Renewal Requests
- Facilitate Debtors collection
If you have found a nifty use of this feature. Let us know.
How to use Automated Statements
Contacts – Set your statements to run on a specific Contact or a Contact Group. Use the Add link to add a new Contact Group
Rules – Send statements to contacts that are:
- Non-zero balance contacts – These are generally customers who are in your accounts receivable list.
- Overdue by a certain number of days – This allows you to cut some slack and not chase people unless they are a overdue by a certain number of days
- With any sales or payments in the statement period – This allows you to send a Contact a Statement if they have had any activity at all. Much like banks who send you a statements reflecting any activity that has occured.
Frequency – Set how often do you want to send the statements. Set the day and period of the statement to send that suits your billing and business model.
Template – Add an Email Template and check it using the preview option.
Next Run – We let you know when the next email run occurs.
List of Automated Statements
The List of Automated Statements provides a summary of the different Statement runs you have setup, when they will send and what the basic rules are for sending them.
How do I exclude Contacts
To exclude a contact from your statements run just go to their Contact record and untick the Auto send statement checkbox.
My customer has paid me since month end and will receive a statement saying they owe me money?
Sometimes you have some delay in your Automated Statements to allow yourself some reconciliation time and to be sure you have your accounts balanced at month-end before issuing your Automated Statements. This can create an issue where you may have set your statement period to be the previous month or quarter but since then your customer has made a payment and will now receive a statement suggesting they still have a payable account with you.
The key point for billing models like this is that you need to clearly identifying the statement period (which Saasu does for you) and secondly include a courtesy statement identifying this in some way. Businesses such as Telco’s and Credit Card companies handle this by including a note to the effect of “Please ignore the payment amount/request if you have made a payment since the Statement date”.
The gap in days between statement period end and date of issue if kept short will help. However, different businesses need differing amounts of time for month-end reconciliations and/or mailing time.
How do I know the Automated Statements have sent?
We recommend you keep a copy of what statements were sent via an email archive. To do this, you simply include your email address in the BCC(Blind Carbon Copy) field of the Statement email template. A copy is then sent to the Bcc-specified email account when the email is sent to the customer.
We suggest that you create an email address that you blind carbon copy all your emails to (eg statements@saasu.com). This email address will function as an audit trail/repository for outgoing statements.
