Text-to-Pay Helps Glass Installers Get Paid

“The better you make it for the shopper to pay, the faster you’re going to receives a commission,” Michael Casella, govt vice chairman of Mainstreet Computer systems, informed PYMNTS.

Casella was describing one of many benefits of text-to-pay, a characteristic the corporate added final yr to its software program for the auto and flat glass trade.

It’s frequent {that a} flat glass installer will do a quote and later get a name from the shopper saying they’d prefer to go forward with the job, Casella stated. If the installer requires a deposit for the job, they’ll instantly go into the software program, put the deposit on a piece order, and textual content it on to the shopper’s telephone.

“They only need to click on on the hyperlink, it opens up a safe web site, they usually can put of their data to course of the cost,” Casella stated.

Deploying Safe Hyperlinks and QR Codes

Along with enabling that fast response, text-to-pay additionally provides a approach round two limitations which might be frequent in not solely the glass trade however different industries and private lives: the tendency of emails to get misplaced in cluttered inboxes and of telephone calls to not be answered.

“These days it’s fairly frequent, everyone has a telephone with them, and no person solutions their telephone anymore,” Casella stated. “However in the event you ship them a textual content message, they actually see it.”

For patrons preferring electronic mail, Mainstreet’s software program offers the flexibility to electronic mail an bill that features each a hyperlink and a QR code. Prospects can click on on the hyperlink to a safe web site or, if they’ve printed out a replica of the bill, they’ll scan the QR code to get proper to the cost as nicely.

The software program can obtain almost any kind of cost technique, Casella stated. Bank card funds have change into frequent for each shopper and B2B funds. With Mainstreet’s cost processing system, a further service charge will be added to recoup the cash that’s paid in charges by the enterprise to the bank card processors.

“A variety of years in the past, it was way more frequent {that a} enterprise goes to pay with a examine, however increasingly you’re seeing firms pay with bank cards,” Casella stated.

Enabling ‘Progress Billing’

Textual content-to-pay is simply one of many newest options added to Mainstreet’s lineup of software program packages and options designed to satisfy the distinctive wants of the glass trade.

For instance, for flat glass installers, frequent jobs embrace tabletops and bathe enclosures for residential clients, and storefronts and skyscraper home windows for business clients.

With a residential buyer and a job which may value a number of thousand {dollars}, the installer typically takes a deposit to order the supplies after which collects the remaining cash when the job is full, Casella stated.

With a business buyer and a venture which may value tens of hundreds or a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} and take a number of months, however, the installer will invoice over time as items of the venture are accomplished, Casella stated. Examples of this embrace tasks round condominium buildings, resorts or residential builders placing up many houses in a neighborhood.

For that form of venture, Mainstreet has a system in place known as “progress billing.” The installer creates a job ticket with all the things that’s going to be on the job and later, as components of the job are accomplished, goes in and invoices for simply these issues.

“As issues change over time — which they at all times do — they’ve the flexibility to do what’s known as a ‘change order’ to vary that preliminary job,” Casella stated.

Auditing Invoices Earlier than They’re Despatched

For auto glass installers, a variety of their enterprise is insurance coverage pushed. A standard downside on this section of the trade is that if something on the installer’s bill doesn’t match the insurance coverage firm’s dispatch, the audit on the insurance coverage facet will reject the bill and ship it again for correction.

To forestall this delay, Mainstreet’s software program compares a draft bill to the dispatch, ensuring all of the fields are crammed out appropriately earlier than an bill is shipped.

“The overwhelming majority of their invoices ought to go proper via, and they need to receives a commission rapidly — which is, in fact, essential to all our clients,” Casella stated.