One of the most important facets of a successful business transaction is speed. Given a choice, nobody wants to be waiting for business documentation for any longer than is necessary and nobody wants to wait for payday. In the not too distant past, speed was in some circumstances nowhere in the picture. Many businesses were having to use faxes and snail mail to send crucial business documents, and then waiting for the same faxes and snail mail to have responding documents sent back by whoever they’re communicating with. As the internet has since proven through online payment services, snail mail is no way to do business.
An even more important aspect of business transactions is safety of the transaction as a whole and most importantly safety of the money. Otherwise of what use is speedy business if the money ends up getting lost? Traditional methods of money transfer have often times been fraught with loopholes that have seen businessmen and women lose money as well as business goodwill. It is well known that unguarded money gets intercepted by unscrupulous characters who discover, or even facilitate these loopholes with an aim to defraud unsuspecting people.
PayPal has been able to solve both of these problems by providing a well rounded money transfer system where everything works at a click. Users therefore get their payments fast, and securely. In the end, fast secure handling of money is the essence of any business.
How does PayPal do that? By use of their email invoicing system where merchants can create professional invoices, send them to customers via email, and be able track and manage payments within an easy and secure system that requires no development or integration on their part. Everything towards security and ease of use is catered for from PayPal’s end. This saves users lots of time and money. The invoicing service does not attract any additional charges to the merchant other than the standard PayPal processing fees.
This invoicing process can be summarized in 4 quick and easy steps:
- To create an invoice, complete a PayPal online form where you will feed in transaction details such as unit prices, quantities and taxes. You’ll also need to fill your details as well as those of the recipient.
- Click send invoice, but only after going through it carefully to verify that everything is accurate. PayPal sends the invoice, with a link for the customer to pay by.
- Your customer gets an email and follows the link to make your payment via the PayPal system. The customer does not need a PayPal account to be able to pay you.
- The customer pays via PayPal and the funds are immediately credited to your PayPal account, after which you can proceed to electronically transfer the money as per your preferences.
Other than invoicing services, one can also use the PayPal email payment to request money. This could be money owed for a job or service offered or it could be a friendly loan for which you want to send a polite reminder. Request money is as easy as filling out a request money form on the PayPal website and sending it to the recipient’s via email. He or she will get a link to pay you via PayPal. They do not need to have a PayPal account for this.
