29: Green Bills

My daughter just started preschool this week and what a watershed week it has been. She’s attending a new little Montessori school in town which aims to have 28 pre-schoolers. We live in Santa Cruz and you may know that this town is known for being a bit hippie (though I prefer to think of it as down-to-earth). Anika’s school works hard to be as “Green” as possible.

I just received my first bill 3 days after Anika started school. The bill was sent to me as a PDF attached to an email. The tag at the bottom of the email says the email and its attachment were generated using QuickBooks Online.

After just a few days of school my daughter is already asking if Donna, one the co-owner/teachers, can come to our house. Donna is also the person who sent me the electronic bill. Clearly, Donna is a relaxed person who is spending the day engaging with the kids and ensuring a calm, learning environment. She’s not spent all day or night generating these bills.

When I wrote my staffing back office article [Download bo_vendors_may08_si_review_smoss.pdf] I found that electronic forms of billing in staffing are still new and uncommon. For some reason they are not the de facto billing method for our industry and creating them seems to take special effort. While larger firms may have difficulty making electronic billing formats the standard because of inflexible technology, smaller firms can jump on this opportunity. In addition to the social responsibility brownie points, I think your clients will appreciate it as much as I do…not to mention that your bills will be received faster which may translate into fewer days outstanding.