Simplify Billing Cycles and Cash Flow Management with Milk Delivery Software
Managing recurring billing cycles is tedious if you do not have relevant tools, which can lead to mismatches and unnoticed cash leakage. Milk delivery software is an online platform that can help you manage and track your payments.
This blog discusses all the aspects of milk delivery software, specifically how it can simplify billing cycles and help you manage cash flow.
The blog covers:
What is milk delivery software?
Milk delivery software is an integrated solution for your dairy delivery business that provides features and functionality to manage your business operations, including order processing, payment management, stock counting and leveling, customer relationship management, delivery planning, route optimization, and report generation and analytics. The components of this milk round software are the admin panel, the customer app, and the driver app.
Payment management mechanism in milk delivery software
The payment management in delivery software works through the admin panel, the customer app, and the driver app. The software offers prepaid and postpaid payment models. You can choose either of them or both.
Prepaid
For the prepaid payment model, the system offers in-app wallets. Customers can recharge their wallets using integrated payment gateways. With every successful delivery, money is automatically deducted for subscription orders. If the wallet balance is insufficient or zero, deliveries are automatically paused and resumed once the wallet is recharged.
Postpaid
The system works on a billing cycle model for the postpaid payment model. The invoices are generated daily, weekly, or monthly. As a business owner, you can choose to define your billing cycle. The invoices are sent to the customers via SMS, email, and WhatsApp. Invoices contain payment links, allowing customers to pay directly from the payment link.
Hybrid
In a hybrid payment system, some of your customers are prepaid and others are postpaid. In this case, you define a credit limit for your postpaid customers; once the limit is over, deliveries are auto-paused until the customers pay their invoices. Once the customers make their payments, the deliveries are automatically resumed. For prepaid customers, when the wallet balance is insufficient, the deliveries are auto-paused and resumed when the payment is made.
Payment management mechanism:
For the prepaid payment model
Step 1: Customers recharge their in-app wallets. The money gets transferred to the owner’s account and the wallet balance shown in the app is the virtual money.
Step 2: The customer places an order from the self-serve application.
Step 3: The driver delivers the order on the customer’s doorstep. When the driver marks the delivery as “delivered,” the amount is deducted from the wallet.
For the postpaid payment model
Step 1: The customer places a subscription order.
Step 2: The invoice is generated every week or month based on your defined preference.
Step 3: The invoice is sent to the customer via email, SMS, or WhatsApp.
Step 4: Customers can pay online or in cash. The cash is handed to the delivery drivers.
Step 5: The drivers record the amount or the transaction ID. This transaction is verified with an OTP from the customer’s registered mobile number.
What is a billing cycle?
The billing cycle is the period from the end of one billing statement date to the next for the services or goods a company provides to customers on a recurring basis. The billing cycles are generally set monthly; however, they can vary depending on the nature of the business.
How does milk delivery software help you simplify the billing cycle?
This delivery software offers certain features that can help you simplify the billing cycle and improve billing accuracy. The features of milk delivery software that can help you simplify the billing cycle are:
Invoice generation
The delivery software for milk enables you to define your billing cycle and generate invoices accordingly. It generates invoices daily, weekly, and monthly. These invoices are automatically generated based on the number of successful deliveries made. The software can also generate the current month’s invoice. For instance, if your customer wants the billing on any date of a month other than the billing date, you can generate it and share it with the customers.
Invoice distribution
You can send the invoices to your customers online via emails, SMS, and WhatsApp. The invoices generated have payment links through which the customers can make payments.
B2B invoice generation
You might have business-to-business customers for whom you want to generate taxable invoices. The system allows you to enter your business clients’ commercial numbers (GST numbers) to generate tax-inclusive invoices.
Prepaid and postpaid invoice
The system provides a prepaid and postpaid invoicing model. You can choose either of them or both. Implementing a prepaid invoicing model is one of the major challenges to maintaining positive cash flow. The system offers an in-app wallet, allowing your customers to make advance payments for subscriptions or one-time orders. For such orders, the invoices are generated daily as the amount for the order is deducted from the invoices.
What is cash flow management?
Cash flow management is managing and tracking cash coming in and going out of the business, enabling you to analyze and forecast cash flow needs. Cash flow is monitored, analyzed, and optimized as the daily net cash received minus expenses.
How does milk delivery software help you manage your cash flow?
Milk delivery software integrates payment management, enabling you to manage recurring billing, payments, and cash flow. The features of this software that can help you manage your cash flow are:
Transaction reports
The software generates transaction reports, enabling you to track amounts received from customers. These reports help you reconcile the payments received and the actual calculated payment to be received.
Pending payment reports
This delivery software auto-generates the pending payment reports, which include the list of customers who have not paid their bills. These reports can help you identify customers behind their bills and ask them to make payments. You can send them pending payment reminder notifications for prompt payments.
Low in-app wallet balance reminder
You can send your customers low in-app wallet balance reminders to recharge their wallets before the balance goes to zero and the deliveries are stopped. The prepaid payment model allows you to manage cash flow and keep it positive.
Proof of payment
This feature is helpful for customers making their payments to the drivers. Suppose the driver collects cash from the customer. In that case, the driver needs to record the amount collected and the customer needs to verify the payment via OTP sent to the registered mobile number. On the contrary, if the driver collects money online, he should record the transaction ID, and customers need to verify the payment via an OTP.
Auto-deduction
The software allows customers to add their debit or credit card to the system, which automatically debits the amount when bills are generated. The auto-deduction feature of the system ensures timely payments, maintaining positive cash flow.
Benefits of implementing milk delivery software to manage payments
The milk delivery software offers various functionalities, like invoice generation, multiple payment options, transaction reports, etc., that improve the accuracy and security of the payments. The major benefits of implementing the software are:
Increased efficiency
The milk delivery management software integrates payment management with other delivery operations. Automation improves invoice accuracy and minimizes reworks, increasing the efficiency of payment management. Automation also streamlines other business operations, like ordering, stock management, route optimization, and report generation.
Reduced costs
Automating invoice generation minimizes the chances of manual errors and reduces rework costs. The system makes payment reconciliation easy and more accurate, reducing the need for reworks and its costs. The system also improves the accuracy of orders and other administrative work. Automation also reduces the need for staff to manage the operations, reducing the hiring costs.
Improved customer satisfaction
Features like past transaction accessibility, offering multiple payment options to the customers, and pending payment reminders improve the customer experience and satisfaction rates. Offering a self-service platform to manage and track their transactions fosters transparency, improving customer satisfaction rates.
Multiple integrations
The system supports multiple payment gateway integrations that allow you to offer your customers preferred payment options. Most companies use different software solutions to manage their various business operations. However, this software is an integrated solution that integrates six modules that provide end-to-end solutions for your business. These six modules include order management, payment management, stock management, delivery management, customer management, and reporting and analytics.
Conclusion
Implementing delivery software with our milk delivery app development services can help you automate your entire business operations, from order processing to successfully delivering the order to the customers. The software can streamline your payment collection process and reconciliation, improving your positive cash flow and adding to the revenue.
