Web-based invoices that give the recipient the option to pay online result in payments being made twice as fast as those that do not, according to data from Harvest, an online time-tracking and invoicing product.
Based on a sample of data containing over 250,000 paid invoices from their system, Harvest found that the invoices that included the option to pay using PayPal were paid 16 days faster than those that did not, which took an average of 32 days.
In response to these findings, the site recently rolled out integrations with other payment gateway providers, including Authorize.net, TrustCommerce and LinkPoint.
“Online payment is not new to the Internet, but the way other websites do it is a laborious, multi-step process,” wrote Harvest co-founder Shawn Liu in a recent blog post. “The new payment process on your Harvest Web Invoice is exceptionally fast, and the entire flow happens on one page.”
The use of Web-based invoicing is rapidly growing among freelancers and small businesses due to its convenience over paper-based invoices. Not only do they eliminate the need to waste paper, stamps and postal service gas mileage, but online invoices offer, as these findings suggest, a speedier way to get paid as well.
Harvest shares the online invoicing space with FreshBooks, SimplyInvoices, Blinksale and others.
