Faster Payments from your Customers
At Xerocon last week, Xero announced their new ‘Auto pay’ feature, that allows your business to automatically collect payment from credit card or bank account details for repeating invoices.
For no additional cost to the existing monthly Xero Subscription, this ‘Auto pay’ feature will be available globally to Standard or Advisor users on the Xero Business Plans with Stripe or GoCardless enabled.
What is Stripe & GoCardless?
They are both payment processing platforms allowing businesses to accept credit card or bank account payments from customers. Stripe processes credit card payments and GoCardless processes bank account payments.
[nt_box style=”grey” closable=”unclosable”]Xero data shows that small businesses who enable Stripe payments on Xero invoices are already paid on average up to 15 days faster than those without any payment services attached.[/nt_box]
By integrating Stripe or GoCardless with Xero, customers can pay directly from the Xero invoice using a ‘Pay Now’ button. The newly announced ‘Auto Pay’ feature takes it one step further and automates the payment collection process for you, no need for your customer to manually pay their invoice. Payment is collected via the nominated billing details in Stripe/GoCardless.
Auto pay is only available on repeating invoices set to ‘approve for sending’. When auto pay is offered on a repeating template, it’s available on all invoices generated from that template.
3 Steps to Setup Auto Pay
- Ensure you have Stripe or GoCardless account based on your requirements (merchant fees applies)
- Setup the ‘Online Payments’ in Xero invoices for Xero and Stripe/GoCardless
- Enable the ‘Auto pay’ feature of that integration.
Full instructions can be found here.
Already using Stripe?
‘A new data feed from Stripe will make it easier than ever for small businesses to receive comprehensive transaction data on sales and invoices within Xero. In 2017 we announced automated Stripe reconciliation for customers who accepted credit card payments with Stripe via Xero Online Invoices. Now, with the new feed, if you receive customer payments via Stripe anywhere, whether on an invoice or in an e-commerce store, you will automatically see that payment transaction data flow into Xero as individual items, making reconciliation a breeze.’ – Xero Blog
Gone are the days where you spend all that time having to zero out your Stripe clearing account!
The Stripe feed will be available globally from the 16th September 2019 and users can connect in the same way they connect other bank feeds within Xero. Users who connect Stripe on invoices will see a feed set up automatically on their behalf.
Want More Info on Xero Automation?
If you have any questions regarding any of the information above or looking to automate processes in your business, chat to Angie Poole on (07) 5437 9900. She will work with your accountant to streamline your workflow and reduce the time spent on admin.