Small businesses in the Philippines play a crucial role in the economy as they make up more than 90% of businesses in the country. Despite their clear importance, they often struggle with having efficient billing processes that ultimately affect their growth.

Fortunately, many institutions and companies are now exerting effort to support smaller players in the industry. As the billing and collections platform championing Filipino businesses, Mochi is proud to be at the forefront of revolutionizing billing tools for small businesses.

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Understanding the Billing Challenges Faced by Filipino Small Businesses

The traditional way of billing customers in the Philippines have always been manual. Many boutique shops, supplier stores, and private practice professionals today still use pen and paper to create invoices for their customers. There are also those who already use digital tools that are often software that store static data which still need manual human input. These practices clearly show that manual invoicing is time-consuming and prone to errors.

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Moreover, these manual processes riddled with potential errors make recordkeeping a nightmare as keeping accurate financial records becomes increasingly more complicated as a small business gets more customers. In this regard, local tax regulations can be daunting, and preparing for audits without proper records becomes stressful.

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On the commercial side, inconsistent follow-ups on overdue payments can strain customer relationships which could lead to potential revenue loss. And today where everything is becoming more and more branded, the absence of professional invoices can affect the business's reputation.

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All combined, the manual process that cause delays, discrepancies, and disputes disrupts operations preventing businesses from having and maintaining a consistent cash flow — a critical requirement for sustainability and growth.

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‍The Solution: Creating a Billing Tool Made for Filipino Small Businesses

These problems point towards a clear solution — a billing tool made for Filipino small businesses.

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To revolutionize the operations of small businesses, a billing tool must automate invoice generation and delivery to significantly reduce time spent on manual and menial tasks. Calculations must also be done automatically to avoid human errors and ensure that the billing and payment tracking is accurate to the tee. Flexible invoicing options must also be available to accommodate different billing structures for different clients, such as recurring or one-time payments.

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Timely invoicing and automated payment reminders must also be made available in this billing tool to ensure prompt payments by customers. And with a centralized storage of transaction records, financial management becomes simplified making document retrieval easy for tax and audit purposes. The billing tool must make it easy to track outstanding payments and manage overdue accounts, aiding financial planning.

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Robust security measures must be implemented to protect sensitive financial data and transactions between the small business and their customers. Compliance with local data protection regulations must be in place to ensure that the tool can help small businesses adhere to legal standards. Of course, this air-tight privacy protection should be done while also making seamless integration possible with other accounting software that the small business may be using. 

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With the customer in mind, the billing tool must also have professional and customizable invoice templates that enhance the reputation of the business. Payment reminders and follow-ups on overdue invoices must also be done by this billing tool to improve the perception of the customer towards the professionalism of the small business. And when it’s time for customers to pay, synchronization with payment gateways and options must make online transactions fast and simple.

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Finally, a simple, intuitive, user-friendly interface is also needed to ensure that business owners with varying levels of tech expertise can use the tool on day 1. Because it is a tech tool, it must have easy-to-understand navigation and setup processes to save time and reduce the learning curve for new users.

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Not a pipe dream

We at Mochi understand that this billing tool is needed not in the future, but now. And because of that, we have built a billing and collections platform that encapsulates what we have described.

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The Mochi billing tool can do more than just invoices. It is a comprehensive billing and collections platform with features that span the entire cash conversion cycle. Here are some of the features which we know will benefit many small businesses in the Philippines:

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1. Automated Invoicing: Our platform creates and send digital invoices and billings with payment terms, which can be done automatically for recurring transactions
2. Payment Integration: We have integrated with Xendit and Paymongo to allow small businesses to accept payments via credit card, direct debit, e-wallet, and QR PH
3. Payment Reminders: With custom workflows, we can create automated reminders for upcoming and overdue payments
4. Financial Reporting: We have a insightful real-time business performance reports that allow small businesses to track invoices that have been billed and paid, down to the customer level

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All of these features and more in a simple, powerful, and secure platform that small businesses can access from any browser and device.

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We strongly believe that Filipino small businesses deserve better — so we built it, aiming to revolutionize small business operations in the country.

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