How to Answer Tough Questions
Something we noticed when visiting small businesses was that their billing information often lived in multiple places. Invoices might be word docs saved in a folder on the desktop. Payments might be tracked in a spreadsheet. Unpaid invoices might be printed out, and living in a manila folder labeled “Not Paid”. Lots of good information. All over the place. Hard to answer questions. When you’re staring at a folder on your desktop what can it tell you? Hmm, well you could count the number of files and maybe you would know how many invoices…you had created this year? Or since your business started? Or maybe the invoices live in separate folders for each customer. Or maybe there’s one spreadsheet for each customer, and each tab is a different invoice. Hmm, so, how many customers have unpaid invoices? Hang out, I’ll just open every spreadsheet and let you know. It starts out easy – after all, everybody knows how to use word and excel, right? It doesn’t take long for it to get really to answer some basic questions about the state of billing. And soon, the basic questions become tough questions.
So, when we designed Billing Manager one of the things we kept in mind was making it easy to answer these tough questions. Here, let’s talk about it.
How many overdue invoices do I have? The answer to “how many invoices” questions often starts with the left hand navigation. In this case, the answer starts and stops there. I have 2 overdue invoices – and they add up to $720 in overdue payments.
Who owes me the most money? First, go to the Address Book (left hand navigation). Second, sort the Outstanding Balance column (just click on it, and click on it again to sort in the direction). I could have gone to the Unpaid folder…but if somebody owes me money on a couple of open invoices, the quickest way to get the answer is from the address book.
What’s my largest outstanding invoice? Head on over to the Unpaid Folder. Now click on the “Amt.Due” column.
What invoices are due next month? What’s the total owed next month? Stick around the Unpaid Folder. Head over to the filter, click on the calendar icons to choose the first and last day of next month. You’re now looking at a list of the invoices due next month – and look to the folder title, we’ll tell you exactly the dollar amount owed.
So, this was an intro to answering tough questions. With the folders, the sortable columns, and the filter, you can really answer a lot of questions.
Not so tough.
