Integrated payments allow veterinarians to have their customers pay by credit card at time of service and apply that payment directly to an invoice without manual intervention. Enabling integrated payments goes far beyond being able to take credit cards as it enhances workflow, reduces entry errors, improves cash flow, reduces fraud risk and saves veterinarians time and money.
Workflow Enhancement
Time is money. Each time equine vets have to touch a piece of paper more than once, they are not enabling efficient workflow. Lab orders/results, invoicing, medical records, entering payments from disconnected systems are all time wasters.
Reduce Entry Errors
A horse named Minor, or was it spelled Miner? Simple key stroke errors cause time delays and mix up in billing, records and people time. Connected workflow eliminates many errors.
Improve Cash Flow
Many equine vet practices struggle with accounts receivable, a problem that has been around for years and will not change until the practices enforces payment rules. Integrating an end to end process that includes automation increases the time the practice received money from clients. There is no debating this model works. The debate is the resolve of the business to implement a process.
Improve Security
Cyber security is a growing problem in our world and is not going away – EVER! Using integrated payments, practices eliminate liability for credit card fraud because liability shifts to the card processor, not the veterinary practice. This is governed by PCI compliance standards and is not something most veterinarians are well versed in, let alone should be spending their time on. Here is a link to more about PCI compliance (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pci-compliance.asp).
Save Time and Money
We often get the question about processing rates for Cassadol and if the number compares to their local bank or other payment platforms like Stripe and Square. I am going to offend some people when I say that this is the wrong question to ask.
The REAL question is “how much time does it save me” if I don’t have to double enter information? Cassadol rates are 2.8% and $0.30 per transaction (at time of writing and are subject to change). These rates should be comparable to any major provider, but let me illustrate the point with some simple math.
On a $350 transaction, Cassadol fees are $10.01, not that significant. Even at a lower rate of 2.5%/$0.30 – the difference is a dollar. Without integrated payments, someone must take the invoice amount and enter it into an accounting package, which not only takes time but can be entered correctly.
If the person entering the number is paid $20.00 hour, this equates to 33 cents a minute. If it takes a person longer than three minutes to look at each customer, then the invoice transaction and then enter it, the practice is losing money.
Now multiply this by the number of transactions per day and per month and it does not make financial sense to enter payments manually and let’s hope it is not the veterinarian that is entering numbers (we all know they make more than $20/hour).
There is no arguable benefit to taking payments manually in equine practice. It is not cost effective. It is error prone. It is not a best practice to follow, time wise or liability wise.
Automation can be a huge time saver. As it turns out, it can also save you a lot of money and let your customers pay even more easily than before. It can be better experience for you, and your customers.
