Smart Invoicing: How Agencies can Automate and Streamline Their Billing Process

Whether you’re the client or the service provider, invoicing has long been a pain point across the repossession industry. From managing various rates and SLAs to keeping up with fee changes and bonus programs, all parties are spending valuable time tracking down accurate service rates and ensuring invoices are correct to quickly issue payment.

Invoicing Challenges for Recovery Agencies

When visiting and talking to recovery agencies, I’ve seen billing managers use everything from a three-ring binder to an extensive online spreadsheet to manage contracted fees with their client. One agency I spoke with had to update more than 400 fields in one week’s time in their billing spreadsheet due to various fee changes from their clients. That's a heavy, labor-intensive task even for someone skilled with data and worksheets. None of these methods are efficient and there is a lot of room for simple mistakes.

One thing that’s both common and certain is that if a repo agency doesn’t have a dedicated staff member to manage invoicing, they are missing out on billable fees. I’ve even been told by some smaller recovery agencies they know they are missing fees but just don’t have the time to invest in closer review.

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How Smart Invoicing Can Improve Workflows & Efficiency for Agencies

With Smart Invoicing, clients can automatically approve fees and invoices that meet the contracted rate. Service providers can load their contracted fees into Smart Invoicing and easily manage them with full version control. The system automatically creates invoices when the work is completed and adds any approved fees to the invoice. Say a fee requires pre-approval like tow dollies for an AWD vehicle, as soon as the fee is submitted by the service provider, it’s automatically approved as long as it meets the expected amount. We even alert you if the fees have changed from the time you accepted the case, to the time you recovered the case, ensuring you bill the right amount and maximize revenue.

Clients using this tool are pre-approving 86% of fee requests and 76% of invoices.

Connect with Us to Start Driving Billing Efficiencies

We rolled out the prototype at Used Car Week 2024 and are working closely with agencies to bring efficiencies to billing processes --- even on cases created outside of RecoveryConnect. If you’re interested in being a beta user, click here to sign up. Or find us at NARS 2025 in April where we will be rolling this out to all customers.

Smart Invoicing is another step toward changing antiquated tools and processes to help all parties operate more efficiently and profitably.

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