Take control of cash flow and get paid faster with Docusign Payments

Managing cash flow is one of the basics of business. It’s vital to your long-term survival. Yet, even if you’ve got the best strategies in place to keep track of money in, money out, you might find yourself – like so many others – getting caught short at the ‘money in’ stage. Your customers might put off paying. Or they might ‘forget’ to pay. And you end up wasting time and effort chasing them for their payment. 

In fact, around two-thirds of businesses experience delays and issues in collecting payments; and one-fifth spend more than 10 hours a week chasing payments.* These delays can have a huge impact on cash flow, and can hamper your ability to grow. 

Add to this the fact that many businesses are dealing with extremely tough economic conditions right now, and it’s why collecting payments has become a top priority. The quicker you can get paid for the products or services you sell, the stronger a financial position you’re in. And there’s no quicker way to get paid than the moment when a business deal is sealed. 

Sign and pay in one simple step

With any business agreement that requires a signature, you can easily collect upfront payment at the same time that they sign on the dotted line with Docusign Payments. By getting your customers to pay upfront, you reduce your risk, boost your cash flow, and negate the need to chase tardy payers. Plus, you’ll likely find that customers appreciate the convenience of being able to sign and pay in one simple step, from anywhere. 

Let’s jump into a busy real estate office to see how Docusign Payments can streamline the process of tenancy agreements. The tenancy manager already uses Docusign for lease agreements, but used a separate, manual process for collecting security bonds. So they decided to add Docusign Payments to the lease agreement template – and it was as simple as adding a payment tag onto the template. Now, when a new tenant signs a lease agreement, a payment window pops up asking them to pay the bond. It’s immediate, secure and oh-so-easy for all involved. 

Lease agreements are just one example. From event registrations to security deposits, there are a huge range of use cases for Docusign Payments. You can even use Docusign Payments for things like monthly membership fees, by saving a signer’s payment method to collect future payments. Essentially, any contract that sees money change hands can reap the benefits. 

How to get started with Docusign Payments

To add Docusign Payments to your templates, you’ll need to create an account with one of the payment gateways that Docusign supports (currently, this includes Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net, CyberSource, Elavon or Zuora). This payment gateway will process the payments and send the money to your bank. 

If you’re wanting to collect recurring payments, just note that some payment gateways (CyberSource, Elavon, and Zuora) don’t support this feature. 

Then, when you start a new envelope or template, you can click-and-drag the Payment Item into your document. You’ll be prompted to connect your payment gateway – and once that’s done, you can add payment fields to your documents. It really is that easy! 

For more information and support on adding Docusign Payments to your agreements, check out our comprehensive Payments User Guide. Or, if you have specific questions about how it could help you take control of cash flow, contact us today.  

*Internal Docusign market research, 2016