Bacs, or Bankers Automated Clearing System, has now been around since the late 1960s. It is the UK’s system of making electronic financial payments. Bacs payments mean that you can provide a department with your bank details – account number and sort code – and have money paid directly into your account. This clearly has numerous advantages. Speed is one of them – bacs takes place almost instantly in a lot of cases (although this depends a lot on the banks in questions – certain transfers between some banks can be extremely speedy, whereas others can take three working days, which is the standard time quoted in the industry). In any case, even the three-day limit is probably as fast, in many cases, as paying in cash or a cheque and waiting for it to clear. Convenience is another benefit – it decreases trips to the bank, and therefore leaves more time for other activities. Security is another obvious one; it stops the need to have large quantities of money on the premises, which might be a particular problem on payday. In the past, this would have meant that the entire company’s payroll was present – a clear risk. bacs software can therefore be a huge advantage for modern firms.
If you operate a small business – or anything larger – you will likely benefit from incorporating such bacs software into your accounts department. Automating invoice payments significantly simplifies the monthly (or more regular) task, since everything can be automated to the required degree. This means that you don’t have to do the job yourself. Even if you still use online banking, thereby avoiding the issues with writing lots of cheques or, worse, handing out physical cash, setting up and paying all the amounts can be a time-consuming process. It’s also likely to mean a lower degree of mistakes, and therefore less problem with duplicate payments, fraud and other issues than can reduce your profit margin through poor accounting procedures.
Bacs is fast and easy (SWIFT, a faster version, guarantees same-day payment, for a fee). Bacs payments have so many advantages that it’s worthwhile for any business to explore bacs software as an option for paying clients and suppliers. In the 21st century, cheques and cash are less and less common payment methods, and the future of the cheque itself is becoming increasingly uncertain. Simplicity, security and reliability are three reasons to look into the idea more closely, if you haven’t already.
Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.
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