***First posted on Tanya’s Bookkeepers Bootcamp Facebook page and Transcribed for our blog
Tanya : Hello everybody out there in the Facebook world. We are coming to you live from QBC in Vegas. How exciting! It's day one today, and they're just getting everything set up. So, this morning we've got some special guests and interviews and our first of the day is Omry from Anchor.
Omry : Hello everybody. Thank you for joining. I hope this is going to be beneficial for you.
Tanya : Absolutely. So, for those of you out there who haven't heard of Anchor, because Anchor was new to me, there's only been about two months that we've been speaking. But yes, I absolutely love it. So, Anchor was born out of a problem that you yourself had felt, and I love the apps that are like that. So, tell everybody about the problem and the solution.
Omry : So I think much like, probably most of the people listening, I don't enjoy collection calls, I don't enjoy manual billing, and I don't enjoy not getting paid for my work. And this is exactly what happened in previous businesses we had, we had a consultancy business and a software business. And regardless of what we've done, we've always felt that we need to chase that. It always took bandwidth in our minds. When are we getting paid? Who didn't pay? It was always around. So billing was never just an end-of-the-month thing. It was a constant thing. And when we looked outside and we saw, this is solved for SaaS products, it's solved for eCommerce, for point of sale. But service providers are being left out of these technology solutions. And most of that occurs because it's manual processes so our clients cannot trust the invoice, they need to validate it. And we looked into how we can actually automate it so that it's solved. That billing is no longer manual, it's fully automated, and the default is that you're getting paid the minute the job is done, or according to whatever terms you set, and not the default is, you do the work and then, unless proven otherwise, you're being paid. So, just changing that default is, you're being paid automatically and it's still keeping it dynamic. So this is what we've done. We're an autonomous billing system that automates everything from the proposal stage, through collecting the payment method, generating an automated invoice, collecting the money, transferring the money to you, and reconciling it all in one place. And hopefully getting you more freedom and more bandwidth for real business.
Tanya : Absolutely. And what I think is really unique, because there are a lot of payment solutions out there, is that you do start right from the beginning, from the proposal stage and it goes all the way through. And, most of us should be, although I know we're not all doing this, but billing in advance, but there's still a manual process to that. And on my end, I still have a couple of other apps pulling everything in to do things because there was a manual portion of it that leaves room for error. And I'm human like everybody else. And every couple of months I'm like, oh, I updated one and I forgot to update the other. And you're right, this is just, it's beautiful right from the beginning. And what I love is, you don't have to now go and ask and wait for the person to send you their banking information or their credit card information because it's automatically in there. Your system asks for it, right? They accept the proposal, they accept the terms. Then they enter the banking information immediately and it just goes all the way through.
Omry : For us, it was very critical to take us as business owners away from the equation of dealing with money. Because when you're providing a service, a big part of your value is the relationship that you have, the trust that you have, and the energy. This is a big part of the package, and whenever there are talks about money or things that, "oh, you didn't pay this" or, " we need to chase", it always adds friction to the relationship. And more than anything, it's the least efficient thing. So, we looked into how to really solve it. We had to start before the building even begins before you send an invoice. So, matching the expectations and even getting paid in advance doesn't solve all the issues because some of it you can take in advance, but a lot of it is something that, you know, things change. You started the process with someone and they say, " yeah, this is my clean up", and then you lift the hood and then say, "oh, that's not the thing that you told me." What do you do? So the minute you have their payment information in place and the system is dynamic, meaning it can accommodate changes, and you can just say "OK, that's a thousand dollars instead of seven hundred," your client gets it and says, "yeah, approve, done." It's becoming part of a binding agreement and will already join the next billing cycle or be paid immediately. So, the objective is to send it, and forget it, and not deal with it so that the system will actually deal with everything that revolves around money.
Tanya : And that's really important too because there have been times where just on our own again, we're just adding something, there's a change of scope of work, there's something. And I'm like, "OK, I'll send it later, let's just do the work," because again, it's a manual process and you're right, in your system, it is so simple to just go in, do it, click it, it's gone. And then you also have a dashboard that clients can log in and they can see everything as well. They can see their past invoices, they can see all that. When you and I first spoke, you said it was very similar to like Spotify or Netflix, but on the dashboard and the way the billing goes and whatnot.
Omry : That was the concept when everybody is paying Spotify or Netflix, the invoice that you're getting, if you're even getting it, at the end of the month is not something that you look back at and you have an AP process. Like, how much did I agree to pay Netflix? You just know it's an expense. You don't even treat it like that because you trust the process. You know that the computer generated the invoice and what you've agreed to pay in the beginning is probably what's there. And if it changes, you're very confident that you can access them and actually do that. So, what we've tried to create is the same trust in your invoices so that only what you agreed will actually be in the invoice. And then your clients can actually trust it and not have their AP process, just they let your payments flow and if there's change, they get notified. So, there's complete transparency, and you're not sending your clients to work in order for you to get paid. And this is what we're doing now. We're sending them to work. We're sending them to validate stuff that, you know, we talked about three months ago and then it just goes down from there. So, automating it makes sure that there are no late payments, there's no revenue leakage, and more than anything you're not wasting really expensive time doing it. It's efficient.
Tanya : And the other thing that I think is important to mention too, just as we're wrapping up is it's a pay-per-use service, which is what I love as well because there are so many other apps out there that we are paying so much for and this is a pay-per-use. So if we just start to finish, we're not paying for the proposal. We're basically paying for every payment that's collected. So, all the rest of that is covered. So that's really going to help bring your fees down as well as the time processing because it is so much quicker. It is such an easy system. Very easy on the other end, we've heard great things from the clients that we've already invoiced on it.
Omry : For us it was critical to align ourselves with our clients, meaning you guys. So there are no minimums, there are no subscriptions, there are no percentages, it's a flat $5 fee when you get paid, meaning if it's a thousand dollar invoice, we'll pay $995. So it's completely free until you have money in the bank. And what we see is that you don't need additional software, so you don't need signatures, they are already inside, the billing is inside, everything is included, and it's only being paid when you're being paid, so there's a complete alignment of interest, there's no need for a merchant account, and more than anything, it saves a lot of precious time which is what we're aiming for.
Tanya : That's awesome. So, just as we wrap things up here, you guys don't have a booth here, but you are here. Look for the Anchor shirts. Talia, one of the team members will probably be with me most of the time or a lot of the time, and if not, I know where she'll be. So just look for the Anchor folks walking around, look for me walking around. We'll make sure you get connected. And they do have a suite that you are scheduling demos as well too, right?
Omry : So, whether it's at the conference or down the line, we would love to have everybody and we're giving away chips. So, it's important to gamble when in Vegas apparently.
Tanya : There we go, there we go. And also they are a puppy sponsor, so watch out for the puppies. There will be puppies around and of course, the puppies are completely free to you because they have paid to sponsor them. And for each of the puppies, all we ask you to do is just a little bit of social media as a thank you for them. And $50 is going to Beagle Freedom Project. So, thank you very much for that as well. That's per puppy as well. So, just as we wrap it up, was there anything else you wanted the audience to know?
Omry : Just, you know, I'm wishing everybody, regardless of you joining us or not, really this is part of our mission for you to succeed in your business. And if we can be part of your journey, we'd love that, so, that's it.
Tanya : And for those folks that aren't here, sayanchor.com is the website. So make sure you look that up and then we'll make sure that that's listed on all of the posts as well. Alright, well, thank you so much Omry.
Omry : Thank you for having me.
Tanya : Yes, and thank you for coming. Have a great day everybody and we'll see you on the floor.
Omry : Bye.
Until next time,
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