Best Payment Software for Billing & Invoicing at a Coworking Space

This article covers the most sensitive and down-to-earth part of running a successful coworking business, assuming that you are striving to be profitable. I am talking about invoicing and billing as well as the best payment software to automate it.

The main idea of the blog post is to show you how to create a well-performing billing and invoicing mechanism to free yourself from unnecessary complications.

Ideally, you should provide your members with the possibility of self-service so that they could view, download and manage their payments.

 

Provide Different Ways to Pay for Membership

Automating everything including billing and invoicing to boost coworking space efficiency is one of the coworking trends to follow. Let's discuss a couple of practical ways to do it.

 

Establish a Point of Sale

You can establish a point of sales station right at the reception of your coworking space. The gadget doesn't matter here, it can be a desktop computer, a tablet, or some mobile device. Its purpose is to enable community managers to capture charges and manage accounts easily.

Enabling payments via a POS terminal is a way to keep invoices accurate while offering flexibility to coworking space residents. I mean you can input discounts and ad-hoc charges while collecting payments for workspace and services. It's utterly important to get the invoicing correct right from the start to avoid invoice runs, invoicing queries fixes, and revenue losses in the future.

Speaking about the point of sale, it is a good alternative to the outdated methods of payment processing⁠—a notepad, an excel spreadsheet, a voice memo on your mobile device, etc. Everything that requires input information more than once does not fit.

Some of the POS station benefits include:

• No need for manual data input which keeps you safe from human errors.
• Staff (including new and temporary workers) are ready to work with it almost immediately (with minimal training.)
• You can integrate POS with coworking space management platform, which will make the whole invoicing routine a piece of cake.

 

How to Setup Online Billing for a Coworking Space

To enjoy the advantages of an accurate online system your coworking space needs to have a fully-fledged online presence. So, launch a nice, user-friendly website enabling members not only to overview your services but actually purchase them via your website or your coworking space management software.

The main benefit of running an online coworking resource with an activated payment system is easy members' access not only to the comprehensive info about your workspace, its perks and amenities, membership plans, and pricing but also in a revenue increase for you, plus you capture accurate data and get rid of human errors.

So, what you need to do is give members and prospective customers access to an online marketplace offering your services. There, they will select a service they need and buy it paying with a bank card, credits, or company invoice.

Be consistent and automate your invoicing. Your members will love an option to include booking, event, and service payments into a company or individual invoice. Then, company managers will get a single bill that includes all variable and workspace rent fees and pay it through the same app in just a few taps. The system can even charge payments for invoices automatically making payment collection effortless.

Don't overwhelm your community manager busy with other significant tasks with setting up the accounts from a sign-up sheet or credit card authorization form. Start using an automated payment and billing system for absolute accuracy.

 

Reap the Benefits of Automated Payments at Your Coworking Space

The online payment platform cuts down your invoice run and makes it smooth. When the system is introduced, you just bill for monthly memberships, booking, services and avoid credit notes that annoy members with adjustments and aggravate UX (user experience).

To understand how helpful the automation of invoicing is for running your coworking space remember how many hours you spend fixing the account should an error occur.

Payment software that integrates each step of the coworking space cycle and automates data capture and invoice generating saves you from busy work.

 

Best Payment Software Systems to Apply at a Coworking Space

There are lots of online payment services out there. Some of them are used worldwide, some are popular in particular countries.

For instance, andcards coworking software offers pre-built integrations with Mercado Pago and Kakaopay specifically for customers running their coworking businesses in Chile and South Korea.

Exclusively for Ukrainian coworking space operators and their members we built the integration of our application with WayForPay payment service.

As I have already mentioned above, the integration of your coworking management app and payment system saves you a lot of time and effort through automating a bunch of routines associated with billing and invoicing.

Though, not every coworking space management platform allows you and your members to use professional payment software you are already familiar with. Some systems are often not flexible enough to demonstrate the individual approach and build integration with some local payment system for their customers operating in a specific country.

 

1. Stripe

Stripe is a reliable software platform for processing your coworking payments online. Headquartered in San Francisco, Stripe has 14 global offices. It powers millions of businesses in 100+ countries and across nearly every industry.

You can use Stripe to enable online payments at your coworking space or a flexible office. Managers don't need to remind members about membership fees, bookings, and invoices anymore. Customers easily pay for your coworking space services through your apps.

andcards coworking app integration with Stripe

Here’s a brief list of andcards-Stripe integration capabilities managers will love:

• Improve customer experience by giving members a simple and familiar way to pay for the services without them having to contact your front desk.
• Save time with a fully automated immediate payment collection. 
• Earn more by providing an alternative payment method for customers who ran out of free credits.
• Consolidate all payment transactions in a single place on andcards Community.
• Create customer profiles on Stripe automatically and unlock the full potential of Stripe invoicing, subscriptions, and analytics.
• Sync information about payments made on andcards through Stripe to your accounting app.

 

2. Recurly

Recurly is a subscription management platform founded in 2009 with headquarters in San Francisco, California, and the United States.

Here are some points the tool can help you with:

• Increase revenue with a range of plans and sophisticated subscriber acquisition tools.
• Deliver a world of payment options and seamless checkout experiences.
• Collect revenue faster with a variety of invoicing options and streamlined accounting.
• Connect Recurly seamlessly to CRM, accounting, and coworking space management tools.
• Transform invoicing information to a competitive advantage with in-depth analytics.
• Reduce churn and increase revenue with sophisticated, automated technology.
• Trust your member data to world-class security and compliance standards.
• Build great experiences for your members with their API, documentation, and resources.

 

3. Chargebee

Chargebee is a subscription management platform that lets you to:

• Scale subscriptions with flexible pricing and invoicing logic, and user lifecycle visibility.
• Automate billing with customizable invoices, payment schedules, and invoicing calendars.
• Simplify bookkeeping, global taxes, revenue recognition, and one-click reconciliation.
• Boost revenue with multiple payment methods, gateways, slick checkout, and smart recovery.
• Go beyond stats with RevenueStory, spot leakages, and engage with abandoned carts.

 

4. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is accounting software for small and medium-size coworking businesses. You don't need to be an accounting expert, QuickBooks makes it easy to keep everything organized in one place.

QuickBooks enables you to import transactions from your bank, spend management software, and other third-party apps. The app will auto-update it all. No more manual data entry.

You will enjoy QuickBooks data exporting, powerful invoicing with custom reminders, tracking, and direct deposit puts less time between you and your money."

Btw, expenses are sorted into tax categories, which makes you prepared for tax time.

 

5. Xero

With its robust online accounting features, Xero makes running your small coworking business a breeze. From automated tasks like invoicing and reporting to keeping your financial records in order, Xero simplifies compliance and offers an up-to-date view of your business's financial health.

But that's not all—Xero goes beyond by seamlessly connecting with your coworking space management software. Take andcards, for example, which integrates effortlessly with Xero. This integration is a game-changer, simplifying accounting and revenue recognition for coworking operators. By automatically generating draft Xero invoices for both manual and auto-invoices on andcards, this integration attaches PDFs to each draft, eliminating the need for manual transfers.

 

6. PayPal

Everybody knows PayPal, it's an American company operating a worldwide online payment system that supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders.

• With PayPal, you get your money fast. When the order is complete, the money usually shows up in your PayPal account within minutes.
• PayPal is always free for your customers to make a purchase. They don't even need a PayPal account and can pay you in up to 25 currencies.
• PayPal is pre-integrated with top e-commerce platforms. If you already accept credit cards online, you can add it as an alternative way to pay.

 

7. Zoho Invoice

Zoho invoice is invoicing software that lets you send professional invoices, automate payment reminders, and accept card payments online fast.

• The technology provides you with fully customizable templates that can be modified the way wish to be inline with brand identity. It gives you complete freedom over the look and feel of your invoices, estimates, and sales orders.
• Zoho invoice allows automating tedious recurring tasks, from invoicing workflows to payment reminders.
• With Zoho Invoice you can communicate with your clients in real-time: make deals, discuss prices, and negotiate terms and conditions all on the client portal.
• Zoho Invoice seamlessly integrates with numerous apps such as G Suite, Stripe, PayPal, ZohoCRM (which in its turn is integrated with andcards.)

 

8. Meeting Room Booking Credits

Speaking about payment systems for coworking spaces I can't help mentioning meeting room booking credits. They replace virtual currency at a coworking space.

1 credit equals 1-hour meeting room booking.

Meeting room booking credits enable a coworking space to decide what conversion rate they have. It's super flexible. I would say that credits are more like prepaid accounts. Coworking spaces can sell credits to members and save on payment system fees because they fully control the credit issuance.

Besides, instead of just giving hours to members for free, you can give them booking credits (as a reward, once a month, when they sign up, when they continue the subscription, as an additional argument to seal the deal.) Members can use available credits whenever they wish.

Members can have individual, as well as team shared credit balances. You can add a touch of gamification and select a custom emoji symbol for your credits.

Introduce a meeting room credit system in your coworking space and observe how it will help you address the following issues:

• Abandoned bookings.
• Overbooking.
• Missed monetization opportunities.

 

9. Crypto Exchanges

Recently one of the easiest ways to transfer money throughout the world has become cryptocurrency payments. There are tons of platforms like crypto wallets and exchanges / best Bitcoin wallets, that are accessible worldwide. People mostly prefer to pay through exchanges as it's much more comfortable and user-friendly. Binance exchange is one of the biggest crypto platforms, which has all the functionality one needs. One can easily make the payments through crypto coins, saving time and paying only a small commission.

 

Integrate Services You Use

I advise you to use an invoicing system built into your coworking space software as this is the simplest, most cost-efficient, and hassle-free way to automate payments at a workspace. In case you need some accounting monster, integrate it with your main coworking space app to levy charges.

Just think about how credible you look for your members if they not only pay for the products they consume via coworking app on their smartphone but see the charges and rates flow in real-time. And you even don't need to export usage data from another system and import it into a separate invoicing system. I bet your members will be likely to expand the bandwidth as there is no risk of being overcharged.

Here is a simple example for you. Everybody uses Google Calendar. It's a great resource, however, if it doesn’t integrate with your billing systems you are going to miss out on capturing booking charges, which will cause revenue leakage.

 

Extra Layer of Security

With an in-app invoicing system or the accounting system linked to coworking space management software community managers have access to real-time bank feed, they have full visibility of members' financial information without special permissions to your accounting system.

This is important as you protect the privacy, security, and integrity of your accounting data along with private information entrusted to you by members. It's safe to delegate billing and invoicing tasks to employees.

Choosing innovative coworking technology with an invoicing system inside will simplify your and your accountant's lives.

Here is an example for you

You don’t need to use spreadsheets and formulas. This saves not only time but the money that you don't pay to an accountant for the same task. Members are invoiced automatically both for rent and additional services they use. Members use familiar ways to pay their bills inside the same app they use for bookings, which makes their experience with your brand excellent.

 

Conclusion

Summing up everything said above, we can conclude that software integration is the key. By using an in-app invoicing system or integrating coworking space management and professional accounting solution you will optimize the billing and invoicing for services your center renders to members. This automation will save you money, resources, and time you usually spend on tiresome administrative tasks. Isn't it better to concentrate your efforts on members and the community?