The starting point: Word, transfers and Sundays spent invoicing

Instalaciones y Mantenimientos Norte SL is a 14-employee company that installs and maintains air conditioning for residents' associations and small businesses in Vigo. For years, invoicing was a Sunday ritual: the manager copied the last invoice in Word, changed the number and the amounts and sent them out one by one.

Collecting was even worse: each customer paid when they could, by transfer, and at the end of the month the bank statement had to be cross-checked against a spreadsheet to know who owed what. Close to 20% of invoices were paid more than 60 days late, often simply because the customer forgot.

"Job sheets arrived on paper, the invoice went out when I could and the payment came when the customer felt like it. We always felt behind", recalls Marta, the manager.

The decision: direct debit for payments and invoicing from the job sheet

After seeing it at another company in the sector, they chose Fustibus for one specific reason: it included direct debit through SEPA batches at no extra setup cost and with the whole process solved: mandates signed online together with the maintenance contract, batch generation and handling of returns.

The rollout took 3 working days. The Fustibus team migrated customers, rates and maintenance contracts from the spreadsheets, and the technicians started logging hours and materials from their phones. Marta did not have to touch a single import file.

The first batch went out the following month: each customer received their invoice by email, VeriFactu compliant, and the charge was taken from their account on the 5th.

The result: Sundays are Sundays again

In the first month 90% of payments were already on direct debit. Bank returns were handled automatically with a second notice, and only a handful of cases needed a phone call.

Marta went from spending 6 hours a week invoicing and chasing payments to practically zero. On top of that, with the technicians' hours allocated to each contract, she now knows which maintenance deals are profitable and which needed renegotiating. The first one she renegotiated had been losing money for three years without anyone knowing.

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