In speaking with clients about improving their Order to Cash processes, I have a common message for all of them:
“Make it easy to bill your clients and make it easy for them to pay you”
Making it easy to do business is a general principle that organizations should use to guide them when looking to improve or enhance their operations. NetSuite has a tool that follows that guideline. Many accounts receivable teams aren’t aware they could be using NetSuite Payment Links. This allows you to send a unique link for a NetSuite invoice that allows customers to directly pay their invoices with a credit card or other payment instrument you may have configured. Now, this concept is not new, it requires you to integrate a 3rd party tool and payment processor from your NetSuite system that would manage it. What is new, is that this is all built into NetSuite out of the box and takes minutes to set up if you already process credit card payments directly in NetSuite.
Payment Links on NetSuite Invoices
Once configured in your NetSuite system, all invoices created from that point forward will be given a unique payment URL to accept payment from. Think of it as an e-commerce cart and you’re checking it out. It will include all the items on the invoice and the total amount due. The link is accessible on the invoice record under the Billing tab.
To assist in the rapid deployment of this functionality NS also provides an out of the box Advanced PDF that includes the direct link and in QR code format.
The link and QR code lead to a payment page hosted by NetSuite. From a cosmetic perspective, you have little control over what this page looks like. You are able to set a Company Name (here in bold at the top), a description field (normal text under the Company Name), and a logo (on the right). I have a single payment processor configured in my screenshot but you can have multiple, for example, a credit card processor and a PayPal account.
An interesting feature that you can control is the ability for the payee to perform a partial payment, where they can select a Payment Amount if it is less than the Amount Due.
After a successful payment gateway response, NetSuite will create a payment record to close out the open amount of the invoice. The link remains ‘active’ as long as there is an open balance on the invoice.
To set up NetSuite Payment links you will need to:
- Enable the following features – Under Company→Enable Features→Transactions→Payment Processing. Enable Credit Card Payments, Payment Instruments, and Payment Link
- Setup a payment processing profile in NetSuite – Setup→Accounting→Payment Processing Profile or Paypal Integration. For the majority of processors in NetSuite, you’ll need to install the corresponding SuiteApp and create an account with them – fees apply as per the processor
- Create a Payment Method visible on webpages – For the processors you have defined in your system create or confirm there is a payment method that corresponds to it and ensure “Display in Web Site” is checked.
- Set up DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) – Working with your IT team or DNS provider to ensure that your larger volume of email messages coming out of NS are authenticated and not blocked. Not required but highly recommended when any large volume of emails are being sent out of NS to your customers.
- Setup the Actual Payment Link – Here you can define how your Payment Link page appears to your customers, choose the payment methods to offer, partial payments, and email templates to be used after processing.
- Update the PDF template and Email Templates – You’ll want to touch up the PDF templates as per your corporate branding and customize the response email templates used for successful payment and rejection.
A special note, some of the payment processors have the option to use ACH as a payment method which will require additional configuration as per the SuiteApp. Keep a lookout for improvements to these SuiteApps over time.
Give it a try, consult SuiteAnswers, and if you’re stuck don’t hesitate to contact one of our highly skilled NetSuite Consultants.
