Retainer Billing…your best value and how it works

Retainer billing means purchasing a block of time based on what your specific requirements are and paying for the services of your Virtual Assistant (VA) in advance, usually at a discounted rate.

For example:  Let’s say you estimate that you will require a VA for 20 hours per month.  Your VA’s usual rate is $50 per hour (for example).  Accordingly, under straight hourly billing, 20 hours x $50 = $1,000.  Utilizing a retainer, however, your discounted rate might be $40 per hour (for example) x the same 20 hours needed resulting in a cost of $800 instead.

The obvious cost savings of retainer billing is most definitely one of the best reasons to choose this option.  But there are other benefits too.

Retainers cut down on cheque writing because you pay for block time rather than paying weekly invoices.

Retainers can even out cash flow in that you know what you’re spending at any given time. No big, unexpected invoices to be concerned about.

Retainers are completely flexible – you decide how much time you need and over what duration.

Retainers ensure continued and uninterrupted work flow from your VA.

Your VA will usually let you know in advance when your retainer requires replenishing and most VAs will roll over any unused amounts into the new retainer.

And as always, whether employing a VA on a retainer or by the hour, it means never paying for down time, sick days, bad weather, vacations or coffee breaks.  Let R-meg VA show you how.

Let us help you get it done!  If you have any questions or require any additional information, please check out our website at www.rmeg.ca/va or Contact Me.

There are many benefits to outsourcing your billing to BillingLogic and while not every benefit applies to every office, firm or business, there are four that we hear over and over again from our clients that really make the case for, and ultimately sell the service. So here, in no particular order, are those big four benefits of billing with us. This is a fairly obvious benefit of outsourcing. It wouldn’t make much sense to outsource an office function if it didn’t save you money. However, what you may not realize is how much and in how many different areas you can save. First, you save money on your employee related costs. Outsourcing reduces or eliminates costs associated with finding and retaining an employee, paying wages, vacations, holidays, healthcare, social security, disability, workers compensation insurance and unemployment insurance. If billing isn’t a full time job, what else is that employee going to do to add value to your firm and who is going to step in if that employee takes vacation, extended family leave or even quits? In addition to the employee related costs, you also save on overhead. Instead of paying for computers, billing software and upgrades, high quality laser printers, paper, toner, repairs and maintenance outright, you are only paying for only a small portion of each cost. We create huge economies of scale and you are the direct beneficiary. Your billing is produced using equipment and materials that would be cost prohibitive for most firms or businesses to own. In the end, if all of the aforementioned costs decrease while your cash flow remains the same or increases (because of more timely billing of course) then your bottom line can increase. That means more cash to reinvest in the company or to spend on yourself or your other employees. We always hear this from customers and clients after they have been with us for a few months and it is usually time saved in one of two ways. Outsourcing saves our clients billable hours. In small firms and companies this tends to be the sole practitioner or the owner who is spending time on the billing when he or she could be billing a client. If someone is billing at $100/hour and spends 5 billable hours a month preparing the monthly statements, they potentially lose $500.00. If we come in and do the billing for $250.00/month (our average for sole practitioners and sole proprietors) they have just made back $250.00 and they don’t have to deal with the headaches associated with the billing. This scenario is the same in larger firms where the billing job typically falls to a paralegal or associate, who again, is spending those billable hours on a non-billable function, and in the process, perhaps becomes a little resentful that they aren’t able to do what they are trained and educated to do. The math is the same as our first example. Find out how many hours are spent on billing, multiply it by that person’s (or persons’) hourly rate and then call us to see how much money we can save you. The second way we save clients time is one we are very proud of at BillingLogic.  We have so many clients that come to us after two or three months of billing and literally thank us for giving them their weekends back. They aren’t spending billable hours on billing; they are taking it home with them and doing it in the evenings and over the weekend. When we remove this burden from them, they seem to suddenly rediscover important things like spouses, children, friends, hobbies, relaxation and above all, good mental health. For many of these clients, they can’t believe that their renewed quality of life came so affordably and that they didn’t find us sooner. In a fast paced office environment, it is easy for little details to fall through the cracks.  When you use our billing service, we are there to catch those details before they become big problems. Our clients love the fact that we are an impartial and objective guardian over the billing process. We watch the data you are giving us for discrepancies and inconsistencies and we bring it to your attention for clarification. The end result is that bills go out mistake free and you have to spend less time settling client disputes. Just think of the impact. If we catch a decimal point mistake such as 5 hours that should be .5 hours before that client ever sees the bill, how much time will be saved on the phone with that client and how much of that client’s confidence in you will be saved just because of a decimal point. It can be powerful. Another important area, especially for law firms and law professionals, that we watch is the transfer and application of retainer money. Our software is extremely good at this function and we pay special attention to it for our clients. We know that far too many professionals get into trouble with their governing bodies over retainer accounts, not because they are intentionally misusing or abusing the account, but because they simply don’t have a tracking system sophisticated enough to ensure a high level of accuracy and to catch potential mistakes before they hit the bank account. With BillingLogic you get peace of mind knowing that your clients are receiving an accurate, high quality statement for your services and that your retainer money is applied correctly and you are fully entitled to money you’ve earned. Ask yourself this question: who in your office owns the billing process?  And not who does it, who is burdened with it, who is stuck with it, but who owns it from end to end? If you use our billing service, we own it for you. So the question becomes why is that important? There are a number of reasons it is important. First of all, its what we do!  Instead of having one employee in charge of this process that they probably don’t want to be in charge of, you now have an entire company dedicated to getting it done. We drive the deadlines to ensure the billing gets done on time every month. We own the processes required to get it done and we direct your company on what’s needed to complete the process. We do the heavy lifting so others in the firm or company can focus on what they do best and the billing has a minimal impact on everyone. You also know that without fail the billing will get done every month because we are always here ready to work. We are never sick, we never take vacation, we never take family leave, have family emergencies and we never quit. No matter how busy you are, our number one priority remains getting your billing done so the cash continues coming in the door. Again its about giving you that confidence that your billing is handled every month automatically and you don’t have to worry about it. Its that peace of mind in knowing that your resources are maximized and fully leveraged on making money for the business and not being spent on the processes involved in running the business. Those are the big four benefits of outsourcing to BillingLogic. While you might look back over the list and say its cost savings, time savings, checks and balances and having a billing champion, we might disagree with you. To us, its giving our clients quality improvement in the bottom line, quality of life improvement, peace of mind that their bills are accurate and correct and the confidence in knowing that without fail, the billing will be handled month in and month out by a quality, professional organization that is dedicated to the task. Think of it in terms of a partnership. We don’t make money if you are not making money and we don’t see our revenue grow unless your revenue grows, so we are absolutely dedicated to your success because ours depends on it.

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