A Review of Scout's Automated Billing System
By Grant G. - Grant's Animals
BROOKLYN, NY -- When I first demoed Scout, I was a little apprehensive about switching to fully automated billing. I hadn't had much trouble asking my clients to pay me via Venmo's free service. So, the prospect of having to pay transaction fees, if I enabled Scout's automated billing options, didn't sound too great.Setting up my credit card processor account was pretty easy and straightforward. I thought I'd give it a try at least. To my surprise, when I proposed it to my clients, everyone was eager or totally willing to set up payment via credit card, debit, or PayPal.From a customer perspective, it makes sense - flexible payment options mean less stress for clients when it comes time for billing. Most credit card transactions are "out of sight, out of mind" for them, and card members often accrue points and benefits from using their cards for these kinds of regular payments.After a couple of short weeks, everyone was on automated billing. I had grown accustomed to"billing issues" through my old manual billing methods. Those issues have all but disappeared. Transactions were seamless and immediate. I could rest assured that the money would be in my bank account within a couple of days. No more following up with clients who were behind on payments or forgot about a Venmo request (you can also manually charge a payment method through Scout at any time), and the transaction fees I was apprehensive about are all taken care of on the processor's end at the point of sale, so the couple percent of fees are similarly "out of sight, out of mind" for me, which makes thinking about billing much less stressful.