With all-around digitalization, more and more customers prefer paperless communications over print, particularly when they are encouraged to go online. According to Statista, 27% of US adults scan coupon codes and receipts to receive paperless cashback or discounts. The bonuses offered by brands are a great reason to stop using paper.

Billing is pretty similar here to other types of paperless communications. As 53% of Americans pay bills using their mobile devices, they prefer paperless billing for more convenient payments and advanced security.

Whereas the paperless billing benefits for customers are clear, are there any benefits for businesses?

Well, first of all, paperless communications are cheaper than print. Secondly, they are easier to manage and automate. And there are also many other good reasons to go paperless we will discuss in today’s article. 

Discover paperless billing benefits and how to convert HTML to PDF automatically below:

• Six paperless communication and paperless billing benefits for businesses
• How to implement paperless communications with rendering and other approaches
• Render and convert HTML into PDF: the whats and the hows
• HTML to PDF API and rendering capabilities offered by Inkit

Six Paperless Communication and Paperless Billing Benefits for Businesses

In our article, we’ll focus on the business advantages of online billing. After all, businesses are the ones who drive the transition to paperless and invest in specialized rendering software. Find out the primary paperless communication and paperless billing benefits below.

Paperless billing benefits #1. Easy document management

No one likes to store a clutter of paper bills, paper statements, and other documents. It takes a lot of space and makes you prone to lose essential communications.

With paperless communications and bills, you won’t have this problem. Everything you send to customers or partners will be stored online with timestamps. Thanks to this, you will be able to share the same documents with multiple teams and easily find specific files when necessary.

Paperless billing benefits #2. Optimized business processes and expedited payments

When customers receive monthly bills online and can instantly transfer money, they are more likely to pay by the due date. This reduces the number of late payments, disputes, and misunderstandings. You become more focused on the core tasks and receive your revenue sooner.

Paperless billing benefits #3. Advanced automation opportunities

Many business processes cannot be automated while you use paper documents. Only when all customer communications are digitized you can fully automate interactions with customers. For example, the use of paperless communications will enable you to deliver trigger-based messages. Customers will automatically receive online bills, updates, and other paperless communications after a specified action or event.  

Paperless billing benefits #4. Improved customer experience

Even though some communications must be sent in print for compliance, usually, you can give customers a choice. Today, people want to choose whether to keep receiving bills by mail or get paperless communications. Your task is to enable them to pick the most suitable option. Customers will appreciate such care and become more loyal to your company.

Paperless billing benefits #5. Lower risk of identity theft and data breaches

Paperless communications are better protected than mail. When sensitive information is securely stored online, no one can open your customers’ mailbox and steal their details. The reduced risk of identity theft protects you from financial and reputational losses. 

Paperless billing benefits #6. Reduced carbon footprint

Those with an eco-friendly mindset know about the ecological benefits of paperless communications. The production of 100,000 sheets of paper results in a 6,000kg carbon footprint and requires over eight trees. By going paperless, businesses make a small but significant step to save the planet. Share your environmental commitments with your partners and customers, and achieve even more via a joint eco-campaign.

Apart from the listed paperless communication and paperless billing benefits, you will also save money since online billing is cheaper than print. Besides, paperless communications give you a competitive edge over those who still don’t use them properly.

How to Implement Paperless Communications with Rendering and Other Approaches

Transition to paperless billing and communications is a gradual process. You will need to adopt software that can generate online documents and nudge your customers to accept paperless statements. Therefore, make sure to take these two mandatory steps.

Integrate a rendering tool to generate paperless communications automatically

Rendering software is essential to go paperless. Such solutions will access HTML documents in your storage and convert HTML to PDF. If you integrate the rendering tool with messaging services, they will also deliver paperless bills to the recipients. Without converting HTML files to PDF, you won’t be able to send communications to customers as separate documents.

Prepare your team and customers for the transition

If your customers got used to paper communications, they might be unwilling to switch to paperless billing. To encourage them to pay your bills online, you can implement coupons, cashback, and other bonuses. This will facilitate the transition and increase customer satisfaction rates. It’s also important to train your team on how to use rendering software and redistribute their tasks.

Render and Convert HTML into PDF: the Whats and the Hows

To start sending PDF documents, you will need rendering software. Such tools automatically process HTML data and generate neat PDF images based on it. After rendering is done, you can store the generated PDF documents for record-keeping and compliance.

To implement paperless communications, you will need to complete several steps:

• Collect all information about customers in a single database (account information, credit card data, communications, etc.)
• Automate data collection and updates. When any personal information about customers changes, it must be instantly updated.
• Generate the necessary documents in HTML format.
• Integrate the rendering software that can convert HTML to PDF.
• Complete the settings and choose what you want to do with the generated documents after the HTML to PDF conversion.
  

Generally, you can convert HTML to PDF both automatically and manually. If it’s just a few documents once in a while, the manual conversion may be enough. Yet, if you need to implement paperless communication as a part of your business processes, automation and HTML to PDF APIs are necessary.

More about different ways to convert HTML to PDF documents, you can find in this article. Below, we will explain how to automate rendering with HTML to PDF APIs.

HTML to PDF API and Rendering Capabilities Offered by Inkit

Inkit is a reach enablement platform offering a tool that can help you go paperless – Inkit Render.

Render is an HTML to PDF converter that can be easily integrated into your existing workflow without having to worry about writing your own conversion software. We take care of the scalability for you, whether it's one document or millions of documents Render can handle it.

Learn more about Inkit at our website or contact our team to get the demo.