Episode 47: How to Save a Sh*t Ton of Money on Processing Fees Using Plooto
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In this solo episode, Alyssa Lang covers one of her favorite softwares, Plooto. She talks about how much money it has saved her and firm bookkeeping firm from unnecessary payment processing fees, what subscription level she uses and how she onboards her clients in Plooto.
In this episode you’ll hear:
What Plooto is and how it can transform your ACH process
What subscription level we recommend to get the most out of your payment processing fees
What features are available for you and your clients in Plooto
How to onboard your clients using Plooto for ACH payments
How to transition current clients into a new payment processor
Resources mentioned in this episode:
💸 QuickBooks Online Payment Processing Fees Breakdown
💸 Plooto Payment Processing Fees Breakdown
📝 Workflow Queen’s blog on Plooto
🎙 Workflow Queen’s podcast interview with founder of Plooto
⚙️ Magnetic Bookkeeping Tech Stack
💻 Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants
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At least once per year, I recommend you look at your business expenses and figure out where you can cut any excess spending. Personally, I do this at the end of each year when I’m already reviewing the books for year end but you can do it any time that makes sense for you!
A few years back, I noticed I was spending SO much money on payment processing fees. In our industry, we typically charge clients on a monthly basis, so seeing these fees add up each month made me wonder if there was any way to keep my clients on automatic payments without the hefty fees on the back end. Luckily, Brooke Swan (one of our incredible coaches in Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants) told me about a company called Plooto and everything changed!
I thought there was no other option for charging my clients through ACH (automatic clearing house) besides QBO invoicing or Stripe, so you can imagine how pumped I was to find out that Plooto is the PERFECT solution for ACH and saves me soooo much money as a business owner.
I’ve talked about Plooto before on our blog, and I’ve even interviewed someone from the company on this podcast because I’m completely obsessed with how much they’ve impacted my business for the better. So in this episode, I’m going to share with you:
What Plooto is and why you should switch from QBO payments
How to onboard your new clients into Plooto
How to transition existing clients to Plooto
How to handle clients who are resistant to ACH
Plooto is a major player in my tech stack for a good reason, so let’s get into all the incredible things it does for me and tons of other bookkeepers and accountants in my community!
What Is Plooto?
First of all, if you’re not charging your monthly bookkeeping clients on ACH, you need to consider it. I know it doesn’t seem like it takes that much time to generate an invoice and send it off to the client each month, but the time it takes to follow up on missed payments is just not worth it when you can automate the process.
Plooto takes so much of the back and forth out of billing your recurring clients, and you have so much control over the backend setup, which of course I LOVE! They even have the option for an accountant’s view which allows you to look at your clients’ accounts in one single dashboard. I’ve transitioned a lot of my bookkeeping clients to use Plooto for billing their own clients and it’s been such a game changer. I love how it makes things easier for them as a business owner and us as the bookkeepers.
Plus, the way it helps us predict cash flow is incredible! I know that I’m going to get paid by all of my clients on the 1st of the month, and the money will be in my bank account on the 7th. If waiting 7 days to get paid worries you, consider getting your cash flow under control before switching to Plooto for payment processing.
Should You Require Your Clients To Pay You Via ACH?
When I started my second firm, I decided this was a non-negotiable. I’m not going to make my team members (or me) spend time chasing down payments when I could easily avoid it. That’s the beauty of owning your own business, right? It’s really up to you if you’d like to require this from your clients, but as you grow I guarantee it’ll be a life-saver to have everything automated!
I recently had a client sign her contract and get ready to start working with us but had a lot of fear around paying via ACH. I knew I couldn’t make an exception for them because it wouldn’t feel right, so instead, I had to come up with a solution that made sense for my business.
Since I already had access to her bank statements, I figured out when her cash flow was the strongest each month and I offered to change her monthly due date to fit in that time frame. It worked out perfect because now we get to support her and she can feel confident knowing she had enough money to pay our fee.
How To Onboard Your Clients Into Plooto
When we sign on a new client, they sign a contract and pay their first invoice via Dubsado. This is the step that triggers a new Asana project (duplicated from a template of course) and tells our team to set up the client in Plooto for the rest of their future payments.
Setting up the client’s account in Plooto is SO simple. We just have to enter their contact information, how much to charge, how often, and for how long. Then, Plooto sends the client an email with instructions on how to set themselves up.
I love how Plooto sends the client an official ACH authorization form to sign so we don’t have to worry about getting the legal language right or keeping the forms on file ourselves!
Once they enter in their bank details, Plooto will send over a micro deposit and a verification code to securely connect to the bank. This is where some clients might get held up if they don’t know what to expect, so just let them know what’s going to happen before you get off your welcome call with them.
Tip: We have a check box inside our onboarding form in Content Snare that asks if the client has completed the ACH authorization in Plooto. If they check the box, but didn’t actually do it, we can just deny the form and send it back so they can try again.
How To Transition Existing Clients To Plooto
I get soooo many questions from people who already have their clients set up on ACH through QBO but want to move over to Plooto. How can they do it without confusing their clients or making them angry?
I have a perfect solution for you! Here’s what you need to do:
30 days before you want to have everyone moved over, you’ll send out an email letting them know what’s about to change — you can copy this one if you want!
“Hey [CLIENT NAME]! We’re so excited to share that we’re updating a few processes here at [COMPANY NAME] to improve your client experience and help us serve you better as a team. One of the things we’ll be changing is our payment processing system, which means all of our clients will now pay us via ACH through a payment processor called Plooto. We expect to have everyone switched over by [DATE], so keep an eye out for an email directly from Plooto with instructions on how to set up your recurring payments. If you don’t complete the required steps by [DATE], all services will pause until it is complete. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to us!”
2 weeks later, send the onboarding email via Plooto. Have a team member track the progress for each client on the back end.
1 week after that, follow up with anyone who hasn’t completed the required forms.
On the date you originally mentioned in the first email, send another follow up email to the clients who haven’t filled out the form in Plooto and let them know you’ll be pausing services if they don’t get it done by the end of the day. I like to include a link to a 15 minute chat with our team in case they need extra support getting this step completed.
And that’s really all you need to do to get your clients switched over to Plooto!
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @workflowqueen
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