Tide, the UK’s leading business financial platform^[1], has announced it will launch a new Invoice Assistant in mid-May to give small businesses the tools they need to get paid, and get paid on time.

The negative impact of late payments on small businesses has been well documented, with Tide’s research revealing that small businesses spend 1.5 hours per day, on average, chasing late payments and that each small business has an average of £8,500 owed to them in late payments at any one time*. Tide has also found that it’s members spend 3 - 4 hours per week on creating invoices and managing expenses on spreadsheets**. That is a lot of wasted time and causes a lot of stress.

Tide is addressing these pain points with a package of tools and services to help small businesses reduce time spent on getting paid and reconciling payments. The Tide Invoice Assistant includes:

• Automatic invoice chasing - automated reminder emails for unpaid invoices
• Automatic invoice matching - notifications sent as soon as you are paid, payments automatically linked to invoices for easy bookkeeping
• Invoice Direct Debits - get paid automatically as soon as the invoice is due (provided by GoCardless)
• Invoice protection - protect yourself against the risk of non-payment (insurance provided by Hokodo)

The Invoice Assistant will cost £10 + VAT per month and is an add-on to the free invoice raising service available to all Tide members. 

Testing of the automatic invoice chasing feature has revealed that invoices are paid at least 4 days earlier when they are chased by an automatic email. 

Alaastair Travis, VP of Business Services at Tide said: “The Tide Invoice Assistant tackles a number of pain points experienced by small businesses - most importantly, automating manual and time consuming processes and giving reassurance that they will be paid promptly. The automatic chasing feature is a particularly important addition the Tide platform, with small business owners often feeling uncomfortable chasing their clients for payment, an automated email allows a degree separation from the personal relationship and helps keep cashflow on track.”

Tide’s Invoice Assistant is the UK’s first all-in-one automated invoicing solution that helps small business owners maximise their chances of getting paid on time, minimises the chances of not being paid, and saves them time on repetitive tasks.

Laurence Kreiger, CEO - UK, Tide said: “Tide’s mission is to save small business owners time (and money) on their banking and admin, so they can focus on running and growing their business. Nothing could be more true to this mission than helping our members to get paid, and to get paid on time, protecting their valuable time and their cashflow.

“The addition of the Invoice Assistance to the Tide platform demonstrates our move towards providing a fully comprehensive financial platform, offering a suite of highly connected products that help our members manage all aspects of financial admin, not just their banking needs.”