Fastener distributors write a lot of invoices for small amounts. A VMI account might get a delivery every week across several bins. A maintenance shop orders a few boxes at a time. Each invoice is small, but together they make up your receivables, and each one that sits an extra two weeks slows your cash. Meanwhile your office answers the same questions: "Can you send me a copy?" "Was that one paid?" "What PO was that against?"
Let customers see and pay their own invoices
In The Fastener App, customers see their invoices, both what is billed and what is open. The accounts payable clerk at a plant can find the copy she needs without calling. Every invoice can carry a Pay now button through pay links, so a customer ready to pay can do it right there.
That matters most for smaller accounts, the machine shop or the contractor, who will pay promptly when it is easy. It also helps the larger plant whose AP team wants clean copies to match against releases on a blanket order.
Collections without the awkward calls
Collections and pay links send past-due reminders with a Pay now button on every invoice. The tone moves from friendly to firm as invoices age, and reminders can go out automatically. Your office stops writing the same polite email over and over.
The collections helper gives reps a view of who owes money and how late, a stop-by nudge when they are near an account with a past-due balance, and the reminder schedule. A route person who is already in the plant to count bins can mention an old invoice to the buyer in person.
Some habits that help fastener distributors:
- Turn on pay links for every account, not just the slow payers.
- Let reminders start friendly and firm up as invoices age.
- Show reps past-due balances before they walk into a plant.
- Use Look up an invoice when a customer calls, so the answer takes seconds.
- Watch accounts with many small invoices, where a few days' delay on each adds up.
Find any invoice in seconds
Look up an invoice lets reps and the owner find any invoice and see what is still open. When a buyer asks about an invoice for a box of specials from three months ago, the rep has the answer on his phone.
Texts to customers help as well. A rep can text a reminder from The Fastener App, and the text is saved to the account so the office knows what was said.
For the owner, the exec dashboard shows sales, margin, cash, receivables and pace on one screen. You see receivables creeping before they turn into a cash problem.
VMI accounts benefit most. When bins are counted and replenished every week, invoices arrive every week too. A customer who can see all of them in one place, under one master account if they have several plants, pays in fewer, larger, cleaner batches.
None of this changes how you bill. The Fastener App works with your existing ERP. What it changes is how easy it is for customers to pay you, and how much of your office's day goes into chasing small balances. In a business where you buy containers of imported fasteners months ahead, cash coming in sooner makes a real difference to how much you can stock.
Want to walk through The Fastener App with your own accounts? Book a demo.