Tide Invoicing Helps SMEs Reduce Costs, Save Time

Tide1 in India, the leading business financial platform for SMEs, says its invoicing solution is saving 10 - 12 hours per month, one year after launching the product. The solution helps to optimise processes by chasing unpaid invoices, reducing costs, and increasing organisational efficiency.

MSME Samadhaan - a portal launched by the Ministry of MSME to address the issue of delayed payments shows that approximately Rs. 26876 crores are stuck in delayed payments. Delayed payments are known to have a significant negative impact on small businesses, creating cash flow challenges that hinder their ability to meet operational expenses. These delays don't just lead to disruptions in business continuity, but force SMEs to resort to expensive informal lending to manage short-term needs.

Digitising traditional invoicing is complex for small enterprises, who lack resources and technological expertise to streamline their billing admin. A survey conducted by Tide in 2023 revealed that 50 percent SMEs find bookkeeping and invoicing, technology adoption, and upgrading accounting systems a challenge.

Tide’s Invoicing solution helps SMEs generate GST-compliant tax invoices and Bill of Supply (non-tax invoice). A small business generates an average of 100 invoices in a month and spends an average of 2-2.5 hours per week creating and generating these invoices manually and managing expenses on spreadsheets, and an additional 1.5 hours chasing pending invoices.

Tide addressed these pain points with the Invoicing tool that includes:

• Automatic invoice chasing - automated reminder emails for unpaid invoices
• Automatic invoice matching - notifications sent as soon as a small business is paid, payments automatically linked to invoices for easy bookkeeping
• Get paid via UPI - Helping our members get paid with India's most popular instant payment method

More than 400,000 SMEs have joined Tide since its launch in December 2022, and a total of about 6500 invoices have been generated through the Invoicing feature on the Tide app. Out of which 40% have already been paid.

Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO, Tide India said “The negative impact of late payments on small businesses has been well documented. Late payments stifle growth, as businesses find it difficult to reinvest in expansion or innovation. For many small businesses, whose survival depends on steady cash inflows, delayed payments also damage supplier relationships and diminish trust, making it harder for them to secure goods and services on credit. This creates a ripple effect that affects their overall growth in the long term. 

We at Tide, believe in helping businesses - whether it is a contractor, freelancer, sole trader, or small business owner save time and money. Our invoicing solution takes us one step further in this direction and allows us to streamline processes for SMEs- by helping them raise GST-compliant invoices, auto-chase invoices as well as get paid via UPI – thus mitigate the risk of delayed payments.”

Despite the 45-day payment rule mandated by the Section 43B(h) of the Income Tax Act, a recent report2 says that 52% of MSME B2B payments are overdue for 90+ days. Delayed payments are a major factor that affects the working capital of SMEs, often leading to business closures because of losses.