Ask Annissa: Is There a Service That Will do Billing for Me?
Yes there are services that will do your Xactimate scopes (billing) for you.
Normally these companies charge a percentage of the total amount of the scope of repairs, but I have heard of them charging by the scope in some cases. There is usually a monthly fee as well to have this service done for you.
I have never used any of these services, so I don’t feel comfortable recommending any one in particular. However, I feel I would be doing you a disservice if I did not give you a word of caution here: Be very careful about putting YOUR money in someone else's hands.
If you do not have a good foundational understanding of the program and a good system in place for each job, you could be losing money by letting someone else do your invoicing.
The purpose for having someone take over this task for you shouldn't be so that you don't have to understand it or deal with it –it’s to pass off data entry and other tasks that can be done by someone else other than the owner for efficiency.
Bear in mind that we are talking about your bank account here and there is no one that holds that more dear than you do.
So if you are considering hiring another company to do your scopes, make sure you have the following in place.
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- A good checklist of what is done on each and every job.
- A solid understanding of how Xactimate works and what line items you can charge for on each job.
- A double check method in place so once the scopes are sent to you, you can go over them for errors.
Used for the right reasons, outsourcing this aspect can make your company more efficient, especially if you are a small business. You just want to make sure that you can build your skills so that at some point it may be more beneficial to do this work in house.
Xactimate has some great training programs that you can do right from your computer to build your skills and understanding of the process. And the cost is pretty minimal.
You may also be able to hire a part-time person to do your scopes in house and put them through those same remote training options. This way you can have more control over timing and quality.
That being said, I am not implying that you will not get a good quality service from someone outside of your business. I just think it would be foolhardy to let go of this process entirely.
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