Customer experience
Flexible payments
Read more
Flute
Getting paid shouldn't be the hardest part of running a business. Here's how payment links close the gap between finishing a job and seeing the money hit your account.
The stretch between finishing a job and seeing the money hit your bank can be the most stressful part of the month. The work is done, the customer is happy, and yet payroll, rent, and inventory bills keep coming, whether or not the invoice gets paid.
That gap is wider than it should be. According to the 2025 Intuit QuickBooks report, 56% of U.S. small businesses are currently owed money on outstanding invoices, with an average of $17,500 sitting in unpaid bills per business. Nearly half of businesses reported that some of their invoices were more than 30 days overdue.
Friction is one of the biggest culprits of unpaid invoices. Every step between “here’s what you owe” and “you’ve been paid” is another chance for a payment to slip. That means the fastest way to close that gap is to remove unnecessary steps — and that’s exactly what payment links are built to do.
Business owners feel the pinch of slow payments long before any number on a balance sheet shows it. According to the Federal Reserve’s 2024 Report on Payments, nearly four in 10 small employer firms (39%) said slow-paying customers are a challenge, and another 20% pointed to time-consuming processes like billing customers.
When funds are delayed, owners often turn to higher-interest credit cards, postpone hires they were ready to make, defer equipment purchases, and shelve growth plans. The QuickBooks data shows that businesses hit hardest by overdue invoices are more likely to lean on loans and lines of credit just to cover ordinary operating costs.
There’s also a less visible cost: the time your team spends managing the back-and-forth. Reminder calls, mailed re-statements, and “did you ever get the invoice?” emails take hours away from work that actually grows the company. You’ve probably never put a price on those hours, but the cost is there all the same.
A payment link is a secure URL that a customer can use to pay for a product or service. You generate the link in your payment platform, then share it via email or text. The customer taps the link, lands on a mobile-friendly checkout page, enters their card information, and then the payment is on its way to your account.
Payment links offer a faster, more convenient payment experience, so customers can pay instantly from their phone instead of waiting for a paper invoice. There’s no app for the customer to download, no website to log into, and no special hardware on your end.
Picture a contractor who wraps up a job on Monday and mails the invoice Tuesday morning. Best case, it lands in the customer’s mailbox on Friday. Then it sits. We all know the type — the customer who lets the mail pile up for a week before getting around to it, or the household where half the envelopes go straight to recycling without a second look.
Even the customer who opens the invoice the day it arrives still has work to do. They have to call the office to read off a card number or type a long URL into a browser. Each extra step is another chance to put the payment off until tomorrow, next week, or the next time someone calls to follow up.
Now picture the same scenario with a payment link. The job ends, and the contractor sends a text or email before leaving the driveway. The customer taps the link on their phone, pays however they want to (including by ACH, EFT, or card), and the money is on its way.
Customers have already moved on from paper. One study found that only 7% of consumers paid bills by check in 2024, with half of all bill payments now being made electronically from a bank account. If your customers have moved to digital payments, why hasn’t your business?
Payment links aren’t tied to one type of business. That means that if your company ever needs to send an invoice, request a deposit, or close a sale on the spot, a link will probably be your best option.
Here are a few common use cases:
With payment links, customers can pay where they already are, and you don’t have to deal with long waits. You’ll see a shorter list of unpaid invoices and spend fewer hours chasing payments each week, so you can spend more time focusing on what really matters.
Not every payment link is built the same, and the wrong setup can create new headaches in place of the old ones. Before choosing a provider, be sure to ask about the following:
The goal is to find a tool that fits how your business already works, so you can start accepting digital invoice payments right away.
Customers want to pay digitally, and slow, manual collections are quietly costing you real money. The businesses getting paid faster are the ones making it easier, not harder, to hand over a card.
Payment links meet customers where they already are and shrink the time between “invoice sent” and “money in the bank,” so your team can reclaim the hours that used to go to chasing checks.
If your invoicing process still leans on paper, plastic, or phone calls, the upgrade is overdue. Reach out to Flute to see how we can put faster, more flexible payments to work for your business.
