It started out with customers asking for electronic invoices. Then, some of them started requiring it.

Now, that’s not enough. They want it in a particular way — probably in a portable document format (pdf).

That’s an easy request to handle. It’s so easy, you might want to do it for the folks who haven’t even asked.

It’s certainly not as complicated or costly as it used to be. PDF is the best way to go with electronic invoices anyway because you get to keep all your formatting and carefully crafted pay-prompting messages. In addition, PDFs can’t be altered without special software and any changes can be easily tracked.

Any organization that uses Macs will have the easiest time of it. All Macs come standard with the ability to turn documents into PDFs.

But even Windows users won’t have a tough time of it. They can:

• purchase software (around $450) that creates high-end, password-protected PDFs
• apply patches from Microsoft that enable Word 2007 to convert documents, or
• use Web-based products (www.Docudesk.com or www.createpdf.com) that will cost you anywhere from $20 to $100. There’s also free, open-source software that can do to the same thing.

The collection edge alone could make it worth your while to move to pdf invoices. They knock out the “lost in the mail” excuse from the get go.

Tags: convert, invoice, Mac, pdf, Windows