E-mandates fit right in with modern distributed workforce procedures
The COVID-19 pandemic set in motion a massive and global move away from traditional office environments and towards a more flexible, digital workplace. Even though distributed workforces were a growing trend, 42% of organisations in South Africa now have employees working from home full-time. 67% of those businesses have the intention to continue doing so for the next two years, and it’s unlikely that this is going to change in the years to come.
Having your workforce operating from home is beneficial for both the business and its employees in many ways, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be some operational obstacles. Not everyone has a fully-equipped home office at their disposal, which means a lot of your employees and customers won’t have easy access to a printer and scanner, making certain traditional admin almost impossible.
Businesses had to evolve overnight. Manual processes such as signing contracts or mandates needed to change. The filing of documents needed to be digital, to make them more accessible and everything they altered needed to be as compliant and secure as before, if not more so. This is why we encourage the use of our electronic mandates, as a feature of our existing debit order service.
Electronic mandates are a way for you to easily add and manage new debit order mandates for customers to sign digitally. Not only can they easily update their masterfile for debiting, but every digital mandate is automatically stored in their Netcash account where it is conveniently accessible. Your customers can even download their signed e-mandate in PDF format for their own records.
Furthermore, Netcash users can add their own branding to electronic mandates and customise the standard mandate with their own clauses. Digital mandates are far more secure than paper or voice mandates and completely compliant, as they are authenticated by IP address, email and cellphone number verification, bank account verification, as well as date and timestamped.
An e-mandate has a much quicker turnaround time, as it doesn’t require customers to print, physically sign, or scan. Your customer is automatically notified when you have created an e-mandate in the Netcash system.
WIthout giving too much away, the Netcash team are currently working on some exciting advancements to the e-mandates functionality for those users who have large databases of mandates. Watch this space for this release in the near future!