During the process of moving to a new ERP system, Eclipse -- made by Activant Solutions Inc. -- a couple of years ago, Bumpus learned about a third-party firm that provides electronic document delivery, a feature Eclipse didn't have. Bumpus liked the fact that Billtrust offered a hosted service that would take the hassle out of the invoicing process for North Coast Electric's 34 service centers.

He had originally intended to wait until Eclipse was in place for a while before implementing another software package, but changed his mind when he heard what Billtrust could do.

"The case for changing our billing process was so compelling . . . we went live with Billtrust at same time we started with Eclipse,'' says Bumpus, in Seattle. "Now, instead of people having to set up manual processes and dealing with paper, we send an electronic file to Billtrust every night via FTP, and then they process it according to the business rules we predefined, and [the invoices] are mailed off and they handle it."

When the customer selects the e-mail option, the customer receives one e-mail anytime he has a bill. A PDF is attached; each invoice is a separate page of that PDF. If the customer chooses to print, each invoice appears on a separate page.

If customers choose the "Invoice Gateway" option, they can view their invoices on the Web site. They can then choose to pay their bills online and leave them in online storage with no paper, or they can print out their bill as a PDF. For some services -- including contractor estimating packages or QuickBooks -- customers can directly import the invoice into their software, bypassing printing entirely.