While Merchhiya won't disclose what he paid for PDFBlaster, he says "it has basically met our expectation in terms of ROI," and Digital Insight has saved $484,000 in the first year. In first month alone, he says, the company saw an immediate savings of $40,000.

Digital Insight has also reduced days sales outstanding (DSO) by 10 days in terms of producing and mailing invoices. DSO measures the average number of days a company takes to collect revenue after a sale has been made. This is relevant because the faster a company can turn sales into cash, the sooner it can reinvest the cash and make more sales.

"When you are looking at reducing the time between when you invoice your customer and when you receive the payment, the sooner it hits your books the better,'' says Merchhiya, in Westlake Village, Calif. He says his company sends out 2,000 or more invoices monthly, and in the first phase it has already reduced the amount of paper generated by 40%, which meets Intuit's "very aggressive corporate social responsibility goals." Digital Insight has also saved 24 hours of labor per month by eliminating the manual efforts involved in generating and transmitting the invoices.

"You choose a print function that goes into the PDFBlaster queue and you set your delivery method preference,'' such as fax or e-mail, he says. Users can also schedule the date and time the invoice goes out.

Bumpus from North Coast Electric also found the payment process has been shortened by the ability to get invoices into customers' hands a day earlier than if they had been directly mailed from the individual service centers. He says Billtrust attributes that to its targeted bundling with other companies' mail that streams through the post office quicker.