In this day and age, technology has made significant leaps, particularly in the area of payment processing. It is difficult to consider these changes without thinking about the Covid-19 pandemic and its role in causing these changes. To a great extent, the conversation on the Covid-19 pandemic in Kenya feels like old news to most people. With a positivity rate of less than 1%, many Kenyans have moved on from the pandemic and its implications. Notably, issues like social distancing and wearing masks have become a thing of the past. Meanwhile, Kenyans have gone back to hosting parties, attending events, and experiencing life to the fullest, which is an integral part of our culture. However, despite this return to normalcy, one must admit that there are several practices resulting from the pandemic that have lived on. Among these practices are the increased adoption of technology in business, remote work for many companies, and the use of mobile money for payments.
Going cashless has brought about several benefits to the modern person regardless of their social standing, for business people it means easier accounting while for the buyer it ensures security. Gone are the days when people walked around carrying bundles of money in their wallets. With most people accepting cashless payments, the practice of using mobile money has become even more widespread in Kenya in the last four years than it was before. M-pesa is one of the most widely used forms of payment in Kenya. As such, many people are using M-pesa as their preferred mode of payment for goods and services. However, the practice of cashless payment has created new needs and demands for businesses and organizations. One of the major challenges with mobile money in Kenya is differentiating payments received for different products, services, or accounts, which is where systems such as Lipa Solutions come in handy.
Lipa Solutions is an advanced, cloud-hosted billing and M-pesa payment integration system. The platform makes it possible for businesses and organizations to determine who made the payments and what they made the payments for. As such, it makes it possible to filter through M-pesa payments based on time, clients, products etc. For example, a person may be a regular shopper, or subscriber to a product or service you provide. With Lipa Solutions, you can view all the payments you have received from that client. Similarly, you might want to evaluate the popularity of a certain product you provide and filter through all the payments/accounts with the product as the search term, and determine how much you have received for that product. Such statistics are instrumental to decision-making and offer valuable insight into the health and performance of your business.
Lipa Solution is also very instrumental in collecting money online via a website or social media page. The system mitigates the risk of wrongful payments since customers do not need to input a paybill or till number when making a payment but simply click on a unique link to make a payment. This works by embedding the link onto your social media page or website. As such, your customers can make payments to you via your custom lipa.me link, a payment form embedded on your website.
See an example of this in action here: lipa.me/simple
The system also makes it possible to send out invoices to your clients via SMS. To send invoices via SMS, all you have to do is upload a spreadsheet with the invoice information and each individual customer will receive a customized bill on SMS. To pay, all the customer needs to do is click on a link in the text or, if you have an SMS short code, reply to the SMS and authorize the payment on their mobile phone once prompted. Of course, you can adopt a similar approach to emails and input the link to your emails when sending an invoice via email.
Recent changes to Safaricom’s M-pesa api have eliminated the name and personal details of customers as they make their payments. This can negatively impact the accounting and consolidation of M-pesa payments for merchants. In light of this, businesses must be vigilant to find solutions that will empower them in their shift to the online way of doing things. However, mobile money is here to stay and thus more citizens are adopting the use of M-pesa as their preferred payment option. With this shift towards mobile payments, businesses are in need of more customized solutions. As such, it is crucial for organizations to adopt practices that ease their daily operations for increased efficiency. Lipa Solutions is thus an ideal solution for M-pesa users interested in M-pesa integration.
Lipa Solutions has many advantages and capabilities including the following:
By Christine Njoki - Published 30th Apr 2022, 11:54pm
