Improving Your Payment Processes With Digital Payments

This post was contributed by American Express, an SAP Concur Partner

If your business is like many, your accounts payable team is hard-working…productive…busy...and quietly frustrated. The massive paper piles, tedious tasks, and inefficiency of your paper-based processes are amongst the things your AP team didn’t sign up for. And it’s keeping your business from growing. One key solution is digital B2B payments. Compared with manual payment systems, they’re faster, more accurate, and rich in data that can improve decision-making and reporting.

Today, we’ll look at a key solution to help eliminate those hassles: digital B2B payments. Compared with manual payment systems, they’re faster, more accurate and rich in data that can improve decision making and reporting.

In April 2018, American Express commissioned Forrester Consulting to design a survey of 100 US decision makers in accounting, finance, or procurement roles. The survey explored these professionals’ current approach to B2B payments, and how adopting a more integrated, automated B2B payments system can help them achieve their operational efficiency goals. Here’s what the survey found, and how you can use the results to improve your payment processes.

Operational excellence is a top priority for finance and procurement pros

Success in today’s marketplace depends on coordinating teams, technology, and processes for an efficient, responsive business.  Finance and procurement teams are heeding this call: Survey respondents told us that improving operational efficiency was their No. 1 priority over the next 12 months. They also wanted to modernize their finance technology systems for more holistic and accurate reporting. That means improving access to real-time data and integrating internal and external processes.

A transformed B2B payments system means real business results

Many companies have already embraced B2C digital payments. But because B2B payments can be more complicated, many companies have been slower to adopt new digital processes. As people carry their expectations for convenient digital purchasing from their personal lives into their business activities, pressure to streamline B2B payments will only continue to rise.

B2B payments optimize the allocation of scarce resources

Decision makers surveyed associated a more integrated and automated B2B payments approach with a number of benefits—above all, less manual labor and lower costs, freeing up resources for more strategic uses.  Many of those surveyed also expected more accurate reporting, improved payment processing speed, visibility, control, data security, compliance, and the potential to strengthen their supplier relationships, which opens the door for new collaborations and more favorable purchase agreements.

To succeed in the digital age, organizations need lean, integrated — and most of all — digital processes to support B2B commerce. Finance and procurement decision makers who prioritize fast, connected, and insight-led B2B payments processes will surpass those who continue to rely on inflexible, disconnected, paper-based systems. Solutions that integrate systems with automated B2B payment tools can generate important operational efficiencies, such as reduced manual labor and costs and greater visibility into and control over payments and cash flows. 

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