Payment operations transfer money to a business, also known as B2B payments. It comprises transaction initiations, approvals processing and managing issues.
Payment operations have been an expansive challenge for companies for decades. Before digital transformation and automation, volume and frequency alone meant we needed an entire team focused on inbound and outbound payments.
These roles require exceptional management, customer service, compliance processes and accounting skills, and they need AR automation tools that simplify their accounting operations while providing multiple accounting solutions.
Integrating with AR automation tools is the quickest way to optimise your payment operations. These integrations are essential for increasing the functionality of your organisation's ERP system and rapidly expanding your methods.
AR integrations come in numerous forms. The best ones integrate seamlessly with your entire tech stack. You'll have the ability to automate your AR processes. Along with convenience, AR integration can support your operation beyond standard automation, including:
There are numerous reasons CFOs choose to invest in integrated payment operations, especially regarding vital AR functions. The reality is that the time, resources and cost savings are purely unmatched.
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Let's discuss the top three benefits:
Over 87% of businesses with automated payment operations report quicker processing and improved team efficiency. AR integration automates your team's tedious manual workflows while making checkout processes more convenient for users. That means quicker and more precise payments.
Companies that handle large volumes of invoices profit the most from a shorter DSO turnaround time. But even small businesses that process between 500 and 15,000 invoices monthly may still save days or weeks waiting for payments.
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Your accounting and AR teams shouldn't spend valuable hours on data entry. As drivers of business, finance professionals must have the time and resources to take on a more strategic role. AR automation tools free up time for your teams so they can spend time focusing on what matters, the strategic management of your company's financial resources.
While the advantages are obvious, executing a fruitful integration of payment operations automation is often unclear. There are so many choices that it takes months to sift through them all.
Here is a list of payment operations best practices to assist you in finding your ideal solution as soon as possible:
Once you determine what your organisation needs regarding B2B payments, it's much easier to review all your options and find the right solution. Additional features are great, but whichever program you invest in, you must have the necessities.
While these basic features may seem a bit broad, let's refine them into small sub-features. For instance, you'll want to automate recurring billing and tracking with AR. But you'll also want suppliers to save payment information for fast and straightforward payments.
Your payment operations solutions should feature the following:
Test the usability of the product on the customer and staff sides. In this scenario planning, the process is proactive, with a minimal learning curve.
User-friendly interfaces and processes, such as integrating a "checkout now" feature for fast checkout, can support streamlining your payment processes.
It's often easier to understand the usability of a particular integration with a product demo. That's because seeing how the system works firsthand makes all the difference.
When you find the ideal solution, notify users of the upcoming change. You'll also want to notify customers that a change in your system may impact their user experience.
If you are integrating a new system and not replacing a current one, make sure you offer how-to materials and forums to ensure your customers don't experience issues with automated payment operations.
They should understand how to use your system with minimal instruction if they have done their digital transformation. Provide training courses and materials for your employees and post how-to videos on your website and social media channels.
Test your integration to make sure everything works properly. Customizations are typically tested and debugged in a sandboxed environment, but you'll always want to try live testing to ensure processes are working efficiently.
Also, track payment data to further optimise your payment operations security. Likewise, compliance with data regulations will require data security features your automation solution must offer.
At Vena, we focus on developing solutions that make payment operation tasks simpler and easier to do at scale. We work to streamline the reconciliation process, deliver alerts when specific payments come through and create workflows to manage customer service inquiries as well as other inquiries. See why companies love our user experience.
Initiate transactions, ensure timely AR and AP payments and streamline AR processes using Vena's payment operations automation tools.
Olivia MacDonald is a Senior Manager of FP&A at Vena. A creative problem solver who enjoys analyzing and detangling complex situations to make things better, she’s experienced in leading multiple projects at once and has found the key to success to be documentation, communication and teamwork. Olivia is passionate about removing manual, clunky and repetitive tasks from finance professionals’ working days so they can focus on what they believe truly adds value to the business instead. At work, she’s also heavily involved with Vena’s Women+ employee resource group, which collaborates with thought leaders and companies across the globe to remove intersectional barriers in the workplace. Outside of work, Olivia also takes part in youth engagement and education programs as a volunteer.
