Fall in Love with Paperless Supplier Payments
Blog
It doesn’t seem like “love”. There’s no magical, tingly feeling. There’s no sleepless nights. Nor getting lost in daydreams. But AP teams - who use automated and paperless supplier payments - will swear their devotion to electronic payments and never turn back.
That’s because automated electronic payments make life easier for almost everyone in the AP department. Instead of spending days writing checks, mailing them, or getting them ready for a check printer, AP teams can instead click a few buttons.
They can redirect their approved payment files from the check printer to their payments vendor. The payments vendor will do all the work to pay every supplier, from debiting the money out of the appropriate bank accounts to issuing payments to the suppliers. They’ll even pay the suppliers in digital payment methods like Virtual Card payments or ACH.
By automating, these AP professionals don’t give up an ounce of control, either. They can always designate when, where, and how payments are authorized.
And if that’s not enough to love, there’s even more:
- Reduce check writing costs - Eliminate material costs like paper stock, ink, envelopes, and postage. These expenses can really add up - the Wall Street Journal reports it can cost anywhere from $4 to $20 to issue a single paper check.
- Gain greater visibility - Because e-payments exist digitally, they can be tracked online. This means you can access payment status at any time, anywhere, and be ready to answer suppliers when they inquire about disbursement dates. Plus, with real-time payment data available in the cloud, you can generate quick and accurate snapshots of cash flow and optimize payment timing.
- Earn rebates - Your business can earn cash rewards by using Virtual Cards, just as individuals earn when they use consumer credit cards. Virtual Card spend can become eligible for cash back, meaning the higher the spend on Virtual Cards, the higher the revenue potentially given back to your business. Pay special attention to payments providers who pitch their solution solely based on high rebate figures, however. You’ll want to have a thorough understanding of the spend they’re including when calculating your likely cash back totals. Not every expense qualifies for rebates.
- Decrease AP staff time - Increase productivity by doing away with manually generating, obtaining signatures for, mailing, and reconciling checks.
Once AP payments have been issued in an automated environment, reconciliation is a breeze too. AP pros can see each payment broken out into individual line items – ensuring figures match with both bank statements and the general ledger.
Given these benefits, it’s easy to see how accounts payable professionals and paperless supplier payments can be a match made in heaven.