The Paper Check’s Last Stand?
Blog
Is the paper check losing favor with real estate companies?
Everyone knows that paying suppliers with paper checks is costly and inefficient.
It costs businesses an average of $7.15 to send a paper check, per Aberdeen Group. Conversely, it costs businesses about $0.30 to send an ACH payment, and nothing to pay with a Virtual Card.
What’s more, there are 10 times as many fraud incidents involving paper checks than ACH and wire transactions combined, according to the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP). Paper checks are also responsible for more than twice as many fraud incidents as p-cards.
Yet paper checks have shown surprising resilience. Businesses make roughly half of their payments to suppliers with a paper check, per the Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM).
Growing numbers of payables departments are developing strategies to migrate to electronic payments within a few years and the paper check may be on its last legs.
The solutions and services offered by payments vendors are making it easy to migrate to electronic payments. These solutions and services address the top obstacles to electronic payments adoption:
- Difficulty convincing suppliers to accept electronic payments
- Shortage of IT resources for implementation
- Lack of a standard format for remittance information
- Lack of integration between electronic payments and financial systems
Migrating to electronic payments not only eliminates the costs and inefficiencies associated with paying suppliers via paper check, it delivers operational and business benefits for buyers and suppliers.
Want to learn more about what to look for when automating payments? Download our complimentary White Paper, "Critical Considerations for Choosing an Electronic Payments Solution Provider."