Overcoming the Barriers to Electronic Payments Adoption

Paying suppliers electronically eliminates the costs associated with check printing, postage, positive pay and escheatment tracking, as well as phone calls from vendors inquiring about payment details.

But many real estate companies have not adopted electronic payments because they’re unsure how to overcome barriers such as a lack of resources and concerns about systems integration. Partnering with the right payments provider addresses these obstacles.

Here’s how:

1. Effortless supplier onboarding: Some payments partners enable real estate companies to outsource supplier management and labor-intensive activities such as managing supplier and payment details, fielding payment research calls, or handling Notification of Change (NOC) transactions or returns. Outsourcing supplier onboarding also supports initiatives to reign in unwieldy vendor masters, which are expensive to manage and prone to fraudulent activity. Having an experienced partner manage supplier onboarding helps drive electronic payment adoption. For instance, a payments partner will know which suppliers already accept Virtual Cards. To migrate suppliers that do not currently accept Virtual Cards, an onboarding project manager works with you to develop a customized outreach program and analyze your list of suppliers to identify those that will return the greatest benefit in the least amount of time. Onboarding professionals contact each supplier to explain the benefits of accepting electronic payments and to walk them through the onboarding process. All supplier payment information is authenticated to protect against fraudulent activity.
2. No technical burden: Implementing electronic payments with the right partner is easy and fast. Payment providers can often work with the current payment file format produced by a real estate company’s AP or ERP system. Additionally, most payments solutions require no changes to your AP or ERP system (e.g. adding a payment type or method). All of this lightens the load for busy IT departments and reduces the chances of project delays.
3. Flexible remittance data options: 37 percent of businesses cite more efficient reconciliation as the top benefit of migrating to electronic payments, AFP reports. Leading payment solutions provide comprehensive services to reduce manual intervention and support straight-through processing. As a result, suppliers can reduce or eliminate resource-intensive activities, which drive cost reduction and processing consistency, and keep them happy.
4. Seamless integration: Leading electronic payments solutions seamlessly integrate into your existing accounts payable environment. These solutions ensure secure data connectivity and payment transmission. Not surprisingly, 24 percent of businesses surveyed by AFP cite higher straight-through processing as the top benefit of migrating to electronic payments.

The right payments partner can help real estate companies overcome seemingly large obstacles to electronic payment success. Contact us today if you don't want to delay your payments initiative any longer.