Accounts payable (AP) automation can be—and should be—a game-changing technology for finance departments. For too many businesses, though, piecemeal solutions deliver fragmented benefits, and the gulf between a baseline level of automation and transformative tech keeps growing.
What separates the wheat from the chaff to help you realize a better return on investment? Recently, Bottomline’s Senior Vice President for Product Management, Jeff Feuerstein, hosted a webinar with Hugh Thomas, the Lead Analyst for Commercial and Enterprise Payments at Javelin Strategy and Research and a former Mastercard colleague.
The duo covered that very topic and came up with three initiatives that can lift AP automation from being a helpful tool to something your business can’t live without.
Here are the three initiatives, in no particular order given that each one is vital.
Vendor enablement that works for both sides of every transaction
When Javelin selected Bottomline as a Best in Class solution, the team believed—and Thomas confirmed—that Paymode's vendor enablement efforts are a true strength.
But what does that strength look like? It’s about making the process as painless and profitable as possible for payers and vendors alike. Traditional onboarding for vendor B2B payments programs includes a lot of phone calls and emails to try to coax a vendor into accepting a new payment method, which is taxing for accounts payable and accounts receivable teams alike.
The ideal process removes those roadblocks by using a trusted partner to conduct that outreach, incentivizing payers to allow strong endorsements by offering rebates on each payment they make, and offering significant value for vendors in terms of cash application and security to encourage enrollment. That last piece is especially vital, given that vendors who don’t see the value will often stubbornly stick with receiving checks, despite how slow and unsecure that payment method has become.
“So, supplier onboarding: it's all well and good to build something that works great from your process perspective, but if it's not well understood by your suppliers, then obviously you're going to have some challenges,” said Thomas during the webinar. “One of the reasons we really liked Bottomline was that suppliers come out of (the process) with a true understanding of what this is, how things are going to work, and here’s the value to you.”
For payers, the value of being able to turn a part of their AP spend into revenue for the business, while removing a process that slows down AP down and strains relationships, is a powerful incentive.
“It becomes how we leverage vendor enrollment to find our goals, right? Whether it be working capital, improving supplier relationships, creating the best partnerships possible,” Feuerstein said.
Tight and seamless ERP integration
Getting the value you’re looking for from an AP automation solution means prioritizing efficiency, security, visibility, and ease of use. Nearly all of those items are aided by tight integration with your existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software or accounting system.
That’s because of what integration allows you to do. When you can easily ingest data into your system of record and ensure that this data flows freely and securely in and out of that system to other critical areas of the business, you can streamline and accelerate processes without leaving your ERP. Although this may sound simple, anyone who manages processes that do not integrate well with their ERP knows that achieving this is far from a small gain.
That was where Javelin felt Bottomline and our B2B payments network, Paymode, stood out.
“The bottom line is Paymode integrates directly with customers’ ERP and accounting systems. This integration means real-time reconciliation, fewer manual processes, and a faster posting to cash cycle,” Thomas said.
Lockdown security and potent fraud prevention
Checks and paper invoices are problematic for businesses looking to save money and attain more efficiency, but above all they’re a legitimate risk. A total of 80% of global check fraud losses occurred in the U.S. in 2023, meaning intercepted and forged checks cost businesses billions of dollars. False invoices, meanwhile, are getting more sophisticated and harder to detect without automated solutions built to detect deception.
Fighting this kind of fraud alone is nearly impossible, and partners can offer two-pronged benefits: the ability to stop dealing with paper and the technology to find fraud attempts before they become fraud losses.
“These threats are all out there, so it’s really about working with the right partner to help you avoid those threats,” Feuerstein said.
For example, Bottomline authenticates and verifies every one of the 600,000+ businesses in the Paymode network to ensure they’re legitimate before they enroll. Once a business is on the network, layered security, including multi-factor authentication and device fingerprinting, detects when a legitimate user logs into their account and when a bad actor attempts to access bank account details.
This level of protection is simply not possible with check payments, which leave a business and are then at the mercy of mail delivery, fraudsters looking to intercept them, and so forth. ACH and virtual card payments, paired with electronic invoice processing that finds anomalies, can shut out most fraud attempts entirely.
While every organization’s priorities will be different, automation is a powerful solution for most problems faced by modern finance teams. In these three arenas, automation can better transform the way AP teams do business.
If you’d like to watch Jeff Feuerstein and Hugh Thomas discuss these initiatives and Bottomline’s Best in Class designation to learn how to bolster your own AP processes, watch the full on-demand webinar.