With all the online listicles promising X number of sure-fire steps to lower your business costs and increase margins, you’ll be delighted to learn that your next revenue bump is most likely right within reach, in your company’s payables.
Before you run off to another article, let that concept sink in—revenue, in your operating expenses. A contradiction, or an opportunity?
The Real Contradiction
Businesses today still spend an enormous amount of money to be paid and to make payments, even when the technology to lower these costs is readily available, such as online invoicing and ePayables.
According to our own Electronic Invoicing & Payments Survey, businesses are creating invoices within a number of different technologies, from Excel on up to enterprise software, and sending the invoices prominently as paper. 66 percent of invoices are sent through the mail, with 22 percent of “digital” invoices being sent as PDFs (a picture of data) that has to be hand-keyed into an accounting system by the recipient. Errors, inefficiency, cost. And the industry average with payments is no more promising.
Annually, businesses in the U.S. send 13.5 billion paper checks, reported in a 2016 study by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), accounting for over 50 percent of B2B payments. In his Wall Street Journal article, U.S. Companies Cling to Writing Paper Checks, Vipal Monga reveals, “Bank of America estimates that a business check can cost an aggregate of $4 to $20, based on the price of the check and shipping, plus the time employees spend writing, mailing, collecting and reconciling the check.”
How much is the cost of payments costing your company?
Remember to factor in the potential cost of fraud given these additional findings from the AFP 2016 report:
- 74 — percent of organizations report they were the victims of payment fraud in 2016, the highest percentage on record
- 75 — percent of fraud victims in 2016 who listed “check fraud” as primary method
- 63 — percent of fraud incidents were perpetrated from outside individuals forging checks and stealing cards
The Opportunity in AP
Turning your payables into a revenue engine with ePayables can sound exhausting and complicated at first. In fact, “getting suppliers to participate in the initiative” was the biggest roadblock to ePayables program success, according 71 percent of AP professionals surveyed by Ardent Partners.
Fortunately, the Viewpost® ePayables (virtual credit card) solution gets you up and running easily, quickly and with stronger results.
- Capture more rebates — With continuous enrollment we onboard suppliers at a rate more than 53 percent above the industry average, increasing your total virtual card payment volume without a flurry of phone calls or emails from your team.
- Simplify your payment process — Instead of managing multiple lists of vendors to account for each payment method, simply send Viewpost one set of payment instructions and let us optimize payment delivery and maximize rebate.
- Lower fraud risk — Delivering more one-time use virtual card payments (one of the most secure methods of payment) and reducing the number of paper checks greatly reduces your risk of fraud.
Let us know when you’re ready to tap more rebate revenue without zapping your energy and resources.
Shoot us an email or find more information and a direct line to discuss.
