This fall, step away from your screens, pack up your big ideas, and head to AXUG Summit Phoenix, the most comprehensive and impressive conference of the year. As a proud sponsor, SK Global Software is excited to share this experience with you as we squeeze every last bit of functionality out of the products and get you the ROI you want—and deserve.

Why you should attend
AXUG Summit is THE go-to conference that brings industry experts, software development vendors, and everyday users together to discuss important issues, trends, product updates, customer pain points, and genuine solutions.

The value of AXUG Summit is endless! Here are a few more reasons why you should attend:

• Geek out over great content: There’s no better way to learn than peer-to-peer with other Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Unified Operations or legacy Dynamics AX users. Share and learn broadly across a variety of content tracks that feature role-based learning, specialty topics, or application-focused solutions across Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Unified Operations, legacy Dynamics AX, and other complementary Microsoft technologies.
• Meet & network with your user group buddies: AXUG Summit provides countless opportunities to create lasting relationships by connecting and networking with your Dynamics peers.
• Learn from your seriously smart peers: Learn from and connect with Dynamics 365 for Unified Operations and Dynamics AX experts and Business Solution MVPs on a personal basis.
• Evaluate and explore solutions: Understand third party solutions and learn what they can do for your industry or organization.

How to engage with us at AXUG Summit
We will be very happy to see you in our booth number 1138.

So grab your PC, sunglasses and business cards and join SK Global Software in Phoenix: Register now.

 

The financial services sector is one of the most quickly changing industries today, particularly with the advent of new technology making it possible for both business and consumer clients to take advantage of emerging service delivery styles. From mobile to increasingly advanced and streamlined payment solutions, financial technologies – or FinTech – garners interest both in and out of the financial services industry.

In order to remain on the cutting edge, it’s important for financial services providers to know what’s on the horizon. Today, we’ll take a closer look at the FinTech trends shaking up this industry, and detail which ones will become more mainstream in the near future:

FinTech continues to disrupt the industry: Adapt or fall by the wayside

According to a report from Fujitsu, the vast majority of financial sector leaders – 95 percent – share the belief that technology represents the linchpin for forward movement in the current industry. What’s more, 86 percent feel positive about FinTech technologies and their ability to drive change within the organization.

Use of emerging financial technologies and strategies has considerably disrupted the historical financial services sector, to the point that the service providers clients have become familiar with in the past may be unrecognizable in the future. As the Fujitsu study found, 50 percent of industry leaders agree that within the next decade, banks as we currently know them won’t exist, and 39 percent believe bank tellers will altogether disappear within the same timeframe.

“FinTech disruptors have been finding a way in,” PwC noted. “Disruptors are fast-moving companies, often start-ups, focused on a particular innovative technology or process in everything from mobile payments to insurance. And, they have been attacking some of the most profitable elements of the financial services value chain. This has been particularly damaging to the incumbents who have historically subsidized important but less profitable service offerings.”

Organizations must update their legacy technologies with emerging FinTech solutions in a way that prepares the business for this “new normal,” tech-centered business model.

Eliminating the middleman: Sharing economy comes to financial services

The “sharing economy” – a concept most recognizable in the rise of ride-sharing and other similar services – has become a mainstay in the service industry. Consumers appreciate the ability to glean savings while still receiving quality services. And, as PwC pointed out, the sharing economy is beginning to touch financial services.

Experts predict this will have deep effects in the way clients leverage financial services, bringing more localized ownership to the sector.

“In this case, the sharing economy refers to decentralized asset ownership and using information technology to find efficient matches between providers and users of capital, rather than automatically turning to a bank as an intermediary,” PwC explained.

Investigating blockchain

One of the most interesting developments in FinTech recently has been the continued exploration of uses cases for blockchain technology, which looks to create a digital ledger to support. While initially paired with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency transactions, the potential uses of this technology are nearly limitless, as it can be used to create an unduplicatable record for anything of value.

Experts expect organizations to continue funding and investigating blockchain. While many initiatives and companies backing these services may not survive more than a few years, researchers don’t believe blockchain will disappear anytime soon, and will in fact become a critical part of financial services technology.

Preparing for the future

As service providers inside and outside of the financial sector prepare for new delivery styles and emerging, advanced strategies, it’s important that they have the right solutions in place to put them on the path to future success. This includes key capabilities like automation for processes like Accounts Payable, which supports time and capital savings for internal teams, providing more resources to investigate the use of innovative models and solutions.

 

Invoices, the approval process and other related internal payment processes can be the Achilles’ heel of enterprise financial activity. Accounts payable has long been known as one of the most resource-intensive areas of business, and since the workflow involves so many moving parts, it isn’t difficult to understand why.

However, even with advanced AP automation solutions available, some companies still choose to do things according to legacy strategies. Manual, paper-based accounts payable is on its way out, and it’s time for businesses to ensure that their financial departments have the tools to keep up.

If your organization isn’t using AP automation, you’re missing out on some serious advantages:

1) Eliminate inefficient processes

Companies that still take a manual approach to their accounts payable workflows may be supporting inefficient – not to mention time consuming – processes. This sometimes happens without decision-makers realizing it, but when stakeholders take a closer look at some of the bottlenecks that can easily occur with manual AP processing, the message is clear:

• Manual invoice and data entry takes time, and if any information is incorrect or missing, it draws the process out further.
• Reconciling payments against purchase orders and verifying invoices according to receiving reports by hand is critical, but also can also take significantly longer than necessary, delaying approval and payment.
• The approval process is laborious and paper-based strategies require stakeholders to be there in person. As a result, approval could potentially be put off by a sick day, vacation, or other out-of-office period.

When stakeholders add up all this time – and consider the ways in which these hours could be better spent – it’s clear what’s missing. Automation can ensure that invoices are entered into the system correctly, everything is reconciled and verified automatically and that the overall approval process is streamlined through online platforms even when approvers aren’t physically in the office.

2) Put money back in your wallet

In addition to missing out on significant time savings, companies that use paper and manual processes for AP are also spending more than they need to. We’re all familiar with the saying, “Time is money.” This very much applies to drawn-out AP activity.

Long approval and other tedious, by-hand workflows drive up the overall costs of invoice processing. A study from Aberdeen Group found that the typical, manual invoice procedure takes 17 days to complete, and costs $31 for each invoice. This may not seem like much, but when one considers that some businesses process as many as 5,000 invoices a month, the numbers can add up quickly.

Putting AP automation in place can reduce invoice processing costs by as much as 70 percent, thanks to streamlined workflows and overall ease-of-use of advanced solutions. In this way, companies that leverage automation have more time on their hands to devote to critical processes, as well as more capital to support their key initiatives.

3) Support end-to-end security

Finally, there’s the question of security, which businesses simply cannot afford to overlook. Manual processes can create several instances for financial risk and even fraud:

• Fifty-seven percent of business leaders noted that paper checks were the type of payment most vulnerable to fraud, according to a study from the Association for Financial Professionals.
• Manual processes make it difficult for employers to glean the type of in-depth visibility that they require into the company’s payment processes.
• It’s much more difficult to track and verify the standards of the company’s internal approval process rules within manual, paper-based activities.

An automated solution, on the other hand, can address these security issues, ensuring that stakeholders can consistently see where in the procedure an invoice is, which have been approved, and which invoices are awaiting approval. Advanced AP automation also offers access to historical documents, and enables administrators to adjust their approval process at any time.

Best of all, a solution like this from ExFlow and SK Global Software ensures that payments are sent through the most secure gateway, reaching recipients via the most protected path possible.

Is your company missing out on the advantages of AP automation? Click below to learn more!

 

At one time, risk management was a function that was generally handled by members of the financial or accounting department. While many of these efforts are still deeply rooted in a company’s financial processes, overall risk management has become increasingly critical for executives and department heads across the board.

The expanding scope of risk management

As Computer Weekly contributor Cath Jennings pointed out, there are an array of different instances that are making risk management a more pressing priority for all business stakeholders, including within IT.

“Although most large organizations have had registries dealing with financial risk for some time, many are starting to realize that potential information security risks should also be included, not least because external auditors are increasingly requiring it,” Jennings wrote. “Organizations are also beginning to find that more of their customers are demanding a risk-based approach to security.”

Supporting compliance

What’s more, several key industry guidelines now require that risk management processes are made a central enterprise focus. This includes ISO 27001 for information security management, as well as the specific enforcement within the Basel 2 accord.

In addition, the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act calls for robust business continuity plans, making risk management a necessarily prominent process.

There is also the BS 25999 standard in connection with disaster recovery planning, which includes specific requirements for both risk and business impact analysis.

Finally, as organizations look to abide by the new standards of ISO 31000, put in place this year, risk management will also be an important part of financial and overall security considerations.

Creating a unified front

As risk management efforts become a more central part of business security, it’s imperative that companies are able to centralize and unify their processes. As McKinsey contributors Philipp Harle, Adras Havas and Hamid Samandari pointed out, there have been “dramatic changes” to this business function in recent years, and the shifts will only continue in the future.

“Today, about 50 percent of the function’s staff are dedicated to risk-related operational processes such as credit administration, while 15 percent work in analytics,” Harle, Havas and Samandari wrote. “McKinsey research suggests that by 2025, these numbers will be closer to 25 and 40 percent, respectively.”

Leveraging an advanced risk management platform

One of the best ways to centralize and support risk management while elevating its importance as a key process within the enterprise is to deploy a solution that includes dedicated risk management features. There are several critical benefits for businesses that adopt this type of innovative software, including:

• Protecting paper checks: A risk management platform enables unattended, yet completely secure file transfers to safeguard paper checks from fraud.
• Overall file security: In addition, digital files should have their own robust protection, including during creation, transmission and storage. This ensures that sensitive data relating to internal company finances, as well as customer and vendor information, is fully protected.
• Payment automation: This feature doesn’t just speed up the approval and payment process, but also helps safeguard against common forms of fraud. The most advanced platforms will include automation for customer and vendor payments.
• Secure credit card processing: Risk management solutions should also support card processing within a framework aligned with PCI standards.
• Direct 1:1 connection with banks: A direct channel with banks and financial solutions means businesses don’t need to utilize third-party services for the transmission of financial data, and can ensure the full security of this sensitive information.

As risk management continues to become a priority across all departments, it’s imperative that enterprises have the tools they need to support this critical pursuit. SK Global Software’s Treasury Automation Suite provides everything your organizations needs for effective risk management, including:

• Secure, unattended file transfers for printed checks.
• Protection for data transmission and storage.
• PCI-compliant framework supporting credit card payment processing.
• Payment automation and other layers of security to guard against internal fraud.

Connect with SK Global Software today to learn more.

 

Thanks to the proliferation of advanced technologies and e-commerce platforms, businesses can now more easily connect with consumers around the world. What’s more, the consumer sector is expanding everyday, providing more opportunities for global relationships and rising sales – Woo Commerce reported that by 2025, the global consumer market will expand by 75 percent, and these 4.2 billion individuals will spend a combined $30 trillion annually.

As companies seek to reach buyers outside of their own borders, there are a few essential elements to keep in mind, particularly when processing other currencies:

Preferred payment methods

A smart move for global organizations is to tailor their payment processing practices according to their customers’ and vendor partners’ preferences. Woo Commerce contributor Sue Park underscored the importance of learning the preferred payment methods of the company’s international customers – for instance, nearly half (46 percent) of German transactions are paid for with online bank transfers, and 60 percent of payments in the Netherlands are carried out through direct debit.

Once stakeholders understand the types of payments their global customers and vendors will seek to use, they can ensure that their financial payment processing technology can support their needs.

Exchange rates and returns

It’s also important, particularly from an e-commerce perspective, that prices are listed for customers in their local currencies. This way, consumers and partners don’t have to conduct their own research to determine prices, and can pay using familiar currency.

However, it’s imperative to keep exchange rates for different currencies in mind, and ensure that prices are updated based on these changing rates. As Park noted, businesses usually have two options here – to either convert the payment according to the exchange rate at the time of withdrawal from the business’s account, or automatically convert the currency when the transaction takes place.

It’s also important to keep the exchange rate in mind during the return process. As MINDBODY noted, this could impact reimbursement.

“Due to the fluctuation in the rate exchange, you and your clients may see different amounts on your bank records,” MINDBODY stated. “For example, the amount you refund will appear in the client’s bank account as a smaller amount than the original charge due to the fluctuation we can see with exchange rates.”

Cross-border transaction fees

Enterprises that do business globally will also have to observe cross-border fees that can impact credit card payments. As BigCommerce noted, both Visa and MasterCard charge fees for processing foreign payments, depending upon where the business is registered, the location of the institution that issued the payment card and other assessments.

“Cross border fees are an expense, both in terms of money and time, but these costs are often overshadowed by revenue opportunities in international markets,” BigCommerce pointed out.

Automation for multi-currency payment processing

One of the best ways to support global transactions is with an advanced Treasury Automation Suite, like that provided by SK Global Software. This powerful platform includes Vendor Payment Automation, enabling direct communication with any bank across the globe to support streamlined international electronic payments.

To find out more, connect with the experts at SK Global Software today.

 

In many businesses, financial processes still require repetitive, manual work in order to support critical operations. These by-hand processes take valuable time away from employees each day, and can even result in costly and time-consuming human errors that impacts customer or vendor relationships.

Within the finance department, timeliness and accuracy is key. Automating specific processes can help support both of these pursuits, while ensuring that employees’ time can be used for more mission-critical daily tasks.

But where are the most powerful places to implement automation within your company’s financial processes? Let’s take a look, as well as examine the benefits of eliminating manual tasks in favor of advanced, automated solutions:

Vendor payment automation

Maintaining successful relationships with the business’s vendors is a top priority. Any breakdown here could severely impact the supply chain, and by extension, customer services – check out this blog to read further. For these reasons and more, vendor payments are a primary consideration when implementing automation.

A solution like SK Global’s Treasury Automation Suite supports vendor payment automation via Microsoft Dynamics. Leveraging automation in this way can increase security, as payments are transmitted directly from the Dynamics solution to the bank. Best of all, vendor payments can be automated on a global scale using SEPA, ACH, BACS, IAT and more, considerably simplifying processes for organizations that have vendor partners inside and outside of the U.S.

Customer payment automation: Accounts receivable

Accounts receivable is another area of corporate financial operations that can significantly benefit from automation. AR automation can help ensure that unresolved transactions are addressed, and that reconciliation of payments takes place on schedule. In addition, advanced solutions like our Treasury Automation Suite provide powerful features like customer payment matching, summary journal matching, and the creation of GL entries to support payment mapping rules.

According to statistics gathered by Laserfiche contributor Sharon Fisher, AR automation offers substantial advantages for internal financial processes, including:

• 25 percent decrease in past-due payments.
• 38 percent increase in on-time payment rates.
• Up to 25 percent decrease in bad-debt reserves.
• Full return on investment in as little as two months.

Accounts payable automation

In addition to automating vendor and customer payments, there are major benefits to automating the accounts payable process. AP automation has caught on quickly in some organizations – while only 7 percent of businesses currently use AP automation for their invoices, 65 percent are planning to implement it within the next two years, according to Certify.

AP automation can save significant time by eliminating manual work for employees. In addition, automating these processes can also boost security and help fight fraud.

SK Global has partnered with SignUp Software to create a true, end-to-end automated AP solution, leveraging SignUp Software’s ExFlow to automate the invoice and approval processes, and our own Banking and Treasury Automation Suite to support secure payment processing. Connect with us today to learn more about our automated solutions and how these can benefit your financial processes.

 

As an accountant or member of your company’s financial team, you understand the need for automation within accounts payable. AP is often one of the most overlooked areas of business, but as a critical process for operations, it’s invaluable to upgrade performance here by eliminating manual work while streamlining approval and payment activities.

Before automation can be put in place, though, you must convince your supervisors and the executive team that an investment will be beneficial for the organization. Here are a few essential items to remember as you make the business case for AP automation:

Highlight the problems with paper-based processes

First, it’s important to shine a light on the complications and issues with current manual AP processes. Some problems to bring up can include:

• Lost or missing invoices, and the costs associated with finding and replacing them.
• Drawn out approval processes that can cause late payments.
• Charges related to late payments, and the inability to take advantage of offered vendor discounts.
• Problems with tracking and reporting for outstanding invoices.
• Issues and costs related to human error.

Starting off in this way will help demonstrate the need for change within AP that can support less expensive and more efficient internal processes.

Discuss the potential time savings

Once you’ve highlighted the issues stemming from current processes, it’s helpful to underscore some of the most value-driven benefits that AP automation can provide. As this blog post pointed out, time savings – specifically, the ability to considerably streamline the approval process – is one of the most attractive advantages of AP automation technology.

It’s also beneficial to support this discussion with key data points. For example, the Aberdeen Group discovered that while the typical organization sees anywhere from 500 to as many as 5,000 invoices per month, it can take up to 10 days to process these manually. What’s more, these paper-based activities come with a cost as high as $15 per invoice.

The time employees devote to manual AP processes, including the approval process specifically, could be much more usefully spent on other, more mission-critical initiatives. Driving this point home will help you provide a robust business case to supervisors and executives.

Note the impact to partner and vendor relationships

It can be advantageous to follow up by highlighting the impact that inefficient AP processes can have on the company’s relationships with its partners and vendors. As reported in this blog, one study found that 47 percent of businesses had not met contractual payment deadlines on 10 percent of their invoices. Another 16 percent of organizations are consistently late with their vendor payments, while only 5 percent of companies can say that they always pay on time.

Vendors and partners don’t appreciate late payments, particularly when deadlines are included in contractual agreements. In addition, processing invoices behind schedule can also prevent the company from taking advantage of potential service discounts that come as a perk for paying on time.

Overall, there are numerous elements that can be included in the business case for AP automation. In addition to these points, it’s also helpful to consider including data about the security and fraud prevention advantages, as well.