No matter what industry an organization operates in, every business has one very important process in common: payment. Whether your have to pay a vendor or provide tender to a customer according to specific invoices, reimbursement for goods and services is something everyone takes part in.

For decades, the payment process remained the same – merchandise or labor is provided, and upon completion, the customer pays the provider. This process mainly leaned on manual, paper processes. Today, however, there is a better way.

Payment automation enables your organization to leverage the latest technology to eliminate the time consuming payment process. But why, exactly, does your company need this kind of innovation? Let’s take a look:

Enhance efficiency

Before payment automation, workers had to manually match invoices and ensure that service providers and customers were paid. Not only did this take considerable time and effort to support accurate payment and overall accounting, but any lost or misplaced invoices could result in late payments – as well as negative impact on the company’s standing and reputation.

Payment automation tackles these issues head on, removing the need for manual, paper-based processes and reducing the time it takes to reconcile bills. This means your employees can work on other mission-critical tasks while payments are taken care of automatically and correctly every time. In fact, business printing firm Relyco found that automation can cut the average invoice approval time from 28 days to just under 3 days. What could your company do with an extra 25 days of production time?

Workflow automation can result in considerable savings.

Save processing costs

Eliminating paper processes can do much more for your business than just improve its efficiency. This benefit goes hand-in-hand with cost savings, meaning your organization gets back both time and money.

Automation can contribute to as much as 80 percent savings over manual, paper-based processes.

Considering this fact, it is easy to wonder why many enterprises have not yet automated their  accounts payable operation.

Up to 80 percent savings alongside the ability to align with top businesses focuses makes payment automation the ideal solution for today’s accounting departments.

Eliminate errors

There are few problems that impact your finance team more than incorrect invoices or payments. It’s an issue that every organization has dealt with at some point, particularly those that still rely on manual data entry.

Because payment automation can integrate with an array of banks to streamline the payment process, it removes a layer of data entry during which mistakes most commonly appear.

“Customer and payment data that has been captured and approved for disbursement can be entered into the payables system, making the process considerably faster,” optical image company DocFinity explained. “At the same time, the possibility that an approved invoice will have an error in the corresponding check or payment can be eliminated.”

In this way, accuracy is supported throughout the process and payments are always correct.

To find out more about the kind of advanced banking and treasury automation that can bring these benefits, visit our website and take a moment to check out our video today.

Automation has been applied to countless industry sectors, freeing employees from manual tasks while improving overall risk management. When it comes to the financial sector, automation has proven particularly advantageous in connection with treasury management. In fact, according to a survey from the Aberdeen Group, the ability to automate financial transactions is now the most sought after approach for enhancing treasury management.

One of the key advantages treasury automation brings to the table comes in the form of support for security. Data and system protection has consistently been a top priority for financial service providers and enterprises alike, and treasury automation is an ideal solution.

1) Supporting a single, secure point of access

Because companies have so much data to keep track of in connection with their transactions and overall finances, a common problem is information overload, coupled with a lack of security when accessing the multiple different systems used to track this data. Thankfully, a robust treasury automation suite can help address this issue by providing a single and protected point of access for financial details.

“Companies that maintain relationships with multiple different commercial banks can procure financial information from all of their different banks,” a recent report from Cadence Bank stated.

Overall, 52 percent of companies noted that the ability to access this information from a single, secure solution would greatly benefit their online treasury management.

2) Providing a protected payment portal

In addition to accessing critical financial transactional information and improving management of banking relationships, treasury automation can also offer an encrypted portal to ensure payment security. The most robust solutions allow users to tailor this window in order to create a branded portal that provides flexible payment options coupled with automatic, real-time transaction posting.

A branded portal of this kind doesn’t just keep the business’s transactions secure, but also provides protection and peace of mind to customers. Although online transactions have been a leading capability for years now, there are still some that hesitate with these kinds of payments. Offering a professional and secure payment portal can put these concerns to bed while safeguarding payments with staunch protection features.

A secure payment portal is a must-have for today’s businesses, providing peace of mind for vendors and customers.

3) Improved tracking of transactions

A basic tenet of financial security and fraud prevention is robust visibility into all of the transactions between vendors, banks and customers. However, this can easily get very complicated, especially for global businesses that not only have multiple bank relationships, but have to factor different types of currency into their considerations as well.

This is yet another area where treasury automation provides significant support. This type of solution can help organizations large and small keep track of their transactions, providing granular visibility into payments and cash management.

To find out more about the advantages of treasury automation and how it supports secure transactions, contact the experts at SK Global Software today.

It is now easier than ever for companies to reach a global audience. There aren’t as many barriers standing between businesses and their clients, and goods and services can be delivered nearly anywhere.

This doesn’t mean, though, that multinational organizations don’t face unique challenges, and this is especially true when it comes to their accounting and banking needs. Enterprises that provide services in more than one country must have a robust support network in order to make these global transactions work.

Global banking relationships: Technology integration

Among the most critical considerations here are the relationships multinational businesses maintain with their banking partners. Companies must have partnerships with both large, expansive banks, as well as smaller, local banks, depending upon their operations and geographic regions they serve. As Treasury Practice Lead Craig N. Martin wrote for the Association for Financial Professionals, managing these relationships can be a challenge.

“Fundamentally, there is an underlying tension between having a wide enough banking group to provide all the services required and a small enough number of banks that can be managed efficiently and rewarded appropriately,” Martin noted.

Not only is this a time-consuming process – which, as Martin pointed out, grows exponentially more time-intensive as the number of banking partnerships an organization has increases – but maintaining these relationships is also incredibly complex.

One way to address these challenges head-on is with an automated banking solution that supports robust integration. In this way, multinational and global organizations can create more effective connections with their banking institutions, enabling important automated functions like vendor payment and customer payment, which we’ll discuss further below.

This level of integration is imperative for global companies. Capabilities like this can considerably simplify management of banking relationships, while also cutting down on the time it takes to reconcile payments – a benefit for business user accountants, their banking partners and the company’s customers.

Streamlining payment with automation

As noted above, automation is key when it comes to supporting global transactions. In the past, critical functions like cash management, vendor payment and customer payments were all done manually by a company’s internal finance team. This wasn’t just considerably time-consuming – it was also problematic for vendor partners and clients as they waited for payment to be matched up and reconciled.

Thankfully, these challenges can be addressed with advanced automation, like that provided by SK Global Software’s leading banking and treasury solution. Global companies should seek out technology that offers:

• Unattended reconciliation as well as customizable matching and mapping capabilities for cash management.
• Printed check protection and email notification for automated vendor payments.
• Auto-matched invoices for processing automated customer payments.

Multinational companies supported by treasury solutions that include these automated functions put themselves in the best position to streamline payments to customers and partners, prevent delays and increase overall satisfaction.

SK Global Software

Staunch security

Finally, multinational companies seeking to better support their global transactions must have robust security and risk management capabilities. In the current threat environment, any company can be a target for hackers, especially those with larger revenue streams spanning multiple countries.

For these reasons, global businesses must have an automated banking suite that includes security for processing payments according to PCI DSS standards, as well as protection against fraud. These measures can help guard against data breaches and fraudulent activity, ensuring that file and payment transfers are safeguarded and customers as well as business finance managers have peace of mind.

Managing global transactions can be a challenge, but with an automated banking solution that supports integration as well as security, multinational companies can put themselves on the path to success. Contact SK Global Software today to find out more.