While organizations continue to navigate changes and uncertainty across industries, the need to put more efficient systems in place is quickly becoming a priority — and your financial operations are no exception. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dynamics AX, your organization can take advantage of valuable automation tools to keep efficiency and productivity high, while providing you with a significant leg up on the competition.

Read on to learn more about payment matching and how automation can optimize your systems and benefit your financial teams overall.

What Is Payment Matching?

Payment matching typically involves processing and posting payment files, which are statements from a bank or other source that contain financial transaction data. This often includes data for accounts receivable transactions, such as payments or payment cancellations.

Traditionally, payment matching entailed a hefty manual workload for your accounts receivable team. Not only is this work arduous and time-consuming for your financial operations, but there are inevitable errors along the way. However, as digitization and automation continue to increase across industries, there's a better way to elevate and streamline your payment matching process.

Improving Your Process With Payment Matching for Microsoft Dynamics 365

With advanced solutions from SK Global, you can quickly optimize and automate your payment matching process. This software instantly recognizes customer payments and applies them to the correct invoices within your Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Dynamics AX system. Automating your payment matching can significantly increase your efficiency by helping your financial teams avoid time-consuming and tedious manual processes that were a necessity before. This effectively provides the opportunity for your employees to focus on what's most important while letting SK Global software do a great deal of the hard work for you.

The amount of data and information handled by your financial teams can quickly become overwhelming and is inevitably error-prone without an intelligent system in place. However, with help from automatic matching payments, your accounts receivable team can easily and competently handle large volumes of incoming data.

It's important to keep in mind that achieving significant automation can be difficult, considering your systems or processes require the ability to manage a multitude of exceptions. These might include customers providing limited information with their payment or working with a payment amount that doesn't match. To most financial teams' dismay, the possibilities of exceptions are endless and varied.

This means implementing a robust and intelligent financial system that can adequately handle and process large volumes of payments, along with any exceptions, is more important than ever. Luckily, payment matching in the Treasury Automation Suite has the capabilities your organization needs to do this successfully. Your teams can manage considerable amounts of data and configure the automation rules down to a customer-specific level with one upgraded solution.

Rest assured that you can apply this solution across any number of bank accounts in which you receive customer payments, and this automated payment matching in your Microsoft Dynamics 365 software will process incoming payments according to your own configured rules. Not only will this greatly reduce the manual workload on your accounts receivable team, but it also can provide your organization with a host of advantages as a result.

Key Benefits of Automated Payments Matching

According to Camunda's State of Process Automation report, 51% of automation initiatives are aimed at boosting efficiency, and this certainly includes your payment matching. While a seemingly simple solution at first glance, automated payments matching with SK Global is a major boon to your performance and productivity while providing a number of other key benefits along the way.

The main advantages of advanced payment matching from SK Global include:

Automatically importing large volumes of payment files from any number of banks or bank accounts in your Microsoft Dynamics 365 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
Instantly processing incoming payments you receive, which are mapped and applied to the correct customer invoice in your system.
Specifically configuring your automation rules to deal with typical exceptions.
Significantly increasing your efficiency through automation.
The coverage of any bank and any bank-specific file format — along with ongoing maintenance across any bank integration type.

The culmination of these benefits is an effective way to save your accounts receivable and financial teams valuable time in the long run. In fact, Salesforce has found that 73% of IT leaders report automation technology saving employees between 10% and 50% of the time they previously spent doing manual tasks. By alleviating the burden of manual work done by your workforce, they have the ability to focus on the work that truly requires human attention and intervention.

Solutions from the Treasury Automation Suite in Microsoft Dynamics 365 are also an effective way to give your organization a valuable competitive edge when you might need it most. Efficiency, productivity and accuracy are always a priority, and utilizing advanced options for automation is a great option to get you there. Unlock your team's full potential with help from SK Global.

Implementing Advanced Solutions From SK Global

Solutions from SK Global provide your teams with the robust financial intelligence you need to optimize your payment matching. Substantially increase your efficiency and save valuable time, all while mitigating the manual burden on your accounts receivable team. With automation, you can quickly streamline your payment matching process.

The Banking and Treasury Automation Suite add-on for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dynamics AX is advantageous to more than just your payment matching. Enjoy a host of invaluable automation tools for cash management, vendor payment and customer payment, and rest assured your data is highly secure with top-tier protection included. Implementing automation and improving your systems is more important than ever to keep pace with demand and competitors, and solutions from SK Global exist to empower your finance teams with seamless integration and to drive your operational efficiency moving forward.

If you're ready for more intelligent payment matching or simply want to explore your options for automation, contact SK Global or schedule a demo to get started.

In terms of your organization's financial processes, bank reconciliation is surely top of mind. Reconciliation is a necessity to ensure your records are in order, but this process can be an arduous task for your financial teams. Luckily, with more efficient and powerful solutions in place, your approach can become seamless.

Read on to learn more about the reconciliation process and how advanced solutions can help you optimize your systems.

What Is Bank Reconciliation?

In bookkeeping, bank reconciliation refers to the process by which an account balance in an organization's books is reconciled to the balance reported by the financial institution. Essentially, this bank statement is a summary of banking and business activity, reconciling an entity's financial records with its bank account.

This process is a necessity for organizations to catch errors or discover any unusual account activity. If you're finding discrepancies between your bank balance and cash account balance, you're not alone. Disparities are relatively normal, but what's most important is fixing them — which is where reconciliation comes into play.

Why is bank reconciliation important?

The bank reconciliation process exists as a form of oversight and internal control for companies. Not only does this help entities detect fraud, but also prevents errors from occurring. Most importantly, it validates that the accounting process and the cash on the balance sheet are correct.

Traditionally, bank reconciliation involved a manual process. However, this approach is increasingly inefficient, which could spell trouble for your organization.

The challenges of manual reconciliation

Manual bank reconciliation has served as a sufficient way to manage financial statements over the years, but there are a few problems that companies run into as a result. Most are aware that a manual process is tedious and time-consuming, but this leads to one of most financial team's main issues — reconciliation is inevitably fraught with human error. When dealing with hefty amounts of data, there's significant room for mistakes. Because of this, errors are common in almost any manual financial process, which makes reconciliation even more difficult in the long run.

Another considerable issue in manual reconciliation concerns fraud protection and prevention. Large amounts of data in conjunction with possible reconciliation errors means fraud might not be detected in a timely manner or could possibly go undetected altogether. This can be detrimental to your financial security and will likely have wide-reaching effects throughout your organization. However, with advanced solutions and enhanced software at your disposal, you can quickly streamline your bank reconciliation process.

Improving Your Process With Automatic Bank Reconciliation

Automation is on the rise and it's a progressively sought-after solution for optimizing your current systems. In fact, a 2020 report from McKinsey & Company found that over 50% of organizations are adopting automation for at least one function. As automation continues to grow in use and importance, considering how you can utilize this technology to your advantage will become critical. This will be highly beneficial for your accounting teams.

In terms of account reconciliation, automation leverages technology or software to replace the manual task of overseeing, comparing and managing an entities' financial statements and accounting records. Implementing automatic reconciliation can help your finance teams and your organization see a host of benefits as a result.

The main advantages of automating some of your most onerous financial processes include:

Saving time: According to a report from Zapier, 60% of knowledge workers use automation to save time, and your bank reconciliation process is no exception. Automation allows you to complete the process significantly faster than if done manually.
Reducing human error: Even the most competent of financial teams are bound to make mistakes dealing with such hefty amounts of information. However, spotting any discrepancies during reconciliation is a vital part of the process. With the right automation solution in place, your organization can rest assured that any anomalies will be precisely, easily and quickly detected.
Detecting and preventing fraud efficiently: Managing fraud is increasingly top of mind for companies, as J.P. Morgan reports nearly 75% of organizations were targets of a payments fraud attack in 2020. With manual reconciliation, you're likely to find delays in identifying irregularities or run the risk of not detecting these issues at all. Automated reconciliation can detect these problems swiftly, which can significantly lower your threat of fraud and mitigate damage to your organization.
Improving visibility over the process: One of the most critical benefits of enhanced reconciliation software is the ability to oversee and manage the process more efficiently. Handling things manually can make it difficult to get a clear overview of what's actually happening, but with automation software, you'll have access to real-time data when you need it most.
Saving money: Not only is manual reconciliation time-consuming, but inevitable errors can make it costly as well. These costs can come from problems associated with unreconciled transactions or, worse, from cyberattacks that went undetected. A better system is a necessity to save your organization money in the long run.
Increasing your financial security: Along with fraud protection, automation can be a boon to your overall security. With reconciliation solutions from SK Global, your sensitive banking information isn't released into a cloud but kept in logs. This closed communication loop between the software and your bank accounts can help you feel confident that your information is secure.

While the benefits of automatic bank reconciliation are clear, you might be wondering what exactly the reconciliation process entails. Understanding the general stages involved in this banking activity is important, as well as recognizing what an automated process should look like and include.

How Can You Automate the Reconciliation Process

Traditional reconciliation involves multiple steps to complete the process. These steps typically include:

Compiling your bank records and business records.
Determining your starting point.
Going through your bank deposits.
Checking the income in your books.
Running through your bank withdrawals.
Matching withdrawals to the expenses on your books.
Verifying your end balance.

However, automation can help your organization complete these steps, all with one simple solution. Automated reconciliation from SK Global aims to empower your financial teams to their fullest potential. Whether your organization deals with a short list of financial institutions or multiple banks, utilizing advanced software can help you efficiently automate cash management while improving your visibility over the entire process.

The cash and bank automation function in the Treasury Automation Suite from SK Global allows you to:

Automatically reconcile bank statements, fully unattended.
Improve matching and mapping with configurable rules.
Automatically import bank statements.
Improve oversight of multiple bank accounts and legal entities.
Automatically create reconciling transactions.

If your business has continued manual financial processes over the years, it might be time to consider the switch to a more powerful solution. Take the load off of your finance teams and leave the hard work to capable software, so they can focus on the tasks that actually require human attention.

Utilizing Advanced Solutions for Reconciliation With SK Global

Traditional bank account reconciliation is tedious, repetitive, time-consuming, error-prone and typically inefficient. Fortunately, some traditions are made to be broken, and when it comes to your reconciliation process, there's certainly a better way. Advanced solutions and accounting software from SK Global exist with efficiency and accuracy in mind — so you can quickly streamline your financial systems.

The Treasury Automation Suite for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations includes top-tier automation to simplify your electronic bank statement reconciliation. This allows entities to ensure their bank account and general ledger are balanced, without the strenuous manual work. Account reconciliation software is also a valuable way to reduce errors, save money and improve financial security, all while significantly increasing your efficiency.

If you're ready for an automated reconciliation tool that works for you, explore our cash and bank automation in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Dynamics AX. Or, contact SK Global today to schedule a demo and get started.

For decades, customer and vendor payments were processed manually. However, managing these payment process operations by hand is not only tedious and costly but also time-consuming and error-prone. Luckily, advanced payment gateway solutions in financial procedures provide a considerably simpler and more efficient way to get the job done.

Payment processing solutions

A payment processing solution refers to the software a business implements to enable financial transaction procedures, generally employed by a merchant, to handle activity with customers from various channels. This helps streamline the process of relaying information from a credit card, debit card or alternative payment method from a merchant account to both your bank and your customer’s issuing bank.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dynamics AX, the Treasury Automation Suite provides upgraded payment processing with automated solutions. When it comes to employing automation, 51% of these initiatives are aimed at boosting efficiency, as reported by Camunda in 2020. However, utilizing these improved systems is not only critical to increase efficiency but also to reduce errors, save valuable time, improve your customer service and empower your teams throughout your merchant services and overall financial operations.

Streamlining customer payment processing with powerful automation

If your accounts receivable automation software doesn’t automate enough, you’re left with too many unresolved transactions at the end of the period. This results in costly and time-consuming manual reconciliation.

Most organizations need improved automation software to manage their contactless payments, payment processing service and financial activity more efficiently. With SK Global’s Treasury Automation Suite, you can optimize these procedures with upgraded accounts receivable customer payment automation.

This payment gateway software includes features such as:

Customer payment matching: This customer payment solution is configurable down to the user level, and these matches can be made based on dates, amounts, payment reference or deposit or check number. Moreover, you can utilize rule groups and confidence levels for enhanced matching in online payment processing and credit card processing.
Summary Journal matching rule: This aspect is intended to automatically match transactions from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations to one bank statement. The Summary Journal matching rule is a powerful tool that can be used to solve a very common digital payment or credit card processing problem your finance teams might be facing.
Mapping rules to create general ledger (GL) entries: The Treasury Automation Suite can also create GL entries when transactions seen in a bank statement are not in Microsoft Dynamics 365. This online payment processing software intends to go above and beyond to ensure your customer payment matching and merchant services are as accurate as possible — working seamlessly with any issuing bank or financial institution.Implementing upgraded solutions to handle your card processing and customer payment automation can help your financial teams operate more efficiently — all while providing the control and flexibility you need to ensure the transaction process runs smoothly. These feature-rich tools can result in increased cash flow, improved control and reduced errors along the way.

Integrating and automating vendor payments

Another payment processing solution included in the Treasury Automation Suite is vendor payment automation. This software integrates and automates outbound payments to any banking platform in the world and allows you to consolidate outbound files from multiple payment journals within your system. Essentially, vendor payment automation is designed to guarantee fast and accurate payment to a vendor or merchant, while improving these working and investor relations as a result.

Along with simplifying and improving the communication and transactions between your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and your financial institution, you can rest assured that these card payments and processes are protected with security enhancement features like easily configured secure file transfer protocol upload and inbound file processing and management. The centralized and automated payment processor software works to ensure communication and data transfer is seamless and secure.

Automated vendor payment features expand your organization’s ability to process payments faster — including card payments, recurring payments and more. Additionally, with upgraded security measures, you can have confidence that your data and printed checks are protected. Integrating and automating vendor payments empowers your finance teams to execute critical processes intelligently, efficiently and securely. As a result of this powerful tool, your organization can comfortably execute any type of domestic or international transaction throughout your operations.

The benefits of optimized payment automation solutions

Utilizing intelligent business applications to optimize your financial processes and merchant transactions provides your organization with a host of benefits. Leveraging this technology to reap these advantages is progressively becoming a key element in fostering business growth and maintaining a competitive edge. The main benefits you can expect to see as a result of payment processing solutions include:

Saving time: By reducing the need for manual configuration in your financial processes, your organization can save important time — while simultaneously freeing your workforce up to complete more complex tasks. In fact, a report from CRMside found that 69% of employees reported automation reduced their wasted time.
Reducing costs: Advanced payment processor solutions are also a valuable way to cut manual costs. According to a report from Salesforce, 57% of IT leaders claimed that automation technology saves organizations between 10% and 50% on costs previously associated with manual processing.
Increased accuracy: Cutting-edge ERP systems handle many of the tedious manual tasks of the past, which largely reduces the likelihood of human error. By mitigating mistakes that lead to misconfigured systems, automation helps ensure consistency, adherence to processes, PCI compliance and increased security.
Enhancing insight and transparency: Automation software provides predictive insights and embedded analytics for a clearer oversight of your financial operations. This is essential to help your business make better and more informed decisions moving forward.
Improving risk management: The security involved in these merchant services aims to improve protection from outside attacks while focusing on internal fraud protection as well. Throughout the process, your organization can have peace of mind knowing the high-security measures included in the software offers top-tier protection.

Overall, payment automation software enables your business to manage payment processing in a centralized data platform. This can help you accept payments and manage recurring payments, credit card payments or any other form of digital payment, all in one advanced payment solution. Streamlining these processes is critical for providing clearer oversight, improving your customer service and increasing control over your financial systems, procedures and data collection long-term.

Is your organization ready to automate? Contact SK Global to learn more about how customer and vendor payment automation in our Treasury Automation Suite can improve your business’s financial operations.

Accurate and efficient bank processes are essential for businesses, but handling these aspects manually can be restricting. Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a simpler way to manage these processes. Read on to learn how advanced finance solutions can streamline your operations.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Dynamics AX for improved business applications

Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Dynamics AX work as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to improve financial processes and foster business growth. Essentially, an ERP system refers to any software that an organization uses to manage and mediate its main business operations. These systems are a source of potential for organizations, as 49% of companies stated an ERP implementation improved all of their business processes, according to a report from Panorama Consulting Solutions.

Leveraging an intelligent business application is becoming increasingly essential to not only optimize your systems and promote growth but also to maintain a competitive edge. As industries continue to evolve and grow in complexity, implementing advanced solutions will become a significant factor in how your organization adapts, responds and progresses in the long run.

Automation solutions provided by the Treasury Automation Suite

With manual processing comes lengthy and tedious data entry and inevitable errors along the way. However, advanced automation is an effective way to mitigate these common issues. In fact, a report from Salesforce found that 73% of IT leaders claimed automation success saved employees between 10% and 50% of time they had previously spent doing manual tasks. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dynamics AX, the Treasury Automation Suite offers automated solutions in key functional areas to reduce errors, save valuable time and empower your finance teams along the way.

These cutting-edge solutions include:

Cash management automation

With cash management automation, your business can benefit from unattended bank reconciliation. A bank reconciliation statement refers to the summary of an organization's banking and business activity that reconciles an entity's bank accounts with its financial records. While this exhausting and error-prone process has been completed manually for decades, advanced cash management solutions from Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Operations can streamline your system. With configurable matching and mapping, automatically imported bank statements and unattended reconciling transactions, you can substantially speed up and lower the cost of the process. Your organization can additionally leverage improved visibility across all bank accounts and entities while increasing security throughout reconciliation along the way.

Vendor payment automation

The vendor payment software is a feature-rich player within the Treasury Automation Suite, integrating and automating outbound payments to any banking platform in the world. You can easily enhance your financial processes with integrated and direct communication from your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations or Microsoft Dynamics AX system to your bank. While you enjoy advanced software features, you can rest assured your communications are seamless and secure.

Customer payment automation

Another powerful automation feature included in these systems is customer payment automation — which involves upgraded customer payment matching and credit card processing. With highly intelligent accounts receivable automation software, you can avoid a high number of unresolved transactions at the end of the period. By automating as many customer payments as possible, the software saves your organization indispensable time. This solution runs continuously in the background and flags discrepancies as they come up so you can manage transactions efficiently.

Risk management

Throughout these processes of automation and tight integration, you can rest assured that your data is secure with key risk management features. Not only do Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dynamics AX focus on improving security breach protection from outside attacks, but improving security measures in terms of internal fraud protection as well. This allows your administrators, managers, CFOs and CIOs to operate confidently.

The benefits of robust financial intelligence

Along with advanced automation, your organization can leverage embedded analytics and predictive insights to improve your global financial operations. These insights and predictive analytics are invaluable to your organization's oversight and management. Improving transparency allows your organization to understand its processes to the fullest extent, while insights help you to make better-informed decisions moving forward.

Moreover, embedded analytics may be a key factor in improving your customer service and cash flow. A report from Logi Analytics found that 96% of organizations claim embedded and predictive analytics contributed to their overall revenue growth and 94% reported advanced data lead to higher customer satisfaction. As businesses continue to work towards successful business growth, intelligent business applications will be essential to help you get there.

Organizing, automating and optimizing your enterprise's finance and operations

Poor financial management is often a detriment to the business process, but the robust financial intelligence offered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP and Microsoft Dynamics AX can help you organize, automate and optimize your operations.

Age-old banking processes are just that — old. While a suitable solution for the past, manual finance practices are generally inefficient, costly and error-prone. It's valuable to consider advanced solutions for your enterprise's finance and operations to bring your systems into the present and keep pace with competitors and evolving industries. Moreover, a streamlined process is becoming progressively necessary to foster successful business growth and improve your organization's cash flow.

If your organization is ready to optimize its day-to-day financial processes, SK Global can help you get there. Schedule a demo and get started on your journey to more intelligent business solutions.

Traditional methods for bank-to-bank transfers can make your financial processes more complicated than necessary, but advanced solutions can streamline your systems — especially if these transfers are a common occurrence for you or your organization. Read on to learn more about bank-to-bank transfers and how advanced solutions from SK Global can optimize your processes.

What Is a Bank-to-Bank Transfer?

A bank-to-bank transfer refers to consumers moving money electronically. Specifically, this involves the transfer of money from one bank account to another at a banking company.

If you or your organization has funds spread within a financial institution, it's advantageous to find an efficient way to make transfers between your accounts. Evolving technology has made online payments a sufficient option to move money from one place to another. However, internal transfers online can still be more time-consuming than necessary. The traditional process of transferring money from one bank account to another typically involves:

Linking the accounts: This is the first step to set up internal bank transfers online. It's necessary to log into a bank's website and ensure you're able to move money between accounts. This is also when it's significant to consider whether internal transfers or external transfers are what you're looking to achieve.
Setting up transfers: When it comes to internal transfers, you don't have to worry about providing external account information or verifying the account. However, you will have to log into the portal each time you need to set up an internal transfer. Typically, you can utilize the bank's website or app to complete these processes online. Keep in mind a bank-to-bank transfer will take about three business days to complete depending on where the money is going and what network you're using, according to Western Union.

While the need to log into a bank portal each time you make a transfer may not seem arduous at first glance, these processes can quickly become tedious and time-consuming — especially if they are needed often. SK Global offers a better way, so you can enjoy the most efficient bank-to-bank transfers possible.

Features of Improved Bank-to-Bank Transfers

Upgraded solutions from SK Global can make your processes simple. These options are progressively important considering 71% of bank customers conduct their business online, according to statistics from ValuePenguin. The latest version of the software helps you bypass the need to log onto external portals to make your transfers. Instead, the bank-to-bank transfer aspect of the solution allows you to go back into the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to quickly take care of any internal bank account transfers.

The main features of this software for bank-to-bank transfers allow you to:

Transfer money across legal entities.
Support inbound acknowledgment files.

Avoid the need to set up a fake vendor.

24/7 account access: Online banks are highly operative, generally giving you 24/7 access as long as you have an internet connection. Some banks even offer around-the-clock access to real-life customer service agents in case of any complications. These benefits are even more attainable with improved internal transfer solutions.
Improved speed and efficiency: The most advantageous aspect of SK Global's solutions for bank-to-bank transfers is the speed and efficiency it can provide your organization. You'll no longer need to log onto multiple websites to initiate a transfer, but rather can access these features within the ERP system and SK Global solution itself.

Increased security: These advanced solutions are also a boon to your security systems. It can be difficult to feel completely comfortable while working with banks online. However, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Dynamics AX offer high-security measures so you can complete internal transfers and rest assured that you have top-tier protection along the way.

Paper checks can feel outdated, but many businesses still issue and accept checks on a daily basis. How can you reduce your exposure to unauthorized checks? Positive Pay, also commonly known as Safe Pay, is an automated cash-management service that your financial institution may offer to help your organization mitigate the risks of check fraud.

Positive Pay gives your financial institution a daily list of outstanding authorized checks. This list is used to match every check that comes up against your account, so that any that have been forged, altered or counterfeited can be promptly identified and rejected for payment.

How Positive Pay works

As each check is issued, a corresponding entry must be made in your company’s accounting software, whether for payroll or Accounts Payable. At the end of each business day, an updated Positive Pay file consisting of data on each check written and distributed is transmitted securely to your business’ financial institution.

The Positive Pay File lists the following information:

Check number (this prevents duplication of checks or fraudulent check numbers outside of the set being used by your business)
Dollar amount (this prevents alteration of a paper check by various means)
Account number corresponding to the check (prevents checks written on other accounts being presented against your own)
Payee (not all banks use this data due to the higher chance of an innocent mismatch and time wasted trying to reconcile false alarms)

The bank utilizes your Positive Pay file of verified issued checks to match against checks presented for payment. If there is a mismatch in any of the data fields, or a check is presented for which there is no match in the Positive Pay file, the bank will contact your organization. You may confirm or decline the check, and the bank may send a declined check back to you for examination.

Reasons why every business should have a Positive Pay solution

The Positive Pay system provides your organization with some insurance against the presentation of bad checks to your bank, prevents unauthorized payouts, and helps you mitigate financial risk. It can also help protect your company against subsequent fraud, losses, and other liabilities to the bank, since your business is typically responsible for checks presented against your account, not the financial institution.

Your bank may or may not charge a fee for using Positive Pay. Depending on the bank and your agreement or type of account, you may be required to send a file every day or risk any checks presented that day being rejected out of hand. In most cases, it’s advisable to submit a complete, updated file each day as opposed to simply an update to a previous file.

This means that at the end of every day, you should be set up to reconcile any checks that are reported to have cleared by your bank, remove them from the Positive Pay file, and add all new checks written and distributed during the current day to the outstanding ones before the file is sent securely to your financial institution.

It’s also recommended that you set parameters for check payment or rejection based on your current capacity for risk, and to carefully consider further mitigating steps if a check is paid that should not be, as well as what might happen if an important check were mistakenly rejected due to a small error.

Ideally, if information between a physical or scanned check and your Positive Pay file don’t match, your bank will notify you using an exception report in real time. This gives you the opportunity to conduct a quick review, and advise the bank to either accept or reject the check. In the event that you aren’t immediately available, the bank will withhold payment until permission to clear it is granted.

What does Positive Pay Include?

Positive Pay is written completely in Microsoft Dynamics SL VB Tools, and is fully customizable and able to process checks produced by both the Microsoft Dynamics SL Payroll system, and Accounts Payable.

Depending on your bank, you may be able to maintain and transmit Positive Pay reports for multiple company checking accounts together, simplifying the process and reducing the number of file transmissions that must be made on a daily basis. Multi-company support, if available, can be managed both in one database and in separate databases.

Numerous bank formats are available “out-of-the-box” for your convenience, and we currently support well over 180 different banks and file formats. If we don’t currently list your bank or format, please inquire as we are continually adding new banks and formats on demand.

Positive Pay is also fully user defined, from files and scripts that are secured by user-defined folder locations to support multiple file header and trailer records. We use eBanking Security to control access, and file archiving to ensure an unbroken record.

For more information on how Positive Pay and SK Global can help you prevent check fraud, contact us today.

Payment automation is an integrated solution that allows customers to make a variety of payments while minimizing human intervention. This is beneficial for organizations looking to eliminate error-prone tasks and limit the need for the manual reconciliation of these issues. According to a 2020 report from PYMNTS, about 70% of businesses have reported plans to utilize digital solutions to improve their accounts receivable processing.

The costs of manual AR are immensely underestimated by organizations, and payment automation can considerably simplify the process. Streamlining accounts receivable and largely removing manual activity has contributed to this rise in the use of electronic payments in recent years. Efficient automated payment solutions are a key aspect of optimizing cash flows for your business.

Increasing cash flow

Organizations are turning to automation tools, as they are not only more efficient but often more secure and capable of increasing cash flows. This added control and flexibility has been essential to increasing cash flows in the following ways.

Cheaper transactions

A manual approach to accounts receivable is time-consuming, but the automation of digital payments can reduce the costs of processing an invoice by 50%. It also accelerates the average time it takes to collect payments by 62%, ensuring timely payments and the elimination of late fees. Additionally, these electronic payments allow organizations to save money in terms of labor costs, which are generally what drive up these expenses.

Reduced errors

Manual errors are costly for businesses and time-consuming to correct. Customer payment automation captures and cross-checks information with a high degree of accuracy to reduce mistakes or duplicate payments.

Added security

AR automation is also an effective way to ensure fraud prevention. A 2021 AFP survey report on payments fraud states that 74% of organizations were targets of payment scams in 2020. While this percentage has slightly decreased in recent years, checks are still highly susceptible to scam attempts. This emphasizes the necessity of guarding your sensitive data with secure automated systems.

Increased cash flow visibility

Digitization of the customer payment process leads to increased visibility of your organization’s cash flows. A streamlined system provides thorough records that can be easily accessed and monitored, which is invaluable for gaining key insights into the state of your business. A thorough understanding of your organization’s finances can guide strategic plans for the future to optimize cash flows.

What is a cash flow analysis?

A cash flow analysis determines a company’s working capital, and, as a result, offers insight into the liquidity and solvency of the business. This process involves three different types of cash flows.

Cash from operating activities represents cash received from the company’s core business ventures.
Investing activities reflect the long-term or capital investments of an organization. These are non-current assets that are intended to produce a profit in the future.
Cash flow from financing represents the debt, equity and dividend transactions between a firm and its owners, investors and creditors.

How to conduct a cash flow analysis

Step 1: Prepare your statement

To conduct a proper analysis, the first step involves creating your cash flow statement. This is possible after identifying all sources of income as well as all business expenses in the form of your operating, investing and financing activities.

Step 2: Aim for positive cash flow from operations

For organizations apart from non-profits, profit is the objective. When operating income exceeds net income, this is a strong signal that the company is on the right track to sustainable growth.

Step 3: Examine negative cash flows

This is not always a strong indicator that something is wrong, as long-term capital investments can offset these numbers. However, it’s essential to understand where this money is being allocated and its influence on your organization’s cash flows.

Step 4: Consider your free cash flow

After calculating operating and capital expenditures, you are left with your free cash flow. When free cash flow is positive, it indicates that a company is generating more than its spending, and this can be used as reinvestment to advance your business further.

Cash flow analysis gives your organization a better understanding of its current operations, which can be utilized to foster profitable growth.

Learn more about customer payment automation

While many organizations are turning to automation processes for efficiency, countless businesses are continuing to manage customer payments and other cash flow manually. This results in delayed payments, vulnerability to fraud and human error, whereas customer payment automation can provide a solution.

If your organization has started the digital transformation process, it’s essential to ensure you are using the most efficient automating system to optimize your organization’s cash flows. Increased cash flows and improved technology lead to more opportunities for your business to strategically invest in itself.

For more information on how SK Global can help you intelligently automate your accounts receivable, contact us today.

A bank reconciliation statement is a summary of an entity’s banking and business activity that is used to balance accounting records. The statement outlines all activities affecting the account for a specific period, and the objective of reconciling these transactions is to ascertain any differences between the two cash balances. This is essential for businesses to discover any unusual activity while ensuring that operations are functioning properly.

Automatic bank reconciliation, on the other hand, is a relatively new feature that simplifies the process of manual reconciliation for organizations. Automatic systems streamline these actions by collecting the entirety of your financial data and matching the proper transactions for reconciliation. This is essential for the sustainable growth of most businesses — so it’s valuable to understand the importance of these processes and how automation can be utilized for your organization’s benefit.

Why is it important to reconcile your bank statements?

Reconciling your bank statements is a fundamental internal control tool that is significant in determining any abnormalities surrounding activity or transactions. This gives organizations a decent overview of operations and ensures the accuracy and legitimacy of financial information.

Why every business should automate their bank reconciliation

According to a 2017 PWC report on finance effectiveness, 30% of your finance team’s time is spent managing transaction-intensive work. Moreover, around 95% of this effort is wasted on transactions that are already properly aligned, as opposed to focusing on anomalies that require attention. Auto-reconciliation is an efficient way to combat these wasted efforts and offers several key benefits to consider.

Avoids human error

Manual reconciliation is bound to result in errors, especially if there is a large volume of transactions to examine. Automation is helpful to minimize or eliminate these mistakes, while simultaneously removing skilled labor from repetitive administrative tasks. Not only do reduced errors save time but removing manual labor means the organization can employ their workers’ potential elsewhere.

Prevents fraud

An important part of the reconciliation process is determining inaccuracies that could potentially be considered fraud. Fraud often results in a direct financial loss, as well as damage to an organization’s reputation. However, automation is capable of determining any inconsistencies more accurately and much faster so businesses can ensure their money is moving where it is intended to.

Time-efficient

Manually reconciling transactions can be meticulous and time-consuming. Auto-reconciliation is beneficial for efficiently balancing accounts and offering up-to-date information for organizations to utilize.

Cost-effective

According to Forbes, intelligent automation results in cost savings of 40% to 75%. These savings are largely attributed to the reduction in errors and increase in efficiency associated with automation.

Easy access

One of the key benefits of automatic bank reconciliation is the centralization of this data. Everyone in the organization can have access to relevant and up-to-date information at any time during the accounting period.

Increased visibility and improved management

Managing your finances manually may involve an incredibly large paper trail that is difficult to follow. Streamlining these finances allows organizations to keep account records more efficiently and accurately while authorizing access to important information whenever it is needed. This also gives businesses a clear overview of their financial activities. Increased visibility over organizational cash flows and a clear understanding of this data can be utilized by businesses to make strategic decisions for viable growth.

Steps to automate your reconciliation process

Assess your organization’s needs and capabilities

This involves considering all financial activities within your business and how this labor is being handled. If there is room for improvement in terms of efficiency or labor costs, it is beneficial to create a financial overview for the finance team. This allows the organization to identify where there is room for growth and how automation can enhance these processes.

Evaluate your options

There are several automation software options available for business accounting. Therefore, it is essential to examine these choices to make the most valuable decision for your organization.

Properly manage the integration process

A large concern for businesses in the digitization process is the necessary staff training that results. To get the full benefit of your automation software, it is essential to ensure employees are accurately prepared and feel confident using the new system. While this preparation may require some time, the increased productivity and efficiency associated with automation will be well worth it.

Start your automation journey today

A 2020 study by Forrester Consulting on recurring payment friction in the U.S. reported 65% of businesses claimed that matching payments to open invoices was among the most labor-intensive areas of their payments process. These manual reconciliations cost organizations time and money, where automation can maximize efficiency in all financial aspects.

If your organization is considering this digital transformation, it is significant to examine your automatic bank reconciliation options and employ the most effective software. Financial automation allows your business to focus on what’s important — the results instead of the process.

Is your business ready to automate? Contact SK Global today to learn more about our Treasury Automation Suite for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.

While utilizing a manual approach to accounts payable process is the traditional method, it can lead to expensive human errors and extend the timeframe for payment posting success. Making a shift to AP automation can increase accuracy as well as speed, and free up staff hours for other, more pressing tasks.

Ways AP Automation can accelerate your company’s growth

Accounts payable is one of the most resource-intensive corporate activities, and also one of the most critical. By automating and streamlining AP processes, you can improve accuracy and accelerate your company’s growth.

Enhance efficiency

When your accounts payable division is supported by automation, efficiency and overall management productivity increases. Manual processes are largely eliminated, leading to faster time to invoice approval and faster time to payment for vendors and suppliers. This also enhances relationships with established partners.

Increase accuracy

By eliminating manual processes, the chances of human error can be significantly reduced, from misplaced invoices to duplicate payments. Minimizing such errors removes the need to expend time and effort to rectify them.

Maximize cost savings

Using automation improves the precision of the accounts payable process, while significantly reducing the amounts of hands on attention required. Both lead to considerable cost savings. Automation can potentially reduce the cost of individual invoice processes by as much as half.

Enhance compliance

By implementing end-to-end automation, your company can keep their accounts payable processes in compliance with current industry standards and regulations and avoid hefty non-compliance penalties.

Improve security

If your organization’s accounts payable automation technology is supported by robust, modern security defenses, your accounting department as a whole is more secure and payments can reach each intended recipient with confidence.

With SignUp Software’s ExFlow product and SK Global’s Banking & Treasury Automation Suite integrated directly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, both your AP staff and your IT team reap the benefits:

All invoices are checked automatically, both against industry compliance regulations and internal company approver rules.
Every invoice is additionally matched against initial purchase data and order forms through accounts payable automation, for heightened accuracy.
The accounts payable process delivers end-to-end visibility, delivering granular control for stakeholders.
Mobile accessibility and overall security are supported while the need for user training is minimized thanks to a familiar interface.
Complex and time-consuming system integrations and configurations become a thing of the past with fully streamlined deployment.

Why an automated accounts payable solution is going to be vital in 2022

Financial regulatory bodies and data privacy laws are intersecting even more deeply than ever before. Being able to deliver the level of security and accuracy expected by consumers and required by legislation is a top-of-mind issue.

Additionally, a distributed workforce and complete upheaval of the financial services landscape due to the pandemic has changed how people interact with accounts payable departments overall. Being able to streamline your AP department can increase trust and loyalty and support a reputation for financial and operational stability.

Automation is a critical part of the way forward for all businesses that need to manage payments, whether for contractors, vendors, or suppliers. The ExFlow Process can transform your back-office and provide you with a reliable, fast, and effective method for handling all accounts payable tasks.

ExFlow works to automate AP functions before a payment takes place. The following five steps are specific to the ExFlow process:

Each paper invoice must be scanned and added to the digital workflow. All files are then imported into the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations platform.
For each company, ExFlow analyzes the predetermined approver rules, taking into account the supplier and accounts as well as standards like dimensions and amount limits. ExFlow then proposes a specific approval flow and sends an automated email to the first approver.
Accounts payable staff can view all invoices from historical documents to ones pending approval, and glean insights as needed via ExFlow.
Approvers receive automated emails from ExFlow to notify them of outstanding invoices. Approval paths can be changed or amended at any time directly by approvers.
Finally, if an approver needs to view an invoice code or any older invoice documents, they can access the ExFlow historic approval data without accounting apartment intervention.

At the end of the ExFlow automated approval process, the Banking & Treasury Automation Suite seamlessly manages handling of the actual payment through SK Global’s industry-leading, secure payment portal, ensuring that correct amounts are matched with the right recipients and the most efficient payment path available is used for speedy completion.

Together, SK Global Software and SignUp Software have created true, end-to-end accounts payable automation, through ExFlow embedded in SKG’s solution and integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365. ReadSoft OCR makes it easy to add unfamiliar invoices to digital workflows, and the result is a fully automated AP solution designed to scale as you grow.

For more information, schedule a free demo today!

Supply chains span the entire globe, connecting suppliers and buyers across multinational networks. The sheer size of the supply chain and number of companies involved can make cash flow complex. Working capital can easily become trapped in the supply chain, limiting organizational operations and scaling.

Businesses can optimize their own cash flow, maintain simplified bookkeeping, and provide options for suppliers to do the same by partnering with a supply chain finance (SCF) partner. An SCF solution allows suppliers to get paid earlier without putting strain on buyers, and helps build stronger, more stable supply chain relationships.

What is Supply Chain Finance?

Supply chain finance, also referred to as supplier finance or reverse factoring, generally requires the buyer to have a higher credit rating than the supplier. The process is initiated by the buyer, not the supplier. The buyer places an order as usual and receives goods from the supplier, then is invoiced according to their agreement.

The invoice may be due on a 30- or 60-day net, meaning the supplier’s capital is tied up in the delivered goods. This can cause friction between the buyer and seller, especially if the buyer routinely runs out the clock on payments. Instability can cause delays on the supplier end if they cannot replenish their inventory in a timely manner.

Supply chain finance options allow a buyer to approve a supplier’s invoice, and confirm that the full amount will be paid when the invoice reaches maturity. The invoice is then presented to a third-party intermediary such as a bank or other financial institution for financing.

The supply chain finance partner pays the supplier early for their invoice and charges them a premium. When the original invoice matures, the buyer pays the intermediary the total amount originally due. This allows suppliers to maintain good cash flow, and buyers to maintain strong relationships with their suppliers.

The challenge to SCF adoption

The sticking point with supplier finance is the paperwork that must be conducted between the buyer and the SCF to manage all suppliers approved to receive a reverse factoring option. It can be one more series of steps to go through to get suppliers set up with a SCF partner, and manage both sets of invoices.

To reduce paperwork and multiple steps for successful SCF processing, SK Global’s Supply Chain Finance (SCF) module delivers complete and automated support throughout the supply chain finance process.

Streamlining SCF partnerships

The Supply Chain Financing module for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations helps your company effortlessly:

Automate and streamline all communications with your chosen supply chain finance providers for hands-off operations
Manage all invoice settlements directly with your SCF providers rather than managing various payments to your original vendors
Support multiple types of settlement methods from one centralized dashboard to reduce errors or delays
Seamlessly integrate your new SCF module into your existing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations setup

Use case for the SKG’s SCF module

If your company makes a routine purchase from a supplier and receives a 60-day payment settlement window on the invoice, you have 60 days to complete payment, However, to maintain good relations with your supplier and support them to ensure they can restock before your next order, you may opt to connect them with your SCF provider.

Using the SKG supply chain finance module, your original invoice would immediately upload to your SCF partner, and you can opt to receive a notification stating whether the invoice was accepted for financing. From there, the SCF provider negotiates terms with your supplier independently, without further action required from you, and pays a discounted amount on the invoice through their own platform.

When the original due date arrives, the module automatically resolves the vendor’s original invoice and generates an invoice payable to your SCF provider, which is then paid by your accounts payable department.

Advantages of switching to SKG to handle SCF processes

SKG provides automatic notifications to the SCF provider when new invoices arrive from an approved vendor, and also manages receipt of notifications from the provider when the invoice uploads. Settlement notifications sent from providers are also monitored to prevent unhandled issues or missed rejected invoices.

For streamlined bookkeeping, the payable remains on the books with the original vendor during the original invoice term. On the due date, the original vendor’s is resolved and the invoice generated for the SCF provider. For multiple invoices due on the same date, aggregation by currency alone or vendor and currency is possible.

The Supply Chain Finance module can also work with SCF providers to handle various methods of settlement, including due date based settlements, file based settlements derived from electronic invoices sent by the provider, and settlements without moving the payable on the due date (if the SCF partner’s bank account has been associated with the original vendor.)

Are you ready for reverse factoring? Contact SK Global today to learn more about our Supply Chain Finance Module.