Category Archives: Accounts Receivable

Upcoming Webinar: Harnessing the Power of AR Optimization

Accounts Receivable (AR) organizations are increasingly faced with the challenge of doing more with less as resources shrink and financial processes speed up. There are more clients to manage, more invoices to transmit, and more payments to process—all at faster speeds and lower costs than ever before. In an upcoming live webinar featuring VersaPay on Thursday, February 12th, Henry Ijams will discuss some of the latest capabilities in AR automation solutions and how they can give your organization a competitive edge.

As PayStream has found time and again in previous research, paper invoicing is expensive. Processing a paper invoice costs approximately one and a half times as much as an electronic bill. For small organizations that don’t have the advantage of scale, the potential for savings can be even greater. Electronic invoice delivery eliminates printing and paper costs, and changing postage rates become a non-issue. Beyond mere processing cost savings, the elimination of paper ripples out to benefit each segment of the invoice and payment process, not the least of which is customer service.

Today’s AR department serves a customer service function as much as an accounting function, so it makes sense that credit managers should be concerned with this aspect of the workflow. By implementing AR automation, companies simplify the payment process for their customers by providing collectors with the necessary tools and information they need to serve customers quickly and effectively, resulting in improved customer service. The reconciliation process is also optimized with AR automation, eliminating much of the time it would usually take an agent to manually match payments and partial payments to the correct invoices.

Join the conversation on Friday, February 12th at 2pm EST, 11am EST as Henry Ijams discusses new solutions that allow suppliers to automate labor intensive tasks related to reconciliation while giving customers a simpler way to pay. A few of the many benefits of automation include the ability to help agents:

Accurately match payments to invoices
Reduce days sales outstanding (DSO)
Eliminate printing and postage costs
Reduce customer phone calls and efficiently manage disputes
Optimize working capital

This event is designed for AR and finance professionals on the leading edge of the industry, ready to create change within their own departments and redefine their own roles in the process. Interested in learning how your company can capitalize on the benefits of AR automation?

Upcoming Webinar: Best Practices in Automating the Collection Process

As our previous research has revealed, AR automation brings with it a multitude of benefits, including a reduction in overhead costs and enhanced visibility. This is due not only to the reduction of manual data entry, but also to the advanced segmentation provided by many of today’s collection software solutions. These functions create an automated system of prioritization so that AR staff members can allocate their time to the most valuable accounts. It also spares loyal customers who may miss a payment from entering into a lengthy collection process.

Collection Enhancement Tools
In addition to advanced segmentation, there are several new collection enhancement tools (CET) that have emerged recently. These include mobile applications for collections, which will no doubt continue to evolve as mobile functionality becomes a necessity for most organizations, as opposed to an added bonus. Speech recognition is also on the rise as companies seek new ways to track performance for collection agents. Of course, social network support has also been added in many solutions as a way to communicate with customers via their preferred channels.

While the benefits of AR automation are well documented, we’ve found that many organizations are still dependent on expensive manual processes. We attribute much of this failure to the limitations of the AR modules incorporated in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or accounting software. Such systems have a transactional accounting focus and tend to not address collection challenges like risk mitigation and compliance to regulations. Hence it’s becoming more and more apparent that new solutions are needed to bridge the gap between existing ERP systems and newer CET.

In our upcoming webinar featuring FICO on January 20, 1pm, Henry Ijams, founder and managing director at PayStream Advisors, reviews best practices in collections automation as revealed by recent survey results and analyst research. PayStream’s lead analyst will discuss:

Innovations in AR Automation
Automation of Segmentation Strategies
Making your Automation Business Case
Calculating ROI

Interested in learning how to enhance your collections process, cut costs and increase customer satisfaction?

PayStream 2014 Recap

It’s been an impressive year at PayStream Advisors. Among our 2014 developments and achievements, we published 22 research reports—many of which explore new territory that includes Human Resource Management, VAT compliance in Latin America, Budgeting and Forecasting solutions, and more. We welcomed 125 business professionals to this year’s summit, INNOVATE 2014. We saw our Senior Analysts attend over 25 industry conferences from London to San Diego. We launched the exciting P2P Academy, which is now offered online via a self-study course.

In all, we’ve been working hard to broaden and enhance our educational offerings for our readers. The amazing AP, Procurement, and P2P automation trends that have been evident in businesses and industries throughout the world have inspired much of these improvements.

Among these trends, there has been a great increase in global eInvoicing and eProcurement initiatives. While Latin America has been the leader in national eInvoicing adoption for several years now, much of the rest of the world is starting to catch up in back-office automation. For example, Kenya adopted a national eProcurement system in an effort to bring the use of public money under greater transparency and accountability. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, among other Middle Eastern countries, are moving towards more uniform eInvoicing initiatives. The EU has been identifying issues with their current tax and trade systems, and is moving to make eInvoicing more appealing and accessible in order to correct these problems.

This past year has also seen more global movement to provide small to medium-sized enterprises with access to eInvoicing and working capital optimization programs. President Obama passed the second version of the Supplier Pay Initiative to promote expedited payments from large corporations to their smaller vendors. The UK launched several initiatives to spur small business growth, including revamped VAT tax returns and more releases of educational market material on small business financing. GT Nexus, IFC, and Levi Strauss & Co (LS&Co) have partnered to create a new supply chain finance program that provides financial incentives for garment suppliers in developing countries.

Other vendors have taken note of SME initiatives and the widening middle market—in response they have also been creating unique financing programs and solutions. To complement SupplierPay, Taulia Inc. launched the Early Payment Quick Start Initiative, a program that encourages and simplifies early payment financing. TradeShift has also taken a stand to help the small and big business connection with their expansive supplier onboarding techniques. PayPal’s new Working Capital will offer cash-advances for smaller companies who cannot as easily utilize bank loans and lending services.

There were many other instances when software providers, organizations, and governments took great steps towards better understanding automation possibilities this year, and towards making room for more widespread and optimized adoption (readers are encouraged to browse 2014 posts from our blog, PayStream Voices, for more). We are looking forward to 2015, and we are confident that it will bring us even greater and more inspirational P2P innovation.

DataServ and Triumphant SaaS

PayStream has recently learned of some interesting research from the SaaS provider, DataServ. Much of their material on the current market for financial process automation—specifically cloud-based technology—is in line with our own, and we consider them a valuable voice in today’s software industry. They also released a new ECM platform for AP, AR, and HR automation earlier this year, giving more creditability to their opinions on SaaS software.

The company recently touched on a topic that is very relevant among today’s businesses—SaaS vs. ERP-native applications. As the middle market opens up and companies’ software needs shift towards more affordability and versatility, there has been increased interest in cloud-base technology. However, there are still some doubts as to the accessibility and benefit of SaaS systems. DataServ says these “myths” are unfounded, and they work hard to debunk them.

One myth revolves around cost. While some consider increased internet connectivity and corresponding usage fees to be a hard sell, DataServ believes that this is not an accurate metric for comparing the SaaS price against that of an in-house system. A true total cost of ownership model will address the cost issue in a more holistic manner, and will help companies make a sound decision for their budget. PayStream agrees—focusing on one price-point of a system instead of the overall, long run cost will not give companies an accurate idea of the efficiency and optimization possible with the cloud.

Two other issues DataServ addressed were the complexity of managing multiple browsers used by a variety of SaaS providers, and data ownership, backup, and security. According to DataServ, success in these areas is more dependent on choosing the right SaaS provider rather than the efficiency of the platform. In the issue of data management especially, SaaS platforms offer plenty of tools to properly move and secure information through the system, ensuring accuracy and compliance in all processes. Whether web browsers or data are managed effectively depends largely on a companies’ collaboration with their provider, as well as the depth of their providers’ experience. Fortunately there are helpful guides to selecting the right service provider, many of them found in PayStream’s own research.

DataServ also points out that a compelling reason to use an SaaS platform for business processes is the fact that there are so many dynamic and successful services available. In contrast, many organizations are discovering that ERP’s native solutions are inaccessible and inflexible. Many times, companies can offset this immobility—and optimize their process—by leveraging 3^rd party, cloud based solutions.

How does a company decide which of their functions should be ERP driven and which might benefit from a non-ERP solution? According to DataServ, they should ask themselves the following questions to determine if they are ready to migrate:

Is the function considered outside of your business’ core competency, and is it something that distinguishes your business from the competition?
Do you find it difficult to find resources (money, IT, priority) to install the functionality you need?
Do the enhancements deliver a positive ROI?

Businesses that decide to use the cloud for their back-office processes will gain the benefits of an overall enhanced experience. Many improvement are possible, including better collections performance on past due accounts, paper control in the payment process, and more business value through greater focus on core capabilities.

PayStream is impressed by DataServ’s knowledge in the field of cloud-based automation. We look forward to seeing what they have to offer the financial software industry in the years to come.

To learn more about the balance of cloud-based technology within existing ERPs, download PayStream’s latest research release, the 2014 P2P for SAP report.

PayStream Research Release: RCM and Taking Control of Success

A company’s revenue is the bottom line, the primary focus, and the vital point on which their business health depends. The ability to control and generate revenue is a critical driver of success, and while a capable, disciplined, and innovative AR staff can bring a moderate amount of efficiency, full control comes from an RCM (Revenue Cycle Management) system.

While PayStream’s research usually focuses on AP processes within the financial software arena, our new research report, Revenue Cycle Management, provides insight into another side of back-office procedures. Automating the AR process dramatically improves productivity in collections by regulating an often confusing activity—tracking down the where, when, and who of outstanding bills can be time-consuming and unproductive, as well as error-prone. Automatically telling collectors who to call and collect from and why, with all the vital data they need available to them within one easy-to-navigate user interface, streamlines and secures this process.

This report’s research covers the current trends in AR activities, revealing the trouble spots in manual processes and the benefits of RCM automation. From survey results, we have seen that collectors who utilize RCM automation are able to spend far less time on administrative duties such as prioritizing daily activities or preparing for calls, and spend a majority of their time communicating with customers, settling disputes, and other value-added tasks that result in lowering DSO, reducing overdue AR, and reducing bad debt, see figure above. RCM automation removes manual processes, such as spreadsheets and aging reports, from AR and provides the tools necessary to focus on critical revenue-driving activities.

Featured in this report are detailed descriptions of current RCM offerings, both the basic features found in current market technology, and the innovative strategies that leading RCM solution providers employ in their product design to give their customers a competitive edge. Also included are profiles of select RCM developers that have taken the RCM industry to the next level with their unique and powerful offerings.

The main purpose of this report is to give AR departments the tools to take control of their order-to-cash cycle. Not only will RCM technology build the revenue of organizations through fast and stronger cash management, but it will also increase the success of other departments, such as AP and Procurement. We encourage AR professionals to enable their organizations to take control of success—download the free Revenue Cycle Management Report today!

Migrating from the 80′s with Cloud Technology: The 2014 P2P for Oracle Report

PayStream Advisors’ most recent research report tackles a subject in which many of our readers may have first-hand experience: Oracle ERP business applications. For organizations that have used Oracle for their financial and business processes, much of this experience has probably been bitter-sweet. As an ERP, Oracle is a reliable and trusted service for the security and management of accounting data; as a provider of P2P solutions however, the immobile nature of their design prohibits them from giving their customers true efficiency. The 2014 P2P for Oracle report shows readers that they don’t have to settle for the offerings of their ERP system, but instead, they can leverage the dynamic capabilities of today’s next generation, cloud-based technology.

Figure 1: Oracle Users Still Report Heavy Paper Use

This report explores the trends and opinions among today’s organizations that use Oracle. Research has found that while Oracle has been a leading figure in AP automation for a reason—their suite of offerings addresses almost every business need—the system has maintained its firm place in the market by the result of long-time use rather than long-time success. Studies show that while in some areas Oracle users have more integrated processes, including higher numbers of onboarded suppliers, this is more due to the fact that companies have been using the system for quite some time—in other words, integration is inevitable in the long-run. However, the results also show that integration is not necessarily optimization. Oracle users still report heavy degrees of processing pains through their procure-to-pay life-cycles, and the most fundamental sign of AP transformation—the elimination of paper—is not as evident among companies with Oracle, see Figure 1.

The true value of PayStream’s newest report is not only in its revealing research findings. This report provides insight into a real solution for professionals who wish to end their reliance on Oracle: today’s cloud-based business process technology. These cloud platforms are highly configurable, built to adapt to many kinds of businesses and to change to those businesses’ growth and needs quickly. Much of the dilemma of companies using Oracle’s applications is found in the immobility of its applications suite, but organizations can replace these with the flexibility of newer, leverage-able cloud solutions—while still holding onto the reliability of the Oracle ERP.

In all, the P2P for Oracle report is a vital transformation road-map, offering Best Practices and strategies for companies wanting to migrate from Oracle stagnation to process optimization. There are also included several profiles on leading solution providers who show particular efficiency with the Oracle ERP. These providers are prime examples of the innovation and collaboration possible with cloud-based financial automation software. Don’t wait in an inflexible, outdated business process. Download the free 2014 P2P for Oracle Report today.

Supplier-Initiated EIPP: A Vital Compenent to eInvoicing and ePayments

Beyond the basic automatio logo n of invoices and payments there is a necessity for a more specific technology that aids in streamlining the order-to-cash process. Originally, associated technologies usually served a supplemental purpose next to larger eInvoice and ePayment applications, but now, their importance is growing to a point of mainstream use. Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) solutions are one of technologies that are coming to the foreground in relevance and necessity due to the ways they maximize the use eInvoicing and ePayments to streamline the company’s workflow and the way they offer tremendous potential for users to better manage their financial supply chain and cash flow.

In PayStream Advisor’s most recent report, “Supplier-Initiated EIPP: Impacting the Entire Invoicing and Payment Lifecycle”, research has revealed that software developers have adopted a much broader perspective that encompasses the entire billing and payment continuum, increasing the importance of an integrated EIPP solution. By providing an in-depth overview of market trends and movements, this report identifies appropriate EIPP strategies and solutions that incorporate a holistic approach to supplier initiated invoicing and payments automaton—and it shows what they do to benefit those processes.

The report features results a from a collection of surveys focused on AP and AR automation, revealing trends and barriers in eInvoicing, ePayments, and EIPP solutions. Among the results, from price differences to common AP and AR goals, it is clear that many frequent processing issues could be aided by an effective EIPP solution. However, buyer adoption is a critical factor to the success of an EIPP Initiative, and marketplace acceptance is deterred by a lack of understanding and skepticism regarding its benefits.

The report shows th Fg1_ The BPA Galexy at the benefits of technologies that bridge process gaps are especially beneficial for suppliers. These suppliers are best served by solutions that support all types of invoice delivery and remittance capture, not just EIPP. EIPP solutions are needed to provide automated remittance processing capabilities that address all sources of remittance advice, and in order to leverage captured transaction intelligence, suppliers need EIPP solutions that contain embedded workflows for dunning, dispute resolution, and other tasks. Suppliers also need a variety of distribution channels for invoice delivery.

There are multiple billing and payment channels for today’s B2B transactions, and EIPP solutions serve as an effective way to provide easy access to these channels and streamline their use. While most organizations send invoices in emails, this method does not address the reciprocal payment from the customer associated with the invoice, causing organizations to miss an opportunity to leverage greater process efficiency. EIPP solutions fix this problem, helping to coordinate and incorporate the entire lifecycle of the invoice.

The market for supplier initiated and holistic EIPP is growing and will continue to gain momentum due to the demands of AP organizations and the need for greater AR efficiency and Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) reduction. In effect, today’s providers often offer more than just a solitary EIPP solution, and as a result, there has been growth in the market for both EIPP and related billing and payment functionality. The report maps out the key features that providers often offer as part of their products and services.

In all, this report shows that EIPP solutions are not only vital for creating integrated processes, but integrated departments as well. While AP can transform itself into a profit center by expanding the credit card payments that generate rebates, AR can also reduce costs with the use of EIPP through increased productivity. More AP departments have launched supplier facing invoice portals than AR organizations have instituted EIPP solutions, but a synchronized implementation effort would have lasting effects on AP and AR interaction. Supplier initiated EIPP is one of the most proactive steps towards that connectivity, and PayStream Advisors believe this report is a vital tool for AR and AP professionals alike. Download a free copy here.

PayStream INNOVATE 2014: Meet the Innovators, Be the Innovator

This fall, PayStream Advisors will be heading out to the beautiful Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas to 089fb9c host our annual Summit P2P conference! It’s going to be a great time for financial professionals to increase their knowledge of business automation best practices and to broaden their networks. For those who haven’t already registered, we will highlight the exciting things the conference will include—and what valuable tools attendees will walk away with!

This year’s Summit, INNOVATE 2014, will be held September 8-10 and will reflect the amazing innovations PayStream’s research has found within the P2P market in the past year. To fit this theme, PayStream has gathered a group of the brightest P2P innovators to pass on best practices that will help professionals boost their careers and their organizations’ value. These leaders are from top companies like The Home Depot and Jet Blue Airways, and they will share their own remarkable stories of innovation, determination, and success in P2P automation.

This tightly focused event will offer case study and breakout sessions, provocative panel discussions, and inspiring keynote speakers. The various conference segments will feature AP, Finance, Procurement, and Supply Chain methods for leveraging automation tools and collaborative strategies to improve processes across purchases and payables. The unnamed conference will also feature the only P2P certification program offered today—a small review class that will provide attendees with a foundational base of knowledge to achieve a fully integrated P2P business process at their organization. This certification is designed to help professionals excel and master P2P leadership, strategy, and process analysis, and it is a valuable asset for every P2P professional.

Not only is this conference vital for learning P2P best practices, it will also be a great way for professionals to become acquainted with the market’s leading providers of P2P solutions. Many of the sessions will be led by officials from top software companies, including Tradeshift and Direct commerce, and PayStream’s Innovate Awards will highlight the year’s stand-out innovators in the field. Guests will not only learn from these leaders how they can leverage top solutions in their own companies, they will also be able to meet them, making the Summit the networking opportunity of the year.

Guests can further connect with these industry innovators through the unique Innovate Dine Around evenings. Summit attendees can choose from several, small-scale dinners hosted by Summit sponsors, creating personal interaction in one of the many elegant dining options in downtown San Antonio. These dinners will give guests the chance to try some of San Antonio’s spectacular dishes—like its world-famous chili—and they will also build and solidify valuable business connections.

The 2014 PayStream Summit shouldn’t be missed. Located in the Hyatt Regency Hotel at the heart of the Riverwalk’s lovely winding pathways, this conference will connect guests to the Alamo, history and art museums, San Antonio theaters, restaurants, and bars—and to all the tools they need to become a stand-out P2P Innovator. Register for the Summit today and take advantage of early bird special here!

Register for INNOVATE ’14 by August 1st and get a second pass to bring your boss to the PayStream Purchase to Pay Summit at no additional cost. OR bring a co-worker. We highly recommend bringing at least two people so you can cover more workshops and get the most out of your conference experience. All you have to do is enter the coupon code BYOB to take advantage of this promotion.

SciQuest Shines with New eProcurement Product

SciQuest, PayStream Advisors partner and a leading provider of spend management solutions, has announced the rollout of a brand new product this week—one that will help their clients turn spending into a strategic source of savings. An updated version of their award-winning spend automation suite, this application gives customers broader collaboration with their suppliers by providing more visibility into procurement activities.

Since 1995, SciQuest has been committed to creating comprehensive, easy-to-use solutions for improving the source-to-pay cycle. Their procurement software helps organizations manage the entire process, from requisition to settlement, and they provide complete visibility for better spend analysis and reporting. This newest edition of the spend automation suite includes the company’s completely redesigned Sourcing Director product. Sourcing Director is deeply integrated with other SciQuest products to ensure optimum efficiency, and it manages the many important details of the sourcing cycle, from event creation to supplier evaluation and awarding. Some of the improvements in this new suite include an integration with Salesforce.com ™ that will accelerate and simplify organization adoption for contract lifecycle management, as well as a new reporting add-on module for extending supplier management capabilities.

These improvements are sure to be welcomed by SciQuest’s existing—and well-pleased—customers. Karmen Milton, the Assistant Director of Purchasing at Georgia State University, owes her department’s satisfaction to SciQuest’s commitment in delivering customer-driven enhancements. “SciQuest’s ability to automate processes like supplier management and purchasing,” Ms. Milton said, “has enabled us to reduce costs, improve efficiency and gain a higher level of transparency into organization-wide spending processes.”

PayStream’s research has found that the market for electronic procurement software is growing as businesses realize the organizational benefits of a more streamlined source-to-pay connection. It is also a highly competitive market, with a growing demand for specialist purchasing features, and with some online businesses integrating or substituting procurement features in their own purchasing processes. Procurement solution companies are hard-pressed to produce innovative systems that set them apart from the common offerings, but we believe SciQuest’s products are placing them among the frontrunners in this constantly evolving sphere. We wish them success as their new product embarks in the eProcurement market.

For more insight into eProcurement trends and innovations, look out for the upcoming PayStream report this Q3.

eGistics Aquired by TIS

Update: As of Tuesday, July 16th, eGistics was officially acquired by Top Image Systems in a transaction valued at $18 million.

Today, PayStream Advisors was excited to hear the announcement of a new business eGistics_2010_Logo_blocks-278x70_1 deal involving one of its vendors, eGistics Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based banking and payments solutions. eGistsics will be acquired by Top Image Systems (TIS), the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Business Process Management (BPM) solutions provider. This strategic arrangement will be beneficial for both companies geographically, technologically, and financially.

A major mo TIS tivation for TIS’ acquisition is eGistics’ secure and compliant cloud infrastructure, which effectively aligns with TIS’ cloud-centric growth strategy. eGistics’ CloudDocs solution will be leveraged with TIS’ own system to develop on-demand, smart processing applications for AP, AR, and other financial functions. Following the acquisition, TIS will extend its software portfolio to include additional smart process applications for banking and payment processing, and will also offer several TIS applications to the existing eGistics’ customer base.

eGistic’s is excited about expanding TIS’ capabilities to their own blue chip clients in the U.S. financial sector. “We believe the combination will have a very positive reception within the eGistics customer base and in the marketplace,” said Don Dixon, a member of the eGistics Board of Directors and Managing Director and Co-Founder of Trident Capital.

Not only will eGistics be supplying their clients with more diverse applications, they will also be expanding the global scale of their customer base. TIS will similarly profit, as this acquisition will strengthen their presence in the US market. “This transaction will also provide TIS with an additional distribution vehicle for offering our native mobile capture applications to large U.S. financial institutions which we did not have before, creating a significant business opportunity,” explained Michael Schrader, TIS COO.

Top Image Systems has been developing end-to-end solutions to capture, classify, process, validate and deliver business-critical key data since 1991. The company operates all over the world—they have several international branches and their solutions have been placed in 800 enterprise-level installations in more than 40 countries. eGistics is fully confident and optimistic about this acquisition, believing that both companies share a vision for creating smart financial applications.

“Not only does eGistics share a synergistic customer base with TIS, but also a common technology stack that we can build upon to further revenue growth for the combined company,” commented Robert Lund, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of eGistics.
PayStream Advisors congratulates eGistics on their promising and dynamic business move.

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