Tag Archives: Basware

ePayment Connections: Achieving Better Cash Management Part 2

This piece is the continuation of a series of blogs written by guest expert Bob Cohen, the Vice President of Basware. This series focuses on the strategies and best practices of achieving better cash management, important for AP and P2P professionals looking to streamline costs and increase revenues in their organizations.

Achieving Better Cash Management Part 2: – ePayments Bring Suppliers and Buyers Together
Bob Cohen- VP, Basware

Effective cash management starts with visibility into invoices and faster processing—things that automation and eInvoicing deliver—but another key component to achieving cash management excellence is the ability to optimize the payment process.

Savvy organizations are looking to reduce barriers to trade in a more connected, streamlined, and effective way. A key barrier is the payment process, which can be drawn out due to inefficient invoicing processes and the practices of buying organizations. By holding back payment to suppliers, companies are able to increase their cash flow flexibility and access to working capital, but unfortunately, this has the opposite effect on their suppliers. Some large companies are extending payment terms to suppliers up to 60-100 days, straining supplier relations and creating cash flow pressures while also potentially threatening the supply chain.

But companies don’t have to create an “I win, you lose” scenario with their suppliers. Let’s face it: when the suppliers lose, so do buying organizations, and in the quality of relationships and the stability of the supply chain. Savvy companies are seeking out alternative payment options that benefit buyers and suppliers alike, and they want to tackle both sides of the payment issue by speeding up slow invoice processes and payment tasks to ensure faster payment. For example, solutions that enable suppliers to get paid immediately upon invoice approval, while allowing buyers to extend their payments, like the partnership Basware is developing with MasterCard, gives both sides access to better cash flow and working capital.

Leveraging innovative approaches to payment promotes connected commerce and keeps money flowing across the supply chain. Everyone walks away a winner.

Bob Cohen is Vice President, North America for Basware, a leading provider of cloud-based purchase-to-pay and e-invoicing solutions that enable better buying, selling and connected commerce for organizations around the world. For more information, contact [email protected], or call 203-487-7900.

It All Starts with Visibility: Achieving Better Cash Management Part 1

PayStream Advisors is excited to announce the beginning of a series of blogs written by guest expert Bob Cohen, the Vice President of Basware. This series will focus on the strategies and best practices of achieving better cash management, important for AP and P2P professionals looking to streamline costs and increase revenues in their organizations.

Achieving Better Cash Management Part I: It All Starts with Visibility
Bob Cohen- VP, Basware

The key to effective cash management is visibility, which unfortunately has eluded many companies still relying on paper-based invoice processing methods. E-invoicing – the electronic transmission and receipt of invoices – is also lagging, with estimates of only 20-25 percent penetration in North America.

Invoices contain a wealth of information on spend, including an organization’s outstanding liabilities, the vendors that are owed money, and due dates. Without capturing this information electronically, it cannot be analyzed or shared with other departments to optimize spend, cash, and working capital management.

The need for visibility is further intensified in today’s complex global business environment. Many companies are dealing with a complicated network of systems handling purchasing transactions across both their organizations and their trading partners. Internal silos between departments such as procurement, AP, and Treasury are creating barriers to sharing critical information on spend—information that would lead to better decision-making and financial management, and that would help companies strategically select the best vendors based on spend history and contract terms.

The good news is that adoption of e-invoicing and invoice automation continues to increase as companies recognize the need to gain financial visibility and effectively manage working capital, as well as streamline their processes and save money. With this visibility, companies are able to analyze their spend and make dynamic discounting decisions, such as how to take advantage of volume and early payment discounts, and when to pay suppliers to maximize cash flow.

With the ability to more effectively transact with their buyers and suppliers and manage cash and working capital, companies will be well on their way to achieving connected commerce. The next step in the process is to improve the payments between trading partners. Stay tuned for Part 2 in Achieving Better Cash management – “ePayments Bring Suppliers and Buyers Together.”

bob-cohen
Bob Cohen is Vice President, North America for Basware, a leading provider of cloud-based purchase-to-pay and e-invoicing solutions that enable better buying, selling and connected commerce for organizations around the world. For more information, contact [email protected], or call 203-487-7900.

Basware: Building Strong Solutions

Basware has renewed their agreement with a financial services group in Finland this week. Basware has been providing the Travel & Expense Management solution for the Finnish company since 2008, and the renewal will feature new services to aide in the centralized processing and automation of travel and expense reports throughout the organization. The value of the agreement is EUR 400,000 over three years.

This is the second extension of services for Basware in the past few weeks. Their business relationship with a brewing company was renewed in the beginning of June, and Basware’s top goal in the new contract will be to supply the delivery of accounts payable automation and e-invoicing services for the company’s North American operations. Basware’s first contract with the company involved the implementation of solutions for accounts payable at their headquarters in Europe. The value of this latest agreement is approximately EUR 300,000 over three years.

Esa Tihilä, Basware CEO, believes that this continued relationship is the result of the high level of connection Basware is able to offer to its customers. “The customer is able to easily collaborate across the Basware Commerce Network, the largest open business network in the world, whilst driving efficiency, scale and strengthening supplier-buyer relationships.”

The services that help in strengthening these supplier-buyer relationships are powered by Alusta, Basware’s unified cloud-based platform for purchase-to-pay that is flexible and intuitive, allowing for easy user experience. Alusta has been the backbone of many successful business dealings for Basware, including a recent contract with a UK hospitality retail provider who hired Basware for the automation solutions the platform supports. Not only t Alusta: The Architecture of the Basware Commerce Network hat, but Alusta is strong enough to inspire and create partnerships with excellent potential—like the one between Basware and India-based IT solution provider, Mphasis. Basware’s platform and commerce network will be embedded within Mphasis’ own portfolio to provide transaction based e-procurement and invoice automation services to its clients.

From their recent ventures, it is clear that Basware is a respected and successful business partner. PayStream Advisors believes the strength behind these business relationships has a lot to do with the strength upon which Basware has built their solutions.

Navigating Forrester’s Wave

Forrester Research Inc., has released a new AP solution provider report this week, and PayStream Advisors is proud to see one of our own partners honored with the highest ranking. Coupa, a chief provider of cloud applications for finance, has been recognized as the leader in the “The Forrester Wave™: eProcurement Q2 2014,” namely for their outstanding customer service, their flexible product, and their excellence measured in Requisition-to-Purchase process and Technology. Their standing among their competitors has greatly changed since the Forrester Wave report of 2011, when they had no presence in the race at all.

Forrester Wave™ eProcurement Q2 ‘14

The findings of the report come as no surprise to PayStream Advisors considering Coupa’s success this year thus far, most recently seen in their selection in the AlwaysOn OnDemand Top 100, as well as their decisive new integrations with several cloud-based companies. We expect more great things from Coupa as the year continues, especially in eProcurement.

We’ve seen some great action this year from many of our other partners as well, not to mention fantastic movement in the Wave. Basware has been selected in the 2014 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100, a position earned in part by their innovative Invoice Automation solutions. The Ariba Network has moved to the HANA in-memory, real-time computing platform to produce overall faster and more reliable solutions. Nipendo is joining forces with Integrate Financial to provide a supply chain finance solution that is tightly integrated with the procure-to-pay process. SciQuest’s quality Spend Management and AP solutions have gained them new contracts with several Canadian universities, widening the company’s client diversity.

All these developments would set our partners ahead in the Forrester Wave, the Gartner Magic Quadrant, or any similar P2P solution analysis, but we believe most firmly in the findings of our very own solutions aptitude measurement tool, the PayStream Navigator. With the Navigator, solutions providers are measured by 18 factors from six categories. The measurement estimates the value of a solution’s functionality within a chosen capability, and the results show a company’s versatility and scope. The Navigator itself is broad, thorough, and trustworthy, a measurement PayStream is confident using in the research and analytics of our AP automation reports, and in the consultation and creation of our vendor RFPs.

The movements of our partners have been bold and innovative in 2014. PayStream is proud to use our Navigator in association with solutions providers like Coupa, Basware, Ariba and others who are doing so much in the AP Automation network.

Basware Issues Green Guidelines for Earth Day

Basware, a leading provider of eInvoicing purchase-to-pay (P2P) solutions, recently released guidelines to help companies minimize their carbon footprint through financial process automation. These guidelines were developed for the growing number of companies that are concerned about corporate compliance with green initiatives, and at the same time are looking to streamline processes and gain business benefits.

“Many companies are drowning in paper, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Accounts Payable department,” said Bob Cohen, Basware VP, North America. “The hundreds of billions of invoices that are sent annually worldwide create business as well as environmental problems, increasing costs, inefficiencies, errors, and more. By switching to e-invoicing and automating financial processes, companies gain greater visibility and control over spend and working capital, and improve their supplier relationships. It’s not only a matter of businesses ‘doing good,’ it’s also good business.”

Basware recommends four key steps to establish green purchase-to-pay practices including:

Send invoices electronically through cloud-based business commerce networks. Of the approximately 350 billion bills and invoices sent globally each year, about 330 billion (or more than 94%) are sent as paper invoices, according to industry consulting firm Billentis^[i]. If all of these invoices would be sent electronically, 138.6 million trees and 143 billion liters of water could be saved, which would reduce the carbon footprint of one invoice by 63 percent^[ii]. In addition, it enables up to 80 percent cost savings as companies eliminate time-consuming and manual processes, such as printing, mailing, scanning, keying in invoice data, and manual matching of invoices to orders and archiving. With supplier on-boarding, supplier portals and other services, companies can be well on their way to receiving 100% of their invoices as e-invoices and encourage environmentally friendly practices among their trading partners.

Promote green initiatives in procurement by ordering through e-catalogs on business commerce networks to eliminate large paper catalogs. Additionally, identify and purchase from suppliers that support environmentally friendly initiatives.

Look for ways to make payments electronic. Innovative e-payment solutions are becoming available that will speed up slow invoice processing and invoice payment tasks, ensure that suppliers get paid quickly, and extend terms for buyers.

Strive for continual improvement. Use analytics to measure key metrics in your green initiatives. This will provide insights into ways you can elevate processes to work smarter, achieve greater green benefits and take performance to new levels.

To read the official press release, click here.

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