Integrated Payments | B2B Finance Glossary

What Are Integrated Payments?

Integrated payments are a broad solution that communicates with all other essential software a business uses. An integrated payment solution automates payment acceptance processes and allows businesses to accept credit card payments directly through their trusted ERP system, point-of-sale (POS), and current accounting software. An integrated payment solution connects your payment processing to other business sectors.

An integrated payments solution reduces the number of steps a company needs to manage its payments. As soon as one of your customers makes a payment and that payment is processed, your integrated payments solution ensures that payment information is simultaneously relayed to your company’s ERP or accounting software that stores payment information.

Integrated payment systems are essential for streamlining your company’s financial information and ensuring that critical data can all be organized within a single location.

How do Integrated Payments Work?

Integrated payment systems have the ability to handle payments from a variety of different sources, including POS systems, eCommerce platforms, and AR channels. They also collect information across payment methods, such as credit card payments, ACH transactions, and direct-bank deposits.

Integrated payment systems will then channel this information to your ERP or accounting software, automatically populating your system. Additionally, the payment will automatically be applied to its corresponding invoice. From here, the AR department team members can post the payment to the customer ledger.

Integrated payments can help finance teams significantly save time by automating manual processes.

What Are the Benefits of Integrated Payments?

Here’s how integrated payments systems can help finance teams:

Reducing Human Errors

When accounting is done manually, there’s almost no way to avoid the human errors that will occur – especially when information is being transferred from paper-based processes to digital databases. At the same time, it can be very challenging to get to the root of one of these errors, which makes it hard to prevent the same kinds of errors from occurring again in the future.

Integrated payment systems ensure that credit card transactions and other online payments are recorded properly and stored in your ERP system automatically. This eliminates the potential for human errors.

Saving Countless Hours

Manual and paper-based accounting processes are incredibly time-consuming. Integrated payments solutions automate essential AR processes and remove the need for manual labor. Once payment information is processed, integrated payments solutions help ensure that payment information is automatically transferred to where it needs to go.

This saves time so that accounting teams can focus on more important tasks, such as strategic planning and driving more revenue.

Improving Cash Flow

Cash flow is the measure of the amount of capital that is transferred in and out of any given business. For a thriving business, cash flow will be rapid. However, manual accounting processes greatly slow down cash flow because these tedious processes inevitably slow down the processes of invoicing and collections. Integrated payments automate the collections process, which helps speed up cash flow to a great degree.

Reducing Costs

By removing the need for manual processes, integrated payment systems can greatly reduce costs because they can replace the need for full-time accounting services. While integrated payment systems cannot replace the entire finance team, they can replace a great deal of manual labor and enhance essential processes, allowing businesses to save money.

Improving Data Management

Some integrated payment systems come with comprehensive payment data and analytics. This allows finance teams to accurately spot trends, analyze customer behavior, and collect other essential information that allows your business to make better, more calculated decisions as time goes on.

Safeguard Your Business From Fraud

Integrated payment systems are more resistant to fraud because they can automatically bar themselves from engaging with another party that causes a security breach. Plus, integrating digital payments into your native ERP system eliminates the need for third parties that might end up engaging in fraudulent activities.

How to Get Started With Integrated Payments

To get started with integrated payments, you’ll need to find an integrated payment system that can work seamlessly with your current ERP system. This will make it easy to start accepting payments quickly from within the system that your company is already using.

When determining which partner you’d like to work with to help you get started with integrated payments, you must consider which system will most benefit your customers’ experiences. On top of that, it’s a good idea to understand your finance team’s specific needs so you can ensure your chosen system is ready to deliver. The right integrated payments offering will also have a robust support system that can help you and your finance team collect payments and information in a seamless and effortless way.

If you’d like to learn more about how integrated payments can help your business, you can schedule a time to speak with one of Paystand’s payment experts here.