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Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment for Accounts Receivable: Digital Interactions are the Key to Success

For businesses of any size, the ability to efficiently and accurately process accounts receivable transactions has a significant impact on the bottom line and cash flow. The bigger the business, and the greater the number of transactions, the more opportunities open up for Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP).

Even shaving a few days off the time it takes to receive, reconcile and deposit funds can be significant in terms of impact to the bottom line, reduced labor costs and better customer experiences.

From labor-intensive to seamless integration driven by digital

When companies receive payments in a non-digital environment, they must go through several manual steps — physically receiving the payment in the mail, reconciling the payment, and manually posting the payment. In some cases, a single payment may represent a dozen or more individual invoices, which must be identified, recorded and tied back to the payment. If the payment is short or partial, more work must be done. Digitization is changing all of that.

Today's EBPP options digitize payments and seamlessly integrate them into AR systems — often reducing turnaround time by several days (or more!). 

While companies have offered digital solutions and electronic payments for some time now, these processes have been clunky and not fully integrated together with the AR process.  A well-designed EBPP platform not only integrates the billing, payment and reconciling functions, it can enhance the customer experience and lead to enhanced customer relationships.

Digital interactions speed transaction time and reduce labor

Using EBPP for AR means maximum benefits for businesses, including:

  • Reduced labor – In some organizations, as many as 100 individuals process payments and reconcile invoices, manually. ​ With EBPP integrated into your accounting systems, there's no need for a large staff to handle, record or reconcile payments — this now gets done behind the scenes, integrating automatically with your AR, general ledger and other systems. 
  • Increased cash flows – The Strategic CFO notes that, for companies with $25 million in sales volume, the introduction of digital solutions could free up over $2 million in cash by enabling them to collect receivables as much as one week sooner.
  • Reduced complexity – Digitized transactions remove the complexity from manual processes that require individuals to find, match and record transactions that often involve many steps — with each step representing an opportunity for error and lost time.
  • Greater security – Digital transactions are processed seamlessly, using technology to ensure payments are delivered where, and when, they need to be.
  • Enhanced customer experience – using EBPP enables your business to communicate directly and interactively with your customers in ways that are timely and relevant to them.  A dynamic invoice presented electronically can be used to promote other products and services, thereby better serving your customers and leading to deeper relationships.

Processing Accounts Receivable through EBPP is a one-stop solution for removing the uncertainty and complexity around transactions. If you haven't explored EBPP options recently, now is the time to check out today's new EBPP solutions, fueled by more immediate, more intelligent and more highly integrated digital technologies. For more information, check out Conduent’s digital payments.

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