5 Myths About Electronic Payment Processes – Debunked!

Electronic payment processes make some people nervous. They shouldn’t.

But we live in an era when email accounts get hacked. People leak online health records. There are a lot of digital concerns. So, many business leaders find themselves nervous about switching to an electronic payment process for one reason or another.

Here we present 5 myths about electronic payment processes. We will debunk these myths around the electronic payment process and illustrate what your company can gain by making the switch to an automated ePayment system.

Myth #1: ePayment processes are hard to learn 

Some leaders and managers worry that an automated ePayment system will have a steep and difficult learning curve.

But solutions like CoreIntegrator Payment Automation have a simple and intuitive user interface that makes automating electronic payments simple. Manage all of your Check, ACH, Wire Transfers and Virtual Card payments from one application.

And the reality is that the more steps you have in your manual payment systems the more time your finance team is wasting every single day.

Implementing an efficient electronic payment system also means you can qualify for early payment discounts saving your company even more!

Essentially, you are looking at a rapid turnaround time for invoices and less manual work for your financial team. You want to eliminate the time they waste cutting a paper check, mailing the check, and tracking the deposit of the check.

So in the scheme of things, the short amount of time it takes your team to learn the new ePayment technology will end up saving your company countless hours of FTE staffing later.

Not to mention the automated payment process helps companies reduce the processing time by up to 70 percent across the board.

Myth #2: Electronic payments are expensive

Are you concerned that virtual payments will cost your company more money because of the automatic clearing house (ACH), credit transaction fees, and virtual credit card transaction fees?

That’s understandable.

But the truth is that the average cost of cutting a manual check is $5.14 per check according to the Association for Finance Professionals Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey.

The maximum fee using CoreIntegrator Payment Automation to produce paper check is only $1.30 per payment – and the cost goes down based on the type of payment you make and as volume goes up. ACH payments, for example, start at only 45 cents per transaction!

In fact, by paying with our virtual card payment technologies not only are payments free, but you can actually monetize bill payment. vCards allow you to turn AP processing into a profit center by giving you a 1% rebate on every invoice you pay!

So by using an electronic payment service provider you are saving yourself at least $3.84 on every bill you pay compared to the average price of paper checks. Making electronic payments is an effortless way to cut spending – and even generate revenue!

Myth #3: Virtual payments have a higher risk of fraud

Cyber security is top of mind for every business leader.

From data hacking to stolen information, the digital space can be a dangerous place without the correct technology involved.

But did you know that 75% of organizations that were victims of recent fraud attempts/attacks used traditional payment service providers? In fact, paper checks are one of the LEAST secure methods of invoice payments available.

On the other hand, AP automation and automated electronic payments actually reduce the risk of fraud. They include built-in features specifically designed to prevent invoice and payment fraud.

Plus, AP automation and ePayment automation includes activity audit trails. These give you deep insight into who authorized payments. And they tell you what types of verification steps occured before the approval was given.

So if fraud should occur, AP and payment automation will tell you what happened, how it happened, and who was behind it.

Electronic payment processes not only have a lower risk of fraud, they help identify fraud if it should occur.

Myth #4: Electronic payment systems will cause payment errors

With less manual human interaction in the payment process, it’s easy to assume there will be more payment errors made. And that no one will notice them.

In reality, it’s manual payment options have a much higher risk for errors due to the fact that so many things that can go wrong. Data entry errors, premature payments, and invoicing matching errors are all unfortunately common in manual payment processes. Duplicate payments are also possible using manual payment systems.

Another problem with manual payments is that a staff member could process payments for a batch of invoices before all approvals have taken place. Or your company is otherwise unready to make payment. This can create serious issues for both your company and your payee – setting you both back with problems to fix.

We all know humans make mistakes.

But, for example, our Verified AP Data Capture Service combines technology with human review to achieve 99.9% accuracy on AP invoice data capture.

And the more manual your AP and payment process, the more chance there is for human error. Not just around data entry, approvals and payment scheduling, but in terms of correct communication and adherence to AP and payment best practices.

Automatic payment processes don’t make ‘fat finger’ data entry mistakes. And they do as they are told every time.

Automated electronic payment systems also allow for less dependence on human communication to keep your payment process functioning correctly. That’s because the automated systems do the communication for you.

Companies that implement full end to end procure to pay automation including invoice automation and payment automation see FAR fewer errors than companies mired in manual invoice and payment processes.

Myth #5: Automatic payment systems reduce my ability to see what’s being paid

Without a paper file in a file cabinet full of invoices to look at, business owners and managers sometimes worry that they will have less visibility into payment transactions.

Contrary to this belief, by choosing electronic payments you can capture more detailed financial data. And all that data is easily searchable and available at your fingertips.

Automated ePayment data capture also makes it simple to create process improvements and accelerate financial analysis.

The time spent building data charts is far shorter with electronic payments. Which in turn can help finance executives better understand, predict, and forecast their cash flow for the current month, quarter or year.

This digital visibly also makes it easy for all executives to access payment records from anywhere. This saves time for busy staff who would otherwise have to search through thousands of folders for one transaction. Invoice and payment data is more manageable this way and eliminates the possibility of transactions getting lost as well.

The more of your procure to pay process you can automate, the more visibility and insight you will have from your payment records.

Bottom Line – Debunking 5 Myths About Electronic Payment Processes

Sometimes change is hard. And scary. We get ideas in our minds about how bad things might be with automated procure to pay processes.

But the benefits of an electronic payment process over a traditional manual system are easy to identify.

First, AP automation eliminates time wasted on invoice data entry and processing.

Secondly, virtual payments save the company more money per transaction – and can even transform AP into a profit center.

Third, the electric payment system lowers the risk of fraud or theft.

Also, the use of automatic payment systems reduce the margin for human error almost completely. Plus the electronic system helps catch any errors sooner.

Lastly, moving to an electronic paper trail means data is more manageable. And your team can access the data from anywhere.

Why not contact us today? We will show you what procure to pay automation including payment automation can do for your company!