The benefits of automating the entire supplier payments operation with bulk payments (Payout)

They tell you that running a business is challenging, but they don’t tell you that vendor payments are one of the most consuming tasks.

As a business owner, you work with multiple clients and vendors, and making on-time payments is essential to keep the business going. It helps to build the trust and credibility of your brand in the market. Especially, international payout is more crucial and should be made in time to avoid any problems. If you are a fresh entrepreneur and not much aware of the payment process, read till the end to understand all tidbits of payments to vendors and suppliers.

What are Supplier Payments?

Being in a business involves money matters in the form of customer sales as well as vendor purchases. The payments between suppliers and companies are either based on credit, transfers or hand-to-hand payments. All of this process is regulated and appropriately managed to ensure none of the parties suffer a loss due to payment misunderstandings. The supplier payments are recorded through invoices usually cleared monthly. These invoices also sometimes carry the terms and conditions of vendor payments if stock is taken on credit. Proper record and management of supplier payment are critical for smooth business and dividend payout.

What are the Main Challenges of Paying Suppliers in Different Countries?

Managing hefty payments is a task in itself, and making payments to vendors in different countries requires more vigilance. While dropshipping and other quick business methods make life easy, they also come with proper payout responsibility. We are sharing a few problems that people usually face while making payments to international clients, if not through a reliable source.

Currency Exchange
While making a bulk payment in one part of the world from another, currency exchange is crucial. Sometimes the exchange rates might be higher than usual for you, or converting it could be troublesome. To eliminate all such possible issues, you must choose a reliable and trustworthy company that can manage all payments for you.

Hidden Fees
Forty-four percent of businesses are looking to add automation to their payables processes as a way to capitalize on the efficiency and cost-cutting due to hidden transaction fees and other reasons. If you are making the payments through an intermediate bank without going through the terms in detail, you might be paying extra hidden charges. While it is normal for banks to charge an amount for international transactions, yet some banks go over the board and charge a lot.

Legal Risks
International payout Global mass payments carry not only financial but legal risks with them. As we know that the goods are not always bought on credit, and sometimes the advance payments can be quite high for bulk orders. Not being aware of the legal risks these transactions carry and how your goods or money can get stuck in that country might lead to mental and financial stress. While making payments to Latin America, understanding and complying with the laws eases and quickens the process.

Slow Process
Despite the swift American payment systems, payments to foreign suppliers can take more time. From the beginning of the process to the final transaction, manual international payout systems can be highly time-consuming. Moreover, usually, there are no tracking systems for international payments, and it gets difficult to ensure a safe transfer.

Frauds
Frauds tag along when you mention money as money-related frauds are the most common globally. While all kinds of scams leave you at a loss, you are more susceptible while making international payments or receiving money. The fraud can be by the supplier himself or the intermediate source facilitating the payout.

How Does the Supplier Payments Operation Work?

To understand the need to automate the supplier payments operation for bulk payments, it is very important to know how the process works. Though the business and technology world has progressed immensely in the past few decades, a few systems have not been updated much. One such procedure includes local and international payout systems.

Some businesses have moved to automated systems to send bulk payments, but many use the traditional processes. The conventional supplier payment operation or Procure to Payment (P2P) process involves the following steps:

Identify Needs
The initial step of the P2P process is to find out what your business needs from a particular vendor. The need identification is based on the remaining stock and demand of products by your customers. Improper identification of product requirements can lead to a crunch in the business.

Create and Approve Requisitions
Documenting the whole process is utterly vital for both the client and the supplier, and creating a requisition is the first document of the process. You should put down all the items of need in one place and create a requisition. You can either design a separate one for each of the vendors or create it collectively and send it to them individually. Make sure to counter-check the requisition letter before forwarding it to the vendor. If you are a business partner, you might need to show it to the other shareholders before creating a purchase order.

Choose a vendor
We don’t get to hear this much, but the success of e-commerce business is based highly on your vendor. Dropshipping businesses depend significantly on the vendor, and the least carelessness might land you in huge trouble. There are several ways of finding a supplier for your business, but the most common ones are:

– Request for quotation: Asking for quotations allows you to choose a vendor who provides the best market rate and offers a better profit. However, you cannot be sure about the quality of goods until you order and try.

– Word of mouth: You must have realized that the business world runs on word of mouth. Though we keep records of payments and credit items, yet trust matters a lot. If you are looking for a trustworthy vendor, asking a few others in your field can be a good idea. However, we suggest you not take suggestions from the competitors and do the proper research yourself. You can also ask some people about the vendor you choose through RFQ (Request for quotation) to connect with the best one.

Receive Invoice
The next step after choosing a vendor is making an order. But would you just place the order right away? Ask your vendor to invoice you according to the number of goods you are ordering and check that invoice. Remember that this invoice is not necessarily the final invoice every time. You might think of bargaining later, depending on the quality of goods received.

Receive Goods
If you are working on a credit basis, the supplier will provide you the services before making payment. You can decide if it is worth the cost or try to bring the price down on receiving the product or service. Usually, such discussions between the vendor and the client conclude at a middle point with a mutually agreeable payout.

Send Purchase Order
On finalizing the goods and their quality, a product order is sent to the vendor acknowledging that we are making an order and ready to pay for the service/product. The purchase order should be made only when you both agree to the terms mutually regarding delivery and payment.

Authorize Invoice
Go through the invoice properly before paying the vendor to avoid any errors. Check the vendor pay and the payment terms properly beforehand. Once sure, authorize the invoice and release payment to the vendor. Track the process and stay in touch until your supplier receives the compensation. However, you can experience hassle-free international payout systems and pay vendors in Brazil, Mexico and Chile through EBANX Payout.

Download for free the EBANX Payout White Paper

Keep a Record
As much as trust is vital in business, keeping a record comes into play to preserve it. You cannot succeed if you do not record every penny you spend and every penny you earn. It allows you to calculate the profits and maintain a record of payments done and payments to be made.

How Can You Automate Supplier Payment Operations?

Supplier payments, also known as AP (accounts payable), are crucial for businesses, whether small or multinational. With so many other tasks to manage, organizations are moving towards automated systems for vendor payments. Automation of the whole process involves computerizing it at different steps to shed off the workload.

Automatic Data-entry
Data entry is an essential part of business, especially for large-scale firms. But, it is also the most time-consuming and among the boring tasks in the office. Instead of restricting a person to data entry, you can explore their skills while the computer enters the data for you.

Ditching data entry wholly is not the best idea as it helps you keep in touch with the trends and decide your strategies. Usually, the processes end up at payment, but data entry plays a much-extended role. To make the process fast and error-free, automate it using software and get a quicker dividend payout system.

E-invoicing
In this fast-paced world, quick assessment and processing are important to keep up with the business world. If you were stuck with invoices most of the time, managing time would not be the easiest for you. Working with various international clients and making vendor payments comes with invoices of all kinds, from PDFs, DOCX, e-mails, or even handwritten ones. Here too, OCR comes in handy and scans the invoices for easy processing.

However, if you think that this complete process is also quite time-taking, you are correct. OCR can help you to some extent, but managing paper invoices still adds more workload. One solution can be contacting your supplier and asking them for electronic invoices instead of paper for International payout systems. The implementation of software for e-invoicing also allows you to bookmark important files and sometimes perform analysis as well.

Approvals and Record
A major con of paper invoices and payment comprises the loss of documents while transferring from one department to another. Converting the accounts payable vendor pay to online systems can prevent the loss of documents and result in safe record keeping where everyone has one copy of the document saved. The automated process follows the same pattern from the initiation of a purchase order to the manager and then to the finance department to release the payment. Any issues in handwritten orders and letters can be avoided resulting in convenient approvals.

Verification
As we have mentioned, error-free and fast-paced work management, automated bulk payments contribute to easy verification of invoices. It is not an unknown instance that we sometimes receive invoices that do not match what we order. Though the invoices are checked thoroughly before letting out payments, it is possible to overlook an item and pay for it. When you realize it later, it is too late for any amendments. To avoid such problems, automated International payout Global mass payments play a vital role and are saviors. They pick out the slightest mistakes in order and payment invoice before processing it further.

What are the Benefits of Automating the Entire Supplier Payments Operation with Bulk Payments?

Henry Paulson mentioned, “Payment systems are critically important for overall market stability. On a typical business day, US payment and settlement systems settle transactions valued at over $13 trillion.” A significant number of these transactions are yet not automated and consume more time than they should. Automated supplier payments operation comes with numerous benefits like:

Improved Costs
Business is all about finding better ways to make money and reduce costs. According to the Institute of Finance and Management, one invoice can cost up to as much as $21, including shipment, labor, and other factors. While you already know that shifting to e-invoicing and automated AP reduces labor costs, it can help you save up to 85% of the money spent on physical invoices.

Reduced Frauds
A survey in 2019 by AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey revealed that 81% of people suffered from payment fraud in one way or another. These include duplicate payments and billing, false invoices, and fraud transactions. These kind of frauds can be avoided through automated payout to vendors and suppliers. The software points out duplicate billing attempts, extra charges, or fishy activity in the P2P process, saving you from fraud.

Personalization
If you wonder that a one-model-fits-all system would not be right for you, the e-invoice software comes with specifications for your business. You can adjust the software as per your needs and add the specs you are looking for. From designing and verifying the invoices to getting them approves, each step is customizable.

Full-view of the Process
When the vendor receipt payments are made through manual processes, you do not have the record at one sight. While every step is documented, yet everyone doesn’t have access to the details every time. To make the record visible and accessible, International payout systems and bulk payment services play a vital role. You get full closure and a record of different stages of the process.

Better Customer Service
With improved and error-free invoicing, your customers would be more satisfied with your payment methods and result in more business. Many clients and suppliers do not prefer working with organizations consistent with paying foreign suppliers without many issues.

Harmony in Workplace
We all have experienced a stressful environment and troubles in the workplace due to the mishandling of invoices. The departments usually consider each other responsible for the carelessness, and a blame-game begins. With reduced chances of errors and an automated supplier payments operation, the employees and heads of departments work in harmony. Improved collaboration among the departments results in better productivity and more business ultimately.

Discounts
Did you know that many vendors offer early payout discounts? Yes, they do. It is estimated that around 80% of suppliers offer early pay discounts, and you can take the benefit by automating bulk payment for vendor payments.

FAQs

How long does the automated process take?
While the International payout systems are automated, they still need approval for payout to payment recipient, and the process depends on the approval time. However, if the procedure is smooth and timely, you can automatically make payments as early as two weeks.

Which details must be considered in the invoice?
When you receive an invoice, you must make sure that it contains all the necessary details, including

• Name of supplier
• Name of the payee (if different)
• Vendor code
• Payment remit address
• Purchase order number

What should be the maximum time limit for payments?
Usually, the payment matters, and the least and most amounts of time to be taken are discussed in the agreement. Yet, paying foreign suppliers within one month of invoice generation is a good practice. And remember, you can avail yourself of discounts on early bulk payments if your vendor offers.

Conclusion

With the advancements in technology, paper invoices and manual processing do not seem to be a part of business finances in the+ future. To move at the same pace with others, adapting to the changes should not be overlooked.
Move towards automated bulk payment services yourself to see how these services can help you boost your business.