Ways to Optimize Business Payments and Selecting the Ideal Payment Platform

With technological innovation and global commerce, businesses must reconsider their payment strategies. By improving payment processes means payment optimization, which wasn't a known phrase until the early 21st century when payment platforms and advanced financial technologies (Fintechs) took place. Optimized business payment solutions resulted in improved payment processing, higher security of funds transfer, and enhanced customer experiences. Gone are the days of inconvenient payment processes. Customers today are looking for a smooth payment experience. The same holds true for the B2B financial landscape, where businesses seek to receive payment promptly while ensuring positive customer experiences. This blog aims to discuss how you can optimize your business payments and explore tips on selecting the ideal payment platform.

3 Best Strategies to Optimize Business Payments

Businesses accepting international customer payments often face delays, and it affects their cash flow. Though they can improve their AR collection strategies to prompt business payments, but implementing an automated payment platform works more efficiently to collect payments. Using the following strategies, you can optimize business payments and improve cash flow.

1. Optimize Payments for Mobile

Offering payment convenience and ensuring smoother payment journeys means enabling customers to pay using a flexible method – mobile or laptop. This reduces the time it takes to make payment, which otherwise requires using a work desk, which can delay the merchant's accounts receivable. Payment platforms with the flexibility to pay using a mobile device enable B2B collections automation for merchants, allowing them to get paid promptly. Those platforms offer software-as-a-service (SaaS) to enable customers to pay. Some platforms allow the auto-pay feature, further streamlining payments as soon as an invoice is received by the customer. This automates the payments while notifying customers that the payment has been debited from their accounts.

Optimizing payments for mobile isn't dedicated only to ensuring convenience; it delivers customers with a frictionless payment experience. For instance, integrating payment gateways like Google Wallet, Apple Pay, or PayPal will enable customers to make mobile payments without any hiccups. In addition, this can result in a significant increase in sales and enhanced customer satisfaction. Mobile optimization is empowered with robust security features, swift transaction processing, and streamlined record-keeping.

2. Fraud Detection for Heightened Security

One of the major concerns for security payment in international transactions is fraud or unauthorized access. These concerns not only limit you to smoothly transfer funds, but the cash involved is also subject to risk, affecting your financial health. Customers, on the other hand, also benefit from frictionless payment journeys without worrying about losing their money. A trusted payment platform can help you optimize your payment processes while allowing you a better view of the payment's traceability so you can spot any issues. In addition, the payment platforms allow only authorized access to the finance teams so you can collect payments.

From the customer's end, some platforms offer a dedicated customer portal that enables customers to save their payment method and track their payments. This translates to higher control in the hands of customers, where they can pay merchants directly using the portal without worrying about paying from an unsecured platform. Altogether, it ensures higher transparency, increased security, and positive customer experiences with a payment automation platform. This would result in extending word-of-mouth reputation and increasing customer referrals while strengthening relationships with existing customers.

3. Automate Invoice-to-Cash for Maximum Optimization

Some automation platforms offer multiple benefits as they are integrated with payment gateways, invoice automation, and customer communication features. This will streamline the entire invoice-to-cash process, allowing merchants to send invoices to customers without manual data entry. This feature will free your finance teams to create invoices, which is a time-consuming task. When your invoices, collections, and invoice follow-ups are streamlined, you can collect payments from customers promptly. This also allows you to manage late-paying customers by programming payment reminders and dunning notices.

Moreover, automation facilitates improved monitoring and reporting, offering valuable insights for business decision-making and strategy. Embracing automation allows businesses to concentrate their resources on essential capabilities and strategic endeavors, minimizing the need for repetitive administrative tasks.

Best Practices to Select an Ideal Payment Platform

The checklist for selecting an ideal payment platform includes a number of specifics, like their ability to integrate with your system and the pricing and payment methods they allow. The following are the best practices for choosing an ideal payment platform.

1. Evaluate Pricing

The price of a software subscription is the first on the checklist. When it comes to payment gateways, the pricing is influenced by various factors, such as your business model, the types of payments accepted, and the monthly or annual transaction volumes. Prior to selecting a payment gateway, analyze the regular inflow of funds into your business and conduct thorough research before seeking a price quote.

2. Check Compatibility with Devices

Considering the target audience and your product/service, you may have diverse visitors using different devices. Some payment gateways function seamlessly across all devices, while others may encounter glitches on specific platforms. Before finalizing your choice, ensure that the gateway operates effectively on various operating systems and platforms. It's beneficial to have insight into the demographic breakdown of your website visitors beforehand.

3. Ensure Smooth Integrations

A payment gateway is never an isolated component; it is part of an interconnected infrastructure. It is your responsibility to ascertain how well your chosen gateway integrates with your ERP, accounting software, or any CRM used in your business. Opting for a platform that is easy to integrate and user-friendly will facilitate your collection teams' seamless use.

4. Consider Recurring Billing Options

In the contemporary landscape, payment gateways are frequently utilized by software-as-a-service companies, relying heavily on recurring billing. This model entails billing customers the same amount every month for a subscription service. A proficient payment gateway not only simplifies the process of collecting payments on autopilot but also addresses other issues, such as managing failed credit card payments.

Final Words

Using payment automation software or a payment platform is crucial in today's B2B financial landscape. Without this software, it will be inefficient to collect international payments, which can bottleneck your cash flow while also affecting your customer's experiences. The blog outlines the strategies to optimize your business payments and also highlights the tips to consider when choosing an ideal payment platform to collect international payments, which also enhances positive customer experiences.