Increasing Your Business’s Cash Velocity: the Antidote to B2B Inflation Woes

There’s no question that our current economic landscape is looking like it’s headed for a stark decline. With interest rates skyrocketing, a consumer price index rising steadily year-over-year, and the potential of an impending recession, it’s challenging to feel anything but uncertainty when it comes to the future of our financial system.

Inflation, in particular, has created a dark cloud of fear for businesses and consumers alike — largely because one of its most dangerous side effects is that it reduces purchasing power and makes it impossible to buy as many goods and services as consumers were once used to. As a result, individuals and corporations will have to choose how to allocate their funds, inevitably widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Now more than ever, early access to cash is key to the survival of the enterprise. At the same time, many industries and buyers are known to be slow to pay, DSO times feel unnecessarily long, and businesses lack the tools necessary to speed up time to cash. AR departments are officially at the mercy of payers and have little recourse in terms of accelerating their payments to improve cash flow.

However, there is a solution: modern, blockchain-enabled, B2B payment technology — purpose-built for NetSuite — can help finance leaders increase cash velocity, speed-up time to cash, eliminate unnecessary transaction and processing fees, and put billing, payment, cash application, and reconciliation on autopilot.

Here, we’ll dive into what these solutions look like and how they’re making it possible to speed up your time to cash – and act as a potential antidote to inflation in the process.

Eliminate paper check payments for good

Today, over 50% of all B2B payments are still processed via paper check. At the same time, 74% of all check payments become victims of fraud. That means that over half of all B2B payments are highly susceptible to attack, and businesses everywhere can lose out on the one thing they need to keep going: their revenue.

On top of that, paper check payments result in unnecessarily long DSO times. Mail float – the time it takes for a check to travel from a customer to a merchant via the postal system – can have serious, negative effects on businesses. While finance teams are waiting for checks to come in, businesses may be so behind on collecting revenue that a check arriving today or tomorrow could be the difference between employees getting paid or not.

Clearly, businesses need an alternative to paper checks – especially in the face of rampant inflation. Paystand’s Smart Lockbox is built to integrate seamlessly with NetSuite and fully digitizes paper check payments. Finance teams can now effortlessly transition to a completely automated cash cycle and unlock new revenue in the process.

Additionally, Smart Lockbox allows businesses to shift their paper-based payments to faster, cheaper, and more secure digital alternatives by giving their customers a seamless one-click migration experience. It also has a number of other features that changes the game for finance teams:

• Remote remittance processes that eliminate DSO and trips to the bank
• Immediate visibility into cash flow through payment data that’s displayed as it comes in
• A centralized collections process and reduced receivables risk with 24/7 payment tracking
• Check information, reconciliation status, and transaction details that are fully integrated into every user’s ERP system

By eliminating paper check payments, companies can effectively reduce their DSO and collect revenue more quickly – something that significantly helps AR departments that are looking for a shield to protect themselves against the devastating effects of inflation.

Reduce transaction fees to 0%

While online payments reduce DSO times significantly, credit card payments come with their own set of problems: today, merchant fees can be as high as 3.5%, which means your business loses out on valuable revenue every time a customer pays you with a credit card. For B2B transactions (which tend to be much larger than consumer transactions), companies everywhere could be missing out on tens of thousands of dollars every time they attempt to collect revenue.

On top of that, interest rates continue to rise, and credit card cartels have outsized influence when it comes to determining these rates. Finance teams need new solutions to help them protect their bottom line, which is why Paystand created its zero-fee bank-to-bank network. This payment processing system integrates seamlessly with NetSuite and makes it possible for your customers to pay you instantly – and with zero fees. Not only will your finance team save on unnecessary transaction costs, you’ll also save countless hours that would otherwise have been spent on manual processes.

Paystand operates as a payments-as-a-service model: a new system that unlocks capital efficiency while delivering a frictionless payment experience to your payers. Now, finance teams have a secure solution that plugs directly into NetSuite and helps them collect revenue without sacrificing any portion of it to the card networks. It’s also the easiest, safest way to send and receive money, and it allows your finance team to effortlessly do the following:

• Use least-cost routing technology to help customers shift to zero-fee, digital payments
• Control costs while maintaining flexibility for customers
• Offer alternative payments that calculate customers’ savings in the checkout window

Clearly, our direct-bank system offers a huge unlock for finance teams – one that can help them preserve revenue at a moment in history where it matters most.

Automate essential processes

Today, companies and startups everywhere have access to digitized tools and systems designed to help them do business better. At the same time, most finance organizations find themselves stuck in the dark ages: today, most B2B payments are completed via archaic systems and manual processes, which meant that many AR teams had to return to the office during the height of the global pandemic and were forced to risk their health to process paper-based payments. Clearly, finance teams need new solutions that can help them fully digitize B2B payment cycles for more reasons than one.

Blockchain and cloud-enabled B2B payment processing can automate essential processes with functions like autopay, Fund-on-File tokenization, one-click checkout, “pay now” links attached to email invoices and auto reconciliation. As a result, finance teams can step into the next generation of B2B payments and save time and money by turning to automation to take care of route tasks.

Paystand’s integration for NetSuite makes it possible to streamline billing and collections in a way that’s completely native to your trusted ERP system. At the same time, our unique payments-as-a-service model and flexible payment modules allow finance organizations to customize the AR process to their specific business needs and access a whole suite of features that make it possible to save significantly on both time and money. With Paystand, your AR team can do the following:

• Manage payments, collections, refunds, disputes, and more in a centralized dashboard
• Request payments from customers and schedule one-time or recurring payments
• Send custom invoices, billing reminders, and sales orders with “pay now” functionality
• Automate cash application, revenue recognition, reporting, and payment reconciliation

For companies that want an upper hand when it comes to battling inflation and other side effects of the worsening economy, turning to new solutions backed by cutting-edge technology can be truly transformative.

If you’re looking for a way to better arm yourself against inflation – and want to help your finance team get a leg up in the process – be sure to schedule a time to speak with one of our payments experts and get a demo today.