The Importance of Invoicing
In the business world, managing cash flow is crucial. A key part of this financial management is ensuring invoices are paid on time. Delayed payments can disrupt business operations, while quick and efficient payments can propel growth. This importance escalates when it comes to business-to-business (B2B) transactions and manufacturing industries where larger sums are typically involved.
Most larger companies use enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to help manage their business processes. One of the most common integration challenges is invoice processing, which includes capturing payments on memberships, subscriptions, invoice payments, and orders before shipping costly products and materials.
The big issue is that most ERPs don't support many payment gateway integrations, greatly limiting companies' options to get competitive rates. That's where a payment hub steps in and lets you use virtually any payment gateway to connect ERP systems (Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Epicor, Syspro, QuickBooks, and many more), legacy systems, CRM (Salesforce, Zoho, Hubspot, Dynamics CE and more), or EMR (Epic, eClinicalWorks, Cerner, Athena, AllScripts, etc.).
Integrated eCommerce solutions with other applications enable ERP systems to become more efficient business process automation systems. Integrating ERP data with other systems enables organizations to assess results in a database that provides business intelligence to improve efficiency for the entire company.
The Importance of Timely Invoice Payments
Timely invoice payments are more than just a way to keep cash flow healthy. They help maintain good relationships with suppliers, allow for potential discounts for prompt payments, and provide a level of certainty for future financial planning.
On the flip side, late payments can put unnecessary strain on relationships, disrupt supply chain management, and make financial planning uncertain. This is why it's imperative for your sales reps to be able to capture payments when they can. If they've got a client on the phone who is willing to make a payment, capture it! Don't wait days or weeks before you catch them again to get paid.
Our clients are experiencing an average of 43% faster invoice payments by integrating the EPR with other solutions and automating their business processes.
Current Challenges in Payment Capture from ERP Software
Despite the critical role of invoice payments, many businesses struggle to manage them efficiently. This problem often stems from sales representatives trying to initiate payment capture from ERP or other systems.
While ERPs excel at integrating various business functions into one comprehensive system, their abilities often fall short for marketing and sales teams trying to capture payments directly from the eCommerce platform. This is due to error-prone manual data entry processes and a lack of proactive notification when actions are necessary.
Inefficiencies of Enterprise Resource Planning Payment Systems
ERP implementations, though robust in many areas, aren’t always designed to connect directly with payment gateways. As a result, businesses may need to resort to manual methods of inputting payment data, causing additional work and a greater chance of human error. This process not only increases time spent but also impacts the overall customer experience, with potential delays in order confirmations and delivery.
Overpriced Solutions in the Market
Businesses seeking to enhance their own ERP software and other systems' payment functionalities often find themselves facing limited and overpriced solutions. These options may offer some improvements, but their high costs and inadequate features make them a less-than-optimal choice for companies looking to streamline their payment processes effectively and efficiently.
Importance of an Integrated Payment Gateway
An integrated payment gateway is crucial for any business looking to overcome the limitations of its own B2B eCommerce ERP integration. By enabling direct connections with payment gateways, businesses can automate payment capture, speeding up the entire invoicing process. This direct connection also reduces the risk of errors and improves customer satisfaction through quicker confirmations and deliveries.
Accenture says that nearly 40% of chief information managers surveyed have no experience using enterprise information for business analysis. An integrated ERP system provides centralized management of enterprise data and enhances communication between companies in all areas. The new technology helps establish the central point of contact where departments can access real-time data.
In case of no ERP software, integration platform, or system, the department's manual data entry is in the form of a different record or database. A team may upload the data to other groups, create a report, and share that data.
Integration with Other Systems
Because our discussion about customer information, inventory management, and order information relates directly to a wide range of applications and platforms such as an enterprise eCommerce platform, CRM systems, EDT, and others, it's crucial that an ERP program gets all of this information when they arise. Using a software solution such as an ERP will make everything possible. If you don't do anything, then you will waste your valuable time manually entering data into the ERP.
The Latest Payment Hub Innovation
Here is where the Clarity Payment Hub comes into play. Our solution allows companies to connect their ERP and other systems with virtually any payment gateway solution, providing the much-needed bridge between these two crucial business components.
ERP integration with this payment hub equips businesses with a flexible, cost-effective solution that meets their business needs and does not compromise on features or capabilities. CRM ERP integration methods, eCommerce integration, and more allow Clarity to fully automate your business functions around invoicing and payment collection.
Connecting ERP to Payment Gateways
This payment hub acts as a universal connector, linking the ERP, CRM, and/or EMR system directly to the chosen payment gateway. Via a secure integration platform, it enables seamless, automated processes of payment capture, making the process of getting invoices paid on time a smoother, more reliable procedure.
It also comes with a Customer Payment Portal that can automatically notify and send invoices to your customers when they're ready to be paid. Any status updates or payments made within the portal or ERP are automatically synced via the integration platform.
The Competitive Advantage You've Been Looking For
Implementing a top-tier payment hub not only simplifies payment processing but also gives businesses a competitive edge. Companies gain more control over their supply chain and payment processing, can negotiate better terms with different payment gateways, and can provide a superior customer experience by ensuring prompt order confirmations and deliveries. This leads to shortened times to payment, the ability to enforce net terms, options to offer net term discounts for accelerated payments, and more.
Common ERP integration challenges include trying to integrate with both cloud ERP platforms and on-premises applications. Payment Hub connects to them all, seamlessly. Hub payment integrations allow data to flow smoothly between these applications, eliminating the need for extensive hopping and coding tasks necessary for each application. This manual process leaves you exposed to costly errors, such as incorrectly submitting POs or sending the wrong client a refund.
Improving Adoption with a Better Customer Experience
An exceptional, personalized client experience is vital to any business. Three-quarters of companies say they are focusing on delivering real-time engagement to improve customer experiences with the products and services.
Yet providing customer service in the same channel does not guarantee competitive advantages. Businesses must be aware of customer needs and develop an omnichannel experience with the right technology.
45% of IT executives believe that eCommerce connects the benefits of ERP integration and that systems integration can increase customer needs, while just 5% believe it increases their omnichannel eCommerce capability. ERP integration is useful in helping companies understand customer interests and expectations while increasing efficiency and data accuracy.
Data Access Across All Business Processes
Data silos are a form of privacy protection in a business where you can access only the data from a specific app. A comprehensive, ERP integration and system integration strategy can effectively reduce data silos. What are the reasons? After connecting to other apps, employees can use their apps to access any data needed. This applies to all kinds of teams including sales, marketing, or finance.
Access to company data is not only for the internal organization. This also extends to external partners, supply chains, vendors, and systems, such as the customer portal. Customers can view, print, and pay their invoices at any time, as well as keep their billing and account information up to date and synced back to your back office ERP or CRM.
Ease of Capturing Credit Card Payments
Capturing credit card payments becomes significantly more manageable with a payment hub and ERP integration. The hassle of manual customer data entry becomes a thing of the past, and businesses can enjoy the convenience and speed of automated credit card payment capture directly from their ERP integration. This includes real-time payments for sales reps (when a customer is on the phone), batch processing after manufacturing runs, processing recurring subscriptions and membership payments, and more.
Improved Accounts Receivable
Consider a scenario where a mid-sized manufacturing company struggles with delayed payments and a convoluted invoicing data collection process. After implementing the latest payment hub technology, they are now able to automate their payment capture and significantly improve their accounts receivable process. The improved efficiency leads to increased business revenue, fewer payment delays, and strengthened relationships with suppliers, resellers, wholesales, vendors, customers, and partners.
Shortening the Time to Get Invoices Paid
Another major benefit of ERP integrations with a payment hub helps B2B service providers that face extended invoice payment times. After integrating their ERP solutions, they not only shorten the time it takes to get their invoices paid but also improve customer satisfaction due to quicker confirmation and delivery times. The solution provides an automated email notification platform that keeps your customers up to date when invoices are posted, as well as when they're paid. Many Clarity Payment Hub users are cutting their time to payment almost in half, simply by automating the invoicing process with an ERP integration.
Batch Processing of Invoice Payments
Another ERP integration benefit helps manufacturers. When they take either online or phone orders, they typically don't capture payment. Later, after the manufacturing run is done and the product(s) is ready to be shipped, they want to capture the payment. This can be difficult, since runs for larger numbers mean that there could be dozens of invoice payments that need to be processed in order to release the shipments. Invoice batch processing features in the best payment hubs make ERP integration that much more efficient.
Supporting B2B and Manufacturing Businesses
B2B and manufacturing businesses—in sales teams, marketing teams, and supply chain in particular—can gain substantial benefits from the Clarity Payment Hub. With the ability to process payments immediately upon manufacturing an item or closing a deal, these companies can ensure prompt payments, healthier cash flow, and an overall more efficient invoicing process.
Implementing ERP integrations vary widely, and you must ensure the partners you choose for ERP system integration are highly specialized and experienced with the systems to be integrated. Although you could deploy internal personnel to develop the integration process, it is recommended to outsource the integration to a specialist with proper system knowledge and experience.
Developing Your ERP Integration
Once you know the way your ERP system interacts with your other apps, it's time for you to consider your ERP integration options to find the best fit for your vision.
There are a couple of ways to do ERP integrations:
- Point-to-Point Integration: The use of a customized programming language for a connection between two software systems. The ERP system application connects to external systems through its APIs.
- Middleware Platform: Software for enterprise service buses (ESBs) that provides you with an ESB-style infrastructure where apps-connected systems (eCommerce ERP integration) are communicating with one another through an intermediate layer (called communication bus).
Clarity's platform not only speaks all the protocols necessary to do any ERP integration or CRM, but it also supports the different connection types (e.g., file, XML, SDK, database, web services, API, etc.).
Payment Hub and ERP System Integration with Clarity
The path to efficient business intelligence, invoicing, customer relationship management, and prompt payments doesn't have to be a rocky one. With solutions like Clarity Payment Hub and an ERP system integration, businesses can overcome the shortcomings of their ERP system and connect directly to their preferred payment gateways. This ERP integration empowers businesses to take control of their payment and streamline business processes, improving cash flow, enhancing customer satisfaction, and giving them a competitive edge in the market.