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Payment Hub for Automotive Aftermarket: Faster Parts AR, Surcharge-Ready

A self-service B2B payment portal for automotive parts distributors, jobbers, and collision suppliers — integrated with Epicor Eagle, Epicor Kinetic, Sage 100, and SAP Business One.

Payment Hub for Automotive Aftermarket & Parts: Overview

Clarity Payment Hub is a self-service B2B payment portal built for the automotive aftermarket. It gives repair shops, collision centers, and fleet accounts a branded online portal to view open invoices and pay — with every payment posting back automatically to your distribution ERP through Clarity Connect.

Aftermarket parts distribution has its own rhythm: dozens of small invoices a day per shop, weekly or monthly consolidated billing, and card-heavy payment mix where every basis point of interchange matters. Payment Hub is built to handle high transaction volume, consolidated invoice payment, and compliant surcharging for businesses in states that allow it.

Counter staff, AR managers, and branch managers use Payment Hub. Shops, collision centers, and fleet accounts use the portal to pay faster and reconcile their account with less friction.

The AR Problem in Automotive Aftermarket & Parts

Aftermarket parts distribution runs on volume, tight margins, and long-tenured customer relationships. A single shop might have 40 invoices open across a month, all small-dollar, ready to be consolidated and paid in one batch. Manual handling of that payment flow — reading card numbers over the phone, keying each payment against the right invoice in Epicor Eagle or Sage 100 — is expensive and slow.

On top of that, card payments on aftermarket volume are a margin-killer when gateways are not optimized for B2B. Where state law permits, compliant surcharging can preserve margin on card payments. Where surcharging is not in play, Level II/III data passing and gateway flexibility become the lever. Payment Hub supports both paths.

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Phone-Card Intake at the Counter

Counter staff takes cards over the phone dozens of times a day, exposing PCI and burning labor.

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Manual Cash App Into Eagle, Kinetic, or Sage

Matching payments to the right invoices for each shop consumes AR hours every day.

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Margin Pressure From Card Interchange

Without Level II/III data or compliant surcharging, card payments quietly erode aftermarket margin.

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No Shop Self-Service

Shops, collision centers, and fleet accounts have no online way to view or pay their open invoices.

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Consolidated Billing Complexity

Consolidated statements take effort to build and reconcile when shops pay lump-sums across many invoices.

The cost of inaction. For an aftermarket distributor processing $30M in annual card volume at 3.0% effective rate, dropping to 2.0% through Level II/III and compliant surcharging is $300K per year back to the bottom line. Add the AR labor and the counter-PCI exposure, and the cost of staying manual is real.

How Clarity Payment Hub Solves It

Payment Hub gives your shop accounts a branded portal to view open invoices, pay consolidated batches, and manage saved payment methods. Counter staff stops taking cards over the phone because shops pay themselves. Every payment posts back into Epicor Eagle, Epicor Kinetic, Sage 100, or SAP Business One as applied cash against the right invoice — automatically.

For states that allow it, compliant credit-card surcharging is supported out of the box, letting you pass the card-acceptance cost to the customer who chose the card payment method. For states where surcharging is not allowed, Level II/III data passing and gateway flexibility keep effective card cost as low as possible.

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Consolidated Shop Payment

Shops pay any mix of open invoices in one transaction; the portal splits and applies cash against each correctly.

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Compliant Credit Card Surcharging

Where legally allowed, surcharging is configurable at the state and card-brand level, with compliant disclosure and display.

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Automatic Cash App to Distribution ERP

Every payment posts to Eagle, Kinetic, Sage 100, or SAP B1 as applied cash — no manual keying.

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Tokenized Saved Payment Methods

Shops save cards or ACH accounts once; repeat payment is two clicks.

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Level II/III B2B Optimization

Where surcharging does not apply, Level II/III data passing reduces card interchange on aftermarket volume.

Clarity Payment Hub portal showing an automotive shop paying an invoice with a compliant credit card surcharge line item
Compliant credit card surcharging — available in states that allow it, protecting aftermarket margin on card payments.
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Gateway- and surcharge-flexible. Payment Hub integrates with Epicor Eagle, Epicor Kinetic, Sage 100, and SAP Business One through Clarity Connect. Surcharging is configurable at the state and card-brand level where legally permitted; where it is not permitted, the platform defaults to non-surcharged pricing and relies on Level II/III data for interchange optimization.

Common Automotive Aftermarket & Parts Scenarios

Here are a few representative situations we see across automotive aftermarket businesses and how Clarity Payment Hub addresses each:

Regional jobber on Epicor Eagle

Situation:A five-branch jobber running Eagle takes dozens of card payments per day at the counter. PCI exposure is high; AR labor is heavy.
Solution:Payment Hub deploys on Eagle with a branded shop portal and tokenized saved cards. Counter transitions to portal-based payment.
Outcome:Phone-card intake drops 85%; PCI exposure reduced; AR team retrained on exception work; counter lines shorten.

Warehouse distributor on Epicor Kinetic

Situation:A warehouse distributor on Kinetic serves jobbers and fleet accounts with large consolidated invoices. Card interchange sits at 3.1%.
Solution:Payment Hub layers Level II/III data and compliant surcharging where permitted, with automatic cash app into Kinetic.
Outcome:Effective card cost drops substantially; cash-app labor falls; jobber and fleet accounts pay faster.

Collision parts supplier on Sage 100

Situation:A collision parts supplier on Sage 100 invoices body shops and dealer networks on net-15 terms. Manual cash app is the daily bottleneck.
Solution:Payment Hub enables shop self-service; Sage 100 cash app becomes automatic through Clarity Connect.
Outcome:DSO drops from 22 to 15 days; AR staff redeployed; customer satisfaction with billing improves.

Benefits for Automotive Aftermarket & Parts Companies

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Lower Effective Card Cost

Level II/III data and compliant surcharging (where allowed) protect margin on aftermarket card volume.

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Fewer Counter Phone Cards

Shops pay themselves through the portal, freeing counter staff.

Automatic Cash App

No more keying payments into Eagle, Kinetic, or Sage by hand.

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Shorter Shop DSO

Self-service billing and easy consolidated pay shorten the collection cycle.

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PCI Scope Reduction

Tokenization and elimination of phone-card intake minimize exposure.

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Better Shop Experience

Shops manage their account online, on their schedule — like any modern vendor relationship.

0.5–1.0%
typical card-interchange savings with Level II/III
85%
typical reduction in counter phone-card intake
48 hrs
deployment time
24/7
shop-side portal availability

Counter staff stop being payment processors. AR teams stop applying cash by hand. Branch managers and owners see margin protected on card volume. And shop accounts — the mechanic shops, collision centers, and fleet managers you serve — get the modern self-service billing experience they expect from every other vendor.

ERPs We Integrate With for Automotive Aftermarket & Parts

Automotive aftermarket distribution has a handful of dominant ERPs. Payment Hub integrates with the most common ones through Clarity Connect.

Integration pattern: Automotive aftermarket distributors typically run a single ERP (Eagle, Kinetic, Sage 100, or SAP B1) with one gateway relationship. Clarity Connect handles the bidirectional integration, and the portal handles consolidated shop payment and compliant surcharging where permitted.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we surcharge credit card payments to protect margin?

Yes, in states where surcharging is legally permitted and following card-brand rules. Payment Hub is configured to apply compliant surcharges with proper disclosure, and defaults to no surcharge in states where it is not permitted.

Which ERPs does Payment Hub integrate with?

Epicor Eagle, Epicor Kinetic, Sage 100, and SAP Business One are all supported directly through Clarity Connect, with matching battlecards available.

Can shops pay multiple invoices in one transaction?

Yes. Consolidated invoice payment is a core workflow — shops pick any combination and pay once; cash splits correctly against each invoice in your ERP.

Will Payment Hub reduce counter-side phone-card intake?

Almost always, dramatically. Once shops are on the portal, the majority of payment volume shifts there; phone-card exposure drops substantially.

How fast can we go live?

Most deployments are live within 48 hours of receiving ERP sandbox credentials.

Can we keep our existing payment processor?

Yes. Payment Hub is gateway-agnostic.

Related Industries

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