Author: Marijoy Pena

Customer experience refers to interactions between a customer and a company throughout their business relationship. The secret to keeping customers satisfied is to deliver great experiences at every customer touchpoint. It’s critical to remember that customer experience does not begin and end with a sale, but includes any interaction they have with your business before, or after a sale.

When customers are happy with your brand, they’re more likely to stay with you. This is why businesses that put customers first and build a customer-centric culture outperform their competitors.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the ways you can deliver great customer experiences every step of the way.

Make a good first impression

The customer’s first impression with your business isn’t typically formed when they interact with a company employee face-to-face or over the phone. In fact, it’s formed when they visit your website for the first time or view your content on social media.

Everything in your branding elements – from your logo and color schemes, to your messaging and illustrations – tells the customer what to expect from you and shapes their impression of you.

One way to make a great first impression on your customers is by strengthening your brand touchpoints, including your customer service centers, company website, email newsletters, as well as social media pages. Delivering good customer experience ensures customer satisfaction and also helps you get positive word-of-mouth marketing going about your small business.

Improve website usability

Another way successful companies create a great customer experience for their customers is by making sure their website is user-friendly and accessible. Delivering a seamless website experience is essential for a good user experience, and it’s all about using good information architecture. After all, you want your customers to be able to effortlessly browse through your site and quickly find the information they’re looking for.

We recommend that you test your site’s usability with a small team to get a better idea of the end user’s perspective. Tinker with your site to understand its ins and outs and identify the points where customers struggle.

For example, if you’re running a membership site, your goal might be to enable visitors to land on any page of your website and find the information they’re looking for, intuitively. By making it easy for customers to find information and complete tasks, you’ll be able to deliver a great user experience while boosting conversions.

Identify customer pain points

Being mindful of your target customers’ needs can help you accurately identify their pain points and address them. You can use this information to position your product or service as a potential solution. Solving the challenges customers face helps you deliver great customer experience.

Start by creating a customer journey map and identifying their pain points. This will help you find areas of friction that negatively impact their experience. This will help you figure out how your product or service can solve the customer’s problem.

A good practice is to collect customer feedback and analyze data to figure out the most common issues customers face. This way, you’ll be able to focus on solving their problems and positioning yourself as a customer-first business.

Offer coupons and discounts

Employee satisfaction increases employee productivity which in turn means delivering better service and value to your customers. This ultimately leads to an increase in sales and promotes profitability.

Successful businesses keep their customers happy by building a culture of rewarding and recognizing their employees. This enables them to increase customer satisfaction and boost customer loyalty.

You can improve customer experiences by keeping employees and customers at the forefront of your company. Consider offering staff members special discounts on occasion and rewarding loyal customers by sending them exclusive discounts via email.

Set up self-service options

Offering self-service options is a great way to enable customers to find answers to questions through your website (or via a telephone number) during after-hours. This is especially useful for companies that aren’t open around the clock.

You can offer self-service options to your customers by creating an online helpdesk or knowledge base with FAQs on your company website. Another way you can offer assistance to your customers is by setting up live chat options that they can use to talk to a customer service representative and resolve their issue, or leave a support ticket if an operator isn’t available.

Conclusion

By focusing on improving the customer experience, you can achieve your internal goals of driving up sales and increasing customer retention. We looked at some of the ways you can improve your customer experiences and increase customer loyalty and, hopefully, you’re in a good position now to take the next steps.

Do you agree that creating a great customer experience can help you get ahead of the competition? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

 

 

 

 

 

March is Fraud Prevention Month, an annual public awareness campaign aimed at helping educate the public, and providing the tools and resources businesses need to defend themselves against fraud.

However, businesses are the target for many kinds of fraud, and small businesses are particularly vulnerable. Which is why we decided to take this opportunity to bring light to some of these issues and discuss what can be done to mitigate these risks.

 

• Firstly, there are multiple kinds of fraud, but what is occupational fraud and how does it threaten a business?

Occupational fraud is sometimes called workplace fraud or internal fraud, but refers to fraud committed by employees or executives, against the company. There are 3 general categories of occupational fraud.

 

1. Corruption: This may be the most well known type of occupational fraud. Examples include bribery, kickbacks, and extortion. However, corruption is not the most common form of occupational fraud, nor is it the most costly (on average) to businesses.
2. Asset misappropriation: By far the most common form of occupational fraud, examples of asset misappropriation include, skimming, fraudulent disbursements, and larceny (false sales/shipping, theft of office equipment, etc.)
3. Financial statement fraud: This may be the least common source of occupational fraud, but it is certainly the most costly for businesses. Examples include improper disclosures, fictitious revenues and improper asset valuations.

Businesses are often focused on external threats, and combat these by implementing firewalls, alarm systems and encrypted access to systems. However, occupational fraud is more common and causes more financial loss to businesses than frauds committed by third parties, and these internal threats require controls and protective measures as well.

 

• Businesses of all shapes and sizes are vulnerable to occupational fraud. How are small businesses affected differently?

It’s important to point out that regardless of business size or industry, all businesses have some level of vulnerability to fraud, whether strategically planned, or opportunistic in nature. Having said that, small businesses do seem to be in a higher risk category for a number of reasons.

Small businesses typically have fewer resources to contribute to anti-fraud controls than larger businesses. Not only that, smaller businesses are typically more trusting of their employees and therefore may not feel the need to expend additional resources for these controls.

According to the ACFE 2018 Report to the Nations, small businesses lose almost twice as much per scheme to occupational fraud than large businesses! In addition, fraud caused by a lack of controls is nearly 70% more likely to occur in small businesses than large businesses.

Also, one fact that I found surprising, fraud is nearly twice as likely to be perpetrated by the owner or an executive in a small business (less than 100 employees) than a large business.

 

• What types of controls can businesses put in place to protect themselves and their consumers from these issues?

There are many controls a business can put in place, and each business needs to think about what works best for them. Having said that, a few examples include:

 

• A code of conduct: Having a corporate wide code of conduct that explicitly states the ethical behaviour all staff should exhibit has a surprisingly high impact. In a survey of companies done by the ACFE, there was a 56% reduction in median fraud losses when a code of conduct was in place.
• A fraud risk assessment program: A great tool for businesses to understand their risk universe, the likelihood of a risk event occurring, and the measures or controls that are in place mitigate them. Start with a simple approach that can scale.
• A digital business payment platform: No, moving to digital payments does not automatically protect from occupational fraud, but many platforms today, like Ablii, have built-in controls to help small businesses specifically fight occupational fraud.
  • Payment approvals require a second set of eyes to review all outgoing payments before they can be completed.
  • Employee permissioning ensures only employees with proper authority can add/edit payees and bank accounts.
  • Transaction logs keep records of all transactions and account activity on an immutable ledger, allowing businesses to easily identify any financial discrepancies.

Protecting your organization from fraud takes a little work, but once procedures and technology are in place, it will begin to feel like a routine part of running the business. Questions or comments? Get in touch with one of our team members!

 

Building your personal brand helps you nurture trust in your target audience, showcase yourself as an authority in your field, get featured in online and print media, and build a community.

However, personal branding and business branding aren’t the same things.

A business brand is built around how you want your business to be identified and differentiated from other businesses. A personal brand, on the other hand, is built around how you want others to identify you – your lifestyle, values, personality, and interests.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how you can build your personal brand and grow your customer base.

Build your foundation

 

Building a strong and authentic personal brand requires you to take inventory of what you stand for. The first step in building your personal brand is to lay a foundation that gives you the confidence and authenticity to build upon.

Branding doesn’t mean showcasing yourself as something you’re not. Instead, it’s used to sincerely (and strategically) project your authentic self to clients and customers. In the same way, your personal brand should tell your audience about your skills, achievements, beliefs, and values.

When building a strong foundation for your personal brand, start by taking your existing brand assets into account:

• The skills you possess as well as the training, certifications, achievements, and awards you’ve received.
• The various industries, fields, or topics you’re interested in or passionate about.
• The core values you hold dear and the things you stand for.

 

After you’ve figured out your existing brand assets, you can start bringing together the key elements of your personal brand.

Ask yourself:

• What’s your brand vision? What do you want to be recognized for?
• Why is building a personal brand important to you?
• What message do you want to get across to your target audience?

 

These questions will help you formulate your brand vision and message.

Connect with your target audience

 

Collaborating with other leaders in your industry and mentioning each other in social media posts can help you increase your outreach.

You also need to make sure that you share your content on the right social media platforms. For example, if you create visual graphics or infographic-based content, Twitter and Instagram are great platforms for sharing it with your followers.

Another way to connect with your target audience is by giving your posts a personal touch. Consider providing unique insight through tweets, videos, and captions. This way, people will know your stance and it will help establish you as an authority in your industry.

Creating and sharing free content on your personal social media page can also help you earn the trust of your followers and build your personal brand. Once you’ve jotted down some topics, choose the type of content you want to create and decide which platforms you’ll share it on. Some of the common content types include articles, online courses, podcasts, infographics, and PDF guides.

Keep in mind that creating and sharing content can be time-intensive. Start with one or two main content types (like articles or videos) and promote your content through a few different marketing channels (such as Twitter and YouTube).

Instead of targeting a wide audience right off the bat, focus on becoming a leader in your community. Start by defining your target audience and building a community for them to communicate with each other, have discussions about a topic, help each other, and get in touch with you directly. Consider creating a Facebook Group or a private forum to connect with your target audience.

Increase your visibility and online presence

 

Sharing content on your own platform (such as your website or social media profiles) enables you to attract new customers, but it requires a lot of time and effort. Getting featured on other platforms gives you exposure to other people’s audiences.

People want to know about other people in their industry and learn from their experiences.

Managing your own outreach by personally reaching out to media outlets is a great way to build your personal brand. These may include online magazines, high-authority websites, and podcasts.

Here are some actionable tips you can use to increase your visibility and online presence:

 

• Get interviewed on webinars and podcasts that are popular in your industry.
• Create written content for online magazines and blogs that are read by your target audience. These are typically sent out in email newsletters.
• Speak at live conferences, casual meetups, and summits that your peers and target audience attends.

Conclusion

Building your personal brand as an entrepreneur can help you differentiate yourself from your competition. Start by building a solid foundation and connecting with your target audience. After that, focus on increasing your visibility and online presence.

What platforms do you use to communicate with your target audience? Let us know by commenting below.

 

 

A new decade is upon us, and the payments landscape is changing FAST. Here are our 3 payment trends to look out for in 2020.

 

Shifting focus from P2P to B2B

 

Peer-to-peer (P2P) payment services have become increasingly popular, especially in the U.S., as companies like Zelle and Venmo have become household names. However, while the last few years have seen many new innovative options become available to consumers, very few innovative solutions have come to market for business-to-business (B2B) payments…until now. 

 

B2B payments involve complex, manual processes, where paper checks still account for roughly half of all corporate transactions. Organizations, both large and small, are actively looking for digital, account-to-account payment options, and payment technology companies capable of offering flexible, functional solutions will be able to capture a market many times larger than P2P payments.

 

Real-time in no-time

 

Payments will not just become increasingly digital, they will become faster! The idea of a real-time payment, once a myth, is slowly becoming a reality. Canada and the U.S. have yet to implement said systems, but the U.S is taking significant steps towards a faster payments system, while Canada has begun discussing the path towards modernizing its payment rail. Approximately ¼ of the world’s countries have already, or are currently implementing a faster payment ecosystem, and this will undoubtedly become the new reality.

 

While real-time payments have yet to come to fruition in North America, payment providers who are prepared will stand to reap the benefits of this digital transformation. As one article states, “solution providers stand to gain from an evolution-not-revolution approach to adoption…” and this evolution has officially begun.

 

Cash is no longer king

 

While cash may be accepted (almost) everywhere, it’s now clear that consumers prefer digital payment options. In Canada, small businesses now do fewer than 25% of their transactions in cash, and that number is decreasing fast. Cash still has its place, but consumers have made it clear that the best payment experience is no experience at all. Services like Amazon and Uber have made it as simple and painless as possible to pay, while credit cards have mostly moved to contactless payments. The adoption of digital wallets has been slower in North America than the rest of the world, but adoption rates are steadily increasing. Finally, businesses, especially small businesses that have less access to alternatives, have begun demanding new options. In fact:

 

• More than 80% of small businesses want more payment options
• 61% of businesses surveyed would move away from cash, if they had other options
• 67% would be willing to move away from checks, if they had other options

 

So 3 things have become very clear:

 

1) Both consumers and businesses want digital payment options. Cash still has its place, but this is a digital era and payments must evolve to match other industries.

2) It’s only a matter of time before real-time payments are achieved. Both Canada and the U.S. are not there yet, but some payment providers, including Ablii, are ready.

3) Business-to-business payments are lagging behind, with paper checks forcing businesses to spend far too much time and money on payables/receivables and reconciliation.

Check back in later this year to see if anything has changed!

 

 

 

 

In this post, we’ll take a look at what ACH payments are and how your business can benefit from using this mode of payment.

 

What are ACH payments?

Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments are an electronic transfer of funds between banks. These payments are transferred through the United States ACH network, which connects thousands of financial institutions nationwide.

ACH transactions are secure, fast, and cost-effective. While there are other types of electronic transfers such as credit and debit card payments, they aren’t ACH transactions. In fact, ACH payments are specific to bank account transactions.

To complete a transaction, the entity requesting a payment needs access to bank account information from the other entity involved. For instance, let’s say you need to deposit money in your employee’s bank account. You’ll need to get their bank account information, which includes the employees’ bank name, type of bank account (savings or checking), recipient account’s number, and the bank’s ABA routing number.

This information is used to transact payments to the correct account. The same information will be required by the billers when making pre-authorized withdrawals from their bank account.

ACH payments are mostly electronic from beginning to end. However, some users convert paper checks to electronic payments and the money is transacted through the ACH system.

 

How do ACH payments work?

When a customer sends you a payment through ACH, the funds will show up in your bank account as a direct deposit. Here’s a brief explanation of how ACH transactions work:

Sending payments: To begin, a customer has to authorize the transfer of an ACH payment. Similar to signing a credit card receipt or a paper check, they are required to sign an ACH authorization form (or give verbal consent). The ACH system enables you to set up one-time payments, recurring payments, or a series of payments made on specific dates.

Receiving payments: After an ACH transaction is authorized by the bank, the agreed-upon payment is transferred from your customer’s bank account into your account. Payments are typically processed within 3 to 5 days, although sometimes it’s received on the same day. Similar to paper checks, if there are insufficient funds in your bank accounts, the ACH payment will simply “bounce”.

 

Benefits of ACH payments

Let’s look at the key benefits of ACH payments for businesses:

 

• Easier to track than check payments. ACH transactions are easier and faster to handle as compared to conventional payment methods such as check payments. As opposed to checks, ACH payments can be automatically set up, require less time to process (as checks have to be mailed), and cannot be lost.
• More cost-effective than credit cards. For organizations receiving payments via credit card transaction (which charge around 2% to 4% per transaction, plus setup and operational fees), ACH payments often cost less to process. This is especially useful for businesses that have to collect several recurring payments.
• Facilitates long-distance payments. Businesses can remotely receive ACH payments, just like credit cards. If a customer doesn’t want to give you their credit card information or don’t have one, ACH can be a great alternative.

 

Are ACH payments a type of EFT?

While ACH transactions are a type of Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT), ACH is specific to the United States, and each country uses their own domestic payments system. If you do not live within the U.S, you should check with your banking provider to learn more about how funds are transferred.

 

Conclusion

ACH payments are an easy, secure, and fast way to transfer funds between banks. They are more cost-effective than credit cards and also undergo a rigorous verification process before and during the transfer.

What payment options do you offer your customers? Let us know by commenting below.

To run a successful business, you need to keep your books up to date. That being said, entrepreneurs often struggle in this area, and risk falling behind when focusing on growing their small business.

But good news! There are some tried-and-tested tips that can help you stay on top of your company’s financial health and efficiently track your business’ transactions. In this article, we’ll go over some actionable tips to help you take control of your accounting responsibilities.

 

Tip #1: Keep it simple

As a small business owner, you should consider using cash-basis accounting. It’s a simple accounting method that’s used to track income and expenses.

In cash-basis accounting, you record transactions only after they’re completed, and make a record when you get paid or when you make payments. Ideally, transactions should be recorded on the day they occur.

 

Tip #2: Know which data points to record

Recording everything on a daily basis may seem tedious at first, but keeping a detailed record of your money transfers is necessary for reconciliation purposes.

Here are the main data points you need to record for incoming funds:

 

• Products or services sold
• Customers (or businesses) to whom you sell your products or services
• Amount received from customers (or businesses)
• Date when the payments were received

And here are the data points you need to record for outgoing funds:

 

• Taxes paid
• Paychecks and bonuses
• Business operating expenses (e.g. inventory, marketing, and equipment)
• Overhead expenses (e.g. rent, utilities, and legal fees).

There are several reasons why you must keep a detailed record of your company transactions. For starters, it can help you claim small business tax deductions depending on your income or the business structure.

Moreover, some received money may not be part of your revenue. For example, the sales tax you collect isn’t revenue. If you put all your money into a single account, it will be difficult to separate sales tax payments from your actual income.

 

Tip #3: Follow up on receivables

Sending an invoice to your customers doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll receive the payment on time. Good practice involves issuing invoices as soon as you deliver a product or service as it significantly increases the chances of timely payment.

Remember to follow up with vendors who owe you money as the payment deadline approaches. You can also offer early payment discounts to motivate your clients to pay on time!

Additionally, accepting online payments and using cloud-based accounting software can help you streamline your accounting tasks. With Ablii, you can simplify your business transactions. The platform helps you automate your accounting, track receivables, and get your money faster.

 

Tip #4: Create financial projections

Financial projections and reporting may take time, but they can help you estimate where your business will be in the next few years. This information puts you in a good position to make sound decisions regarding investments.

Financial forecasting can be complicated for some people as it involves figuring out the different ways expenses can change due to forces beyond your control – such as interest rates and inflation – as well as decisions made by your customers. The same goes for revenue since you need to take various factors into account, such as an increase in prices and how many new customers you acquire each year.

Consider starting with a profit and loss statement, which tells you how profitable your company is over a period of time. By analyzing it regularly, you will be able to get insight into which business areas you’re making money and which ones you’re losing money in.

 

Conclusion

Accounting for small business owners may seem complicated at first, however, it becomes a whole lot easier if you implement some simple tips to better understand your business’ financial health.

Do you regularly record your business transactions? Share your best money management tips in the comments section below.

 

Today is a good day. You’re happy with Ablii’s simple, low-cost, and easy way to make payments. But did you know, that through the power of your own network, you can further improve your payables and receivables process? And not just your payables and receivables, but that of each member of your business network?

Let’s start with an example. It’s tax time, and your vendor is doing last minute bank account reconciliation. You paid the invoice in question through Ablii months ago. Your vendor received the payment, and was notified by email. However, through a series of unfortunate events, your vendor accidentally deleted the payment confirmation email (gasp!). After combing through months of bank statements, they do the sensible thing and pick up the phone to call you. It’s 7pm on a Friday. Because you go above and beyond for your partners, you pick up the phone. Through a few quick clicks, you pull up the invoice, payment, and confirmation through Ablii and resend the information to your vendor.

In the example above, there is one key thing missing: information. One party has better access to the payment information than the other. Now, imagine this example again, but this time, both you and your vendor have access to the same information through Ablii. The result? Your Friday night is saved! Your vendor can easily access the same information at their fingertips.

Time saved with escalation management, as in the example above, isn’t the only benefit to having your network of vendors, customers, and suppliers all on the same payment platform:

Reduce fees

As only the “payer” pays a fee, the sender receives the money for free–unlike wire transfers, which are expensive and cost both the payer and receiver.

Better manage cash flow

Having all your payables and receivables in one place will help you manage cash flow for both your expected revenues and expenses.

Improve visibility

All parties have access to the same information, and you have timelines for when payments will arrive or leave your account. This is contrary to checks, where the payer is at the mercy of the receiver…who has up to 6 months to make a deposit.

Better reporting

Easily search payment history for questions and inquiries. Never dig through emails again, as the payment information is attached to the invoice.

 

It’s time to start now

You have the ability to harness the power of your network to improve the payables and receivables process for all. At the end of the day, our business clients come for affordable payments, but they stay for the network. Your business partners will thank you.

Have a business to refer? Contact us to find out about our latest referral bonus!

 

As a small business owner it can be intimidating even thinking about how to compete with the big business that leads your industry. Every industry has at least one  giant with more spending power and resources than their competitors. It may seem that this giant company has the upper hand in both the physical and digital world, however, this does not mean there aren’t any areas in which you can outwit and outmaneuver your competition. It’s time to think creatively! Here are 5 areas where you can compete, and win, against a big business.

1. Be nimble

This is advice as old as David and Goliath, but that’s because it’s true. What small businesses lack in purchasing power, they make up for in agility. Meanwhile, big businesses take a very long time to change direction, so don’t be afraid to pivot!

Small businesses often have less red tape, and fewer processes in place, meaning when appropriate, it can be much quicker to implement change. Even if this tip refers to minor changes or innovations, small businesses have the upper hand here. Take advantage of new opportunities and iterate quickly, which is much easier for you. Always be sure to keep your ear to the ground, as businesses don’t often win off the biggest ideas, but simply being the first to market.

2. Excel in customer service

This is both a tip and a warning. Small businesses can have a true competitive advantage in the area of customer service, but a blunder in this area can have a much greater impact on your bottom line. Still, as a small business owner, you can build a much stronger, more personal relationship with customers. Many customers are willing to pay a little more to receive truly great customer service, and there are very few exceptions to that rule.

“The more advocates you have, the fewer ads you have to buy.” – Dharmesh Shah

3. Connect with your audience

A benefit of being a small business is your ability to connect with your audience digitally. This is related to customer service, as your ability to build a connection with individuals is enhanced, but this is not about answering customer complaints. Connect with your customer base by providing something for free! Maybe you’re a hardware store providing renovation tips, or a sports physio clinic providing exercise prescription. What you provide does not matter as much as the fact that you are providing something, and showing that you truly care about your customer base.

Social media platforms are perfect platforms to engage customers, but know your audience! If you are a personal trainer, Instagram is likely the best platform for you, but a business-to-business payment platform like Ablii is likely not going to to do as well on Instagram, so look to Twitter or LinkedIn if you play in the B2B space.

4. Play in a small ‘niche’ market

It is often the case that big businesses need to play in multiple spaces at once in order to grow, or even maintain their size. While large Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) companies like General Mills or Kelloggs saw success for years, we are now seeing dozens of small companies taking a bite out of their market share. The reason is, these smaller companies decided to focus on one product and do it really well, while the ‘big guys’ need to maintain their presence across many products. Let the big guys make decisions based on national, or even global sales trends while you focus on having a great understanding of your local or regional customer needs.

5. Reputation is everything

A business’ reputation does not rely purely on product quality, or customer service, which is why this rule relates back to everything we’ve discussed in this article. There are plenty of large businesses that are viewed as mediocre or worse, and while they may have been able to expand using pricing tactics or large marketing budgets, small businesses must rely on building a reputation for all-around excellence. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “It takes so many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it”, so keep reputation above all else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given that the B2B payments industry is valued at around $127 trillion, you’d be surprised to learn that the industry continues to use outdated payment solutions – like checks.

 

However, some business owners may not know that check payments have several hidden costs associated with them. There is also an inherent lack of security and efficiency that comes with using checks.

 

With this in mind, in this article, we’ll walk through some of the common hidden costs of checks and take a closer look at how check payments impact your business’ bottom line. We’ll also explain how you can effectively reduce costs by opting for a more secure business payment system.

 

3 hidden costs of checks

 

Despite the fact that sending a check can cost you around $20 per payment (and take around five business days to clear), paper checks are still the most common way for businesses to pay other businesses. And there are a few reasons why:

• Familiarity. Checks have long been a part of the B2B payments ecosystem for most businesses.
• Control. Business owners derive a false sense of control over their cash flow from personally seeing and signing every check.
• Universal acceptance. Check payments are universally accepted, which make checks a reliable payment option that’s easy to issue and keep track of.

 

 

In addition to the outrageously high transaction fees, here are some of the hidden costs of checks that often go unnoticed:

1. Labor costs. Labor costs – which include administration and accounting – are perhaps the largest expense businesses incur from managing B2B payment operations in-house. Everything from handling check approvals to payment exceptions, is a manual process that requires a significant time investment.
2. Fees and distribution costs. Paper checks need to be distributed to vendors and suppliers, which means you’ll need to pay for mailing supplies. Additionally, you can also expect to incur all sorts of fees – such as processing fees – to get your payment through.
3. Check fraud costs. Check fraud is the most common type of payment fraud, particularly in the B2B marketplace. In fact, according to the 2018 AFP Payments Fraud Survey, 74 percent of respondents reported experiencing check fraud.

 

 

It’s easy to see that check payments cost you more than just transaction fees, which in itself is considerably high, and, all these fees will undoubtedly affect your bottom line.

 

How check payments impact your bottom line

 

Businesses end up spending too much time with AR/AP management activities that involve manually handling check payments and approvals. Needless to say, this is painfully slow, prone to error, and keeps you from scaling your business. Additionally, failing to digitize your B2B payments system can expose you to fraud.

 

However, many banks continue to use systems implemented in the 1970s and have yet to build tools that (1) integrate with their existing systems and (2) help businesses streamline B2B payments. That said, the current state of check payments remains the same and undoubtedly impacts your business’ bottom line in more ways than one.

 

How to reduce check fees and costs

 

The easiest way to streamline B2B payments, thereby effectively reducing check fees and costs – is by switching over to an electronic business payment solution. Banks are slow to innovate in this area, but Financial Technology companies are recognizing a need for small business payment products.

 

Here’s how a business payment product can help you grow your bottom line:

• Improve business payment management by letting you manage AR/AP activities from a single, centralized platform.
• Reduce costs by eliminating the need to pay for paper checks, mailing supplies, postage, and processing fees.
• Speed up payment processing times by replacing slow paper check payments with online payments.
• Track payments and increase visibility into payables and receivables.
• Customize payment approvals to avoid any unnecessary delays.

Secure and affordable business payments for SMBs

 

Ablii is a business payments solution for SMBs that enables companies to move money in a traceable, reconcilable, and affordable way.

 

Sending payments via paper check is a fairly long process and can cost you up to $20. Ablii makes it easy for businesses to issue payments by simplifying it down to a four-step process: select a contact, enter the payment details, approve the payment, and click the Submit button. Not to mention, you only pay $0.75 per domestic transaction and $5 for a cross-border payment

 

With check payments, your accounting department has to manually keep track of payment statuses and reconcile check payments, which are inherently prone to human error. Ablii automatically imports invoices from your integrated accounting software and uses data encryption and bank-grade security controls to make sure all payments (and payment information) that go through the platform are secure from fraud.

 

Paper check payments are rife with hidden costs and inefficiencies. One way to save money, automate accounting operations, and improve vendor relationships is by switching over to an online B2B payment solutions, like Ablii.

 

Do you agree that outdated payment systems – like paper checks – are preventing your business from growing? Let us know in the comments section below.