The CEO of Billtrust, Flint Lane, predicted that B2B modernization would take time and would be backed by an international standard, or, to use another term, a language of data, that directly links buyers and suppliers, as well as AR and AP departments.
Nobody wants to take the lead because “too many people” would need to change the way they operate, he claimed.
The removal of checks is another thing that won’t happen, at least not very soon.
They will “continue to decline, and that drop will speed up as better means for transmitting electronic payments become available,” added Lane. Paper checks won’t fully disappear unless the post office starts charging much more for sending them.
Some habits just can’t be entirely removed since they are so established. There are far too many people without bank accounts in the nation, as well as far too many businesses that choose checks over electronic transactions for various factors.
Checks have become easier to handle, which, according to Webster, is another reason why they have become so sticky. Even though they have a reputation for being a fraud magnet, there are adequate procedures, tools, and programs in place to make them simpler to use, mostly through automation.
In fact, Lane claims that for businesses who insist on utilizing checks for payment, it’s a case of “out of sight, out of mind.”
He observed, referring to the way businesses send bills to customers, “They’re a tremendously inefficient means to automate things.” Smaller firms that still move payments online like consumers may enjoy the portals, but larger enterprises with thousands of suppliers to pay will not find them appropriate.
Teams working on account payable (AP) put time and resources into creating what are essentially robots that process thousands of payments through these e-portals.
Lane contends that not needing to automate in the first place is preferable to piecemeal automation of the B2B payments flow.
