In line with the ever-expanding move away from manually organized corporate payment processes, this announcement in CPA Practice Advisor reviews an expanded partnership between Sage and CSI for delivering automated payables. The offering embeds the CSI payments platform capabilities into Sage Intacct, a cloud-based financial management system.
The growing use of APIs makes these types of integrations more commonplace, improving the end-user experience into a single environment, allowing the best features of each system to interact in a seamless manner.
‘From processing automated clearing house (ACH) batches to printing and mailing checks, the accounts payable (AP) process is often time-consuming and costly. Finance teams end up jumping between multiple systems or getting bogged down in manual processes to deliver and reconcile vendor payments. With the new Sage Intacct Vendor Payments powered by CSI, businesses can streamline and automate their payments process. This solution brings together Sage Intacct’s best-in-class cloud financials and the trusted payments platform from Corporate Spending Innovations to deliver a seamless payments experience. The new offering enables customers to pay vendors quickly, speed up reconciliations, and offer more ways to pay – all while reducing payment transaction costs.’
We recently released some member research on the topic of cash cycle digital convergence, of which this partnership is a good example. Across the spectrum of financial operations, more and more is being provided through combining separate solutions into a more integrated experience. Benefits to automation include cost efficiencies and improved flexibility around working capital, among other things, including generally happier suppliers. Another reminder that things are rapidly changing and laggards should pay attention.
‘Vendor Payments powered by CSI streamlines existing workflows, so customers can process everything from bills through reconciliation without leaving the Sage Intacct experience. Automating payments and eliminating manual processes, as well as the opportunities for errors, frees up significant time to focus on more strategic activities. Users submit their payments in Sage Intacct and Vendor Payments handles the rest.’
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
