This brief announcement in businesswire underlines some of the increased momentum in receivables management automation. This is something that began trending about 2-3 years ago and gained additional tailwinds with the pandemic. In this case, we have Kone expanding their use of Billtrust capabilities into their Canadian operations.
Readers may recall that Billtrust, a mature New Jersey-based fintech, recently went public through the SPAC route, which we covered in this channel.
“Billtrust, a B2B accounts receivable automation and integrated payments leader, announces KONE Inc., a leader in the elevator and escalator industry, will now be using Billtrust’s Invoicing platform and Business Payments Network (BPN) in Canada, enabling the company to send more invoices electronically while positioning them to accept digital payments through their preferred channels.“
Historically speaking, when it comes to investments in financial operations, receivables automation has taken a back seat to the payables part of systems and processes that companies seek to modernize. However, more recently we’ve seen a trend towards more of a strategic review of end-to-end financial operations, as companies more clearly see how the entire chain of events is connected. We covered this in a recent member report as well.
Whether due to the pandemic or just a natural evolution of the way automation projects are now reviewed, given the spreading of APIs for integration purposes, companies are taking a broader view across order-to-cash cycles. Companies like Billtrust provide a service in the market that allows for resource deployment to more revenue-generating activities while reducing the implementation timeframes and stress of hosted operations.
“’Expanding our relationship with Billtrust brings me confidence that we are leveraging the most advanced cash flow acceleration capabilities available,’ said Ken Schmid, President and CEO, KONE Americas. ‘There is great power and efficiency in a trusted, single-platform provider across the order-to-cash process, and we are thrilled to leverage the strong U.S. results we’ve had with Billtrust in Canada.…We appreciate the opportunity to expand our relationship with KONE while increasing our international presence,’ said Steve Pinado, Billtrust President. ‘We look forward to supporting both their U.S. and Canadian teams as they continue their digital transformation journey across the accounts receivable spectrum.’”
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
