Improve Treasury Management with Integrated Payables

If your business is finding it difficult to manage your payments in an easy and convenient manner, integrated payables may be the answer.

Executive Summary with Sam Prudhomme, Treasury Management Product Manager

This comprehensive treasury management solution can help your company streamline payments processing, with the added benefits of reducing costs and improving operations.

This solution also allows business to, reduce the risk of fraud, provide increased cash flow and support the growth of the company.

Sam Prudhomme, Treasury Management Product Manager at Regions Bank, explains how integrated payables work and how investing in this solution can benefit a business.

What is integrated payables?

Integrated payables is a service that allows a business to consolidate payments to vendors into a single file that is sent to Regions Bank for processing. Regions then creates the payments based on your instructions.

Depending on preference, checks can be printed and mailed; or, payments can be sent to the vendors electronically by virtual card, ACH or wire, depending on which solution best meets the needs of your business and vendors.

What are the benefits of integrated payables?

Integrated payables streamline the payment process by consolidating it into one step. You maintain complete control of the funds and instruct the bank when to release the payment transactions

Through this streamlined payment process, the Integrated payables solution also reduces cost by allowing Regions to process payments for much less than a company would be able to do internally on its own.

The process prevents fraud by allowing for:

• Dual Control for file processing notifications for file and transaction review and approval
• Positive Pay, which matches the checks issued against the checks presented for payment
• Debit protection for Automated Clearing House payments

Integrated payables also allow businesses to extend their accounts payables by scheduling payments to post on their due date or take advantage of discounts by paying early or extending payment terms.

In addition, our Integrated Payables solution includes an online web portal for vendors, allowing them to view payment and remittance details for virtual card and ACH payments. Vendors will receive an email notification when a payment is made and through the self-service Web portal vendors have immediate access to view the payment amount and purpose. Vendors can also view archived (historical) transactions through this secure portal. With immediate access to payment information, the web portal improves vendor relationships by reducing payment inquiries and disputes.

What are the challenges of integrated payables?

Many banks will require companies to provide a specific file format, placing the burden on the business to align its systems with the bank's.

However, Regions Bank takes a different approach. Instead of requiring customers to align with our existing systems, we ask them to provide the payment output file in the same format that is produced within their accounts payable system. We then customize our programming to fit their needs, reducing the time commitment and IT requirements on their side.

Customers have two options to provide us with payment instruction files, either by accessing a secure website and uploading the file, or by securely transmitting their file to Regions.

What kinds of businesses can benefit most from this solution?

Businesses that currently use multiple payment methods are excellent candidates for integrated payables. In addition, those that are considering moving from paper payments to electronic, such as virtual cards, should consider integrated payables.

As part of our integrated payables service, we can analyze your vendors to see how many of your payees process Visa. With that information, we can communicate to you the number of vendors that utilize virtual cards to access possible incentives, such as rebate programs, that are available.

This creates the opportunity for a better transaction process for both you and the vendor because you are using a preferred method of payment that is beneficial for both parties.

How can integrated payables provide increased cash flow to businesses?

Integrated payables better manages the accounts payable process by leveraging automation to reduce payment processing turnaround, placing your company in a better position to take advantage of supplier discounts.

Many astute businesses are changing their payment process from check to virtual card to take advantage of these payment discounts and to benefit from an extended Days Payable Outstanding (DPO) to improve working capital management

Regions provides a seamless transition plan to migrate your accounts payable disbursements to electronic payments with the integrated payments service.

How can integrated payables contribute to the growth of a business?

One of the biggest concerns I hear is that a business is growing but it doesn't want to hire more people. The Integrated Payables service is a way for businesses to manage the payables process without having to increase its expenses by hiring more employees. It eliminates many of the internal processes by outsourcing payables, allowing management to focus attention on growing the business, not on paying the bills.