Basware, the global leader in purchase-to-pay solutions, today announced that it has been named the best global provider of Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment Services by Global Finance, a leading magazine on international financial markets. For the third consecutive year, the magazine recognized Basware’s exclusive position in its ranking of the World’s Best Treasury and Cash Management Banks and Providers 2012, which will be published in the March 2012 issue of the magazine.

Basware received this recognition for its innovative leadership in invoice automation, procurement, and connectivity solutions that improve supplier and buyer relationships and promote electronic document exchange around the world, through one of the world’s largest open networks for e-invoice and purchase message transactions. The Basware Open Network allows suppliers to implement e-invoicing and connect to buyers without installing proprietary technology, which is typically required with traditional closed networks. By making it easier for suppliers to submit e-invoices and encouraging use of more electronic processes, Basware enables buyers and suppliers to drive down processing costs and improve control over cash flow, while increasing critical internal visibility between Procurement and Finance, and externally between buyers and suppliers.

“It’s a great honor for Basware to be selected once again in Global Finance’s annual ranking of the World’s Best Treasury and Cash Management Providers,” said Bob Cohen, Basware vice president, North America. “The award underscores our commitment to helping companies around the world gain critical real-time visibility and business benefits by more effectively managing their spend, cash flow, and supplier transactions and relationships.”

“In the current volatile global economic environment, treasurers need the best tools and advice available to make capital work harder than ever,” says Global Finance publisher Joseph D. Giarraputo. “Our awards identify the banks and providers of products and services that consistently improve transaction processes to speed collections, cut costs and reduce risks.”

Global Finance editors—with input from industry analysts, corporate executives and technology experts—selected the best providers of treasury and cash management services. A variety of subjective and objective criteria were used for choosing the winners. Factors considered include: profitability, market share and reach, customer service, competitive pricing, product innovation and the extent to which treasury and cash management providers have successfully differentiated themselves from their competitors around core service provision.

About Global Finance
Global Finance is a monthly magazine founded in 1987 by publishing entrepreneurs Joseph Giarraputo and Carl Burgen. Its mission is to help corporate leaders, bankers and investors chart the course of global business and finance.

Its website, www.gfmag.com, offers analysis and articles that are the heritage of 22 years of experience in international financial markets, and provides a valuable source of data on 192 countries.

The latest issue of Financial Operations Matters, published by the Institute of Financial Operations contained the article, “Are you ready for lean A/P? 4 Trends to watch in 2012.”  As the article highlights, lean A/P is the outcome of analyzing existing business processes, uncovering inefficiencies, redefining processes and applying technology where appropriate to support automated processing. Best practices at companies with the lowest A/P costs typically include: a high degree of automation, end-to-end integration of A/P with purchasing, movement to electronic payments, embracing a self-service model for suppliers, and maximizing revenue from card rebate programs.

I concur with the points outlined in this article.  As today’s business culture evolves and companies seek to emulate the success of best practice organizations, 2012 will see a continued push toward leaner operations and the following trends emerging.

Automation will continue to grow.  Regardless of the many advantages of automation such as shortened processing cycles, reduced lost spend, elimination of duplicate payments, and reduced time spent on rectifying issues, the rocky economy has made it increasingly more difficult for senior management to justify the capital expenditures historically required for an automation project. However, given the growing availability of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based solutions, automation will not only continue to grow, but it should be easier for organizations to justify the move to automation.

SaaS Solutions will become ever more attractive. SaaS solutions eliminate the initial license fees and ongoing IT costs associated with installing and running software on-site.  These low entry costs will help justify the business case for automation at a time when there is a reduced appetite for projects requiring large capital expenditures.

Shrinking A/P departments. The relentless shift towards automated processing and touchless A/P processes continue to reduce the need for traditional A/P professionals for whom a large part of their job is entering data, cross-checking purchase orders, and processing payments.  The focus is shifting to analysis and exception handling which require higher level problem solving skills.   This will create opportunities for those with analytical and processing skills.  These higher skilled A/P professionals will continue to be in high demand.

Push toward self-service solutions.  According to the article, at Home Depot, “80% of supplier inquiries can be handled via the [vendor] portal with payment inquiries as the number one call driver to [their A/P] help desk.”  Full featured vendor portals allow suppliers to perform their own queries, obtain payment details, and deliver remittance information in electronic format for input to accounts receivables systems.  Expect to see more automated feeds of payment and remittance information as the push continues to achieve straight-through-processing.

From cost center to revenue center.  As companies struggle with increased competition, lower margins, and restricted revenues, card rebate programs will be readily embraced.  A/P professionals will distinguish themselves by implementing A/P card programs that generate revenue, and will use this revenue to fund additional automation projects.

How lean is your A/P department?  Are you doing more with less?  Are your automation efforts proactive or reactive? Are your A/P plans for 2012 in line with trends mentioned here? I’d like to hear from you.

ReadSoft and PreferredPartner are leveraging their partnership to offer advanced document capture integration with predictive analysis software, through the bundled offering of FORMS by ReadSoft and IBM’s SPSS Data Collection. FORMS by ReadSoft allows users to automatically extract information from paper-based and electronic forms, and transfer the information to any system.

The IBM SPSS Data Collection technology platform supports the entire survey research lifecycle and allows users to simplify and automate the survey creation and analysis processes. Data Collection is part of the IBM SPSS predictive analytics software product family that provides a comprehensive set of predictive analytics tools. With the ReadSoft-IBM combined solution, SPSS users can remove manual data entry and transference from the survey process, resulting in more efficient, streamlined operations.

TradeCard connects all trading partners in the supply chain and provides visibility into a single version of the data, from planning and ordering stages through production, shipment and settlement. A social media model for the supply chain allows the entire network of parties to be updated instantly on orders or changes, and to collaborate on better decisions.

TradeCard’s 2011 Performance Highlights
• Network Growth: More than 2,000 organizations joined the TradeCard Platform in 2011. Purchase order volume increased 37% from 2010 and total value of transactions settled on the TradeCard Platform rose 39%. Total cartons processed through TradeCard’s Factory Xpress® in 2011 grew 440% versus 2010. Financial service volumes on the TradeCard Platform increased 33%. Total purchase orders from TradeCard’s strategic alliance with Avery Dennison were up 181% from the prior year.

• New Solutions for the Supply Chain: Five major brands and retailers signed on to employ TradeCard’s Advanced Collaboration™ solution to reduce raw materials costs and lead times, minimize markdowns and stock outs, and optimize capacity and materials availability. Four brands and retailers selected TradeCard’s Factory Xpress solution to reduce chargebacks, logistics costs and cycle times. More than 4,600 factories and suppliers use Factory Xpress today.

• Professional Talent Growth: TradeCard added 61 employees worldwide in 2011.

• New Deals and Renewals: Hurley, Patagonia, Perry Ellis, Levi Strauss & Co., Columbia Sportswear and Collective Brands are among the companies that expanded use of the TradeCard Platform to streamline new areas of the supply chain. New brands and retailers added to TradeCard’s customer list in 2011 include MS Mode and a global sports eyewear and performance apparel manufacturer.

Document and workflow efficiencies through TradeCard span multiple trading partners within a supply network to generate time and cost savings for buyers, suppliers and service providers around the world. Financial services embedded into the Platform lower trade financing costs and reduce credit related risk. Hosted technology and global support delivered by TradeCard minimize transaction costs. TradeCard’s global support team quickly onboards suppliers while TradeCard’s global network provides the necessary infrastructure to rapidly shift trading partners or services from region to region as economic conditions change.

Corcentric’s IPO solution utilizes the industry standard, Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association’s (AAIA) IPO 2.0 to coordinate transactions between Dorman’s business systems and their buyers. By using Corcentric’s IPO solution, Dorman can eliminate manual processes associated with special parts ordering, including locating and ordering special order parts.

Additionally, within Corcentric’s IPO solution, Dorman will be using Corcentric’s OneConnect EDI solution to electronically exchange invoices.

“As the Purchase to Pay market continues to increase, solution providers like Corcentric will continue to grow their customer base,” says Henry Ijams, Founder of PayStream Advisors.  “PayStream is always thrilled to learn that one of our clients is experiencing continued growth.”

PayStream has highlighted three of the top responses to our question.  Please note that company names were withheld for privacy purposes.

Interoffice Ooops
James Gladstone from a leading hotel chain writes, “In a previous company, we were cleaning up to move, and I found an interoffice envelope behind some file cabinets.  I looked inside and there was an invoice returned from the customer with a $5,000 payment.  The check/invoice was over two years old.  We had such poor controls, no one even knew it was missing and just carried the receivable for two years.  The funny thing is we deposited the check, knowing for sure it would be rejected for a stale date, but it cleared, and the customer never even said anything.”

Disgruntled Delivery
Robin Holcomb is in the transportation industry and provided us with a more scandalous missing invoice story, stating, “Many years ago, we apparently had some very disgruntled truck drivers (as we were in the middle of a labor dispute).  Instead of delivering the big red mail bags, they decided to hide them in the ceiling rafters above the dropped ceiling tiles at several of our locations.   Those bags weren’t found for YEARS…in fact they only surfaced when the ceiling had to be dismantled for replacement.  In addition to vendor invoices – the ‘lost’ mailbags contained customer checks, employee timecards, etc.    I hate to even think about how much money all that rework ended up costing the company, due to the drivers’ shenanigans.”

ATM Blunder
Last, but not least, a national banking representative writes, “I once found an invoice with payment in an envelope that had managed to stay jammed inside one of our ATM’s that had been there for over 7 years!  It was discovered years later while doing an in-depth maintenance on the ATM.  It goes without saying that it was of no use advising neither the customer nor the company of the found payment/invoice.”

Why e-invoicing?
In addition to reducing the number of lost invoices to zero, there are a number of benefits to e-invoicing, including:

• Completely removes paper processing (there is no paper)
• Dramatically increases data quality (there is no manual data entry / OCR)
• Better reporting and visibility
• Greater opportunity to take early payment discounts
• Better supplier relationships

PayStream Advisors has issued a number of reports on e-invoicing.  For more information regarding e-invoicing research, simply click on the Research Library tab on the PayStream Advisors website.

Look for other upcoming PayStream questions and surveys for your chance to win a Starbuck’s gift card.  Congratulations to the missing invoice winner Robin Holcomb.

Legislative changes to mandate e-invoices or reinforce the value of electronic formats have contributed to this increase in adoption rates. These include:

• The announcement in 2011 by the U.S. Department of the Treasury that by the end of the fiscal year 2012, all Treasury Bureaus will implement an electronic invoice processing solution as part of President Obama’s “Campaign to Cut Waste,” to improve government efficiency and cut costs for taxpayers;

• Mexico defined new legal requirements and mandated enterprises to exchange invoices electronically, if the value exceeds a certain amount or if the enterprise generates revenues of at least 4 million Mexican Pesos (roughly $340,000);

• Germany, the Nordic countries and Benelux states introduced moderate legislation to encourage the use of e-invoicing, but adoption was largely organic through a recognition of the benefits of automation;

• The 2010 requirement by the Finnish State Treasury for state agencies and institutions to receive only e-invoices from their suppliers;

• In 2012, countries such as Greece, Kazakhstan, Norway and Spain will enforce mandatory regulations around e-invoicing.

Globally, e-invoicing has been adopted by countries at different rates and the legislation varies between these regions. In Asia, specifically Japan and China, the electronic version of an invoice is only regarded as a copy and the paper version is required for compliance purposes. This is in contrast to other Asian countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea, where the approach to e-invoicing is advanced and electronic invoices are accepted as official financial documentation.

Expectations ran high for the 2011 holiday shopping season.  Statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce showed ecommerce sales for the first three quarters were up over 17 percent versus 2010.  Forrester Research issued a forecast predicting 15 percent growth for ecommerce during the holiday season.  Federal Express announced plans to hire 20,000 seasonal workers to handle an anticipated 10 percent increase in package volume.

These trends were not lost on merchants.  It was clear that online merchants were looking forward to the prospect of a successful holiday season, with some home pages showing holiday gift guides and early season deals.  Based on the analysis of data from the Chase Paymentech Pulse Index, it appears those ecommerce retailers made wise choices, capitalizing on what turned out to be a very successful extended holiday shopping season.

For the merchants included in the Pulse Index, customers turned to ecommerce in record numbers for their holiday shopping, with year-over-year growth rates far outpacing forecasts.  For the full 2011 holiday shopping season, online sales grew 25%, and transaction volume increased a staggering 37%.

Looking at growth rates by themselves, however, only scratches the surface when it comes to understanding how ecommerce is changing.  By digging into the Pulse Index data, we can identify some clear trends and develop strategies to leverage the changes.

1.  Ecommerce is now mainstream

Ecommerce has joined the mainstream as a holiday shopping option, and we can no longer think of ecommerce as an ‘emerging’ channel.  Online merchants now compete head-to-head with brick and mortar merchants across sectors.  For multi-channel merchants, who do business both online and on the internet, the lines between online and physical stores are blurring with improved integration, promotion, and logistics.

Over the past several years, the online share of retail sales has risen steadily, and has increased sharply in the critical 4th quarter.

Source: Census Bureau

This is not surprising, as consumers focus their online purchases toward discretionary goods, rather than on non-discretionary products, like food and fuel, which are not as easily sold over the web.  What is surprising is the growing difference in share between the 4th quarter and the rest of the year.  This phenomenon demonstrates that consumers are shifting their gift buying to the web at growing rates, driven by price, selection, convenience, and their own positive experiences.

Source: Pulse Index

Ecommerce merchants began heavy promotional activity well before Black Friday. Consumers responded, driving rapid double digit growth rates throughout November.  Early season growth rates were surprising, but not as surprising as the momentum they created to generate the season-long demand.  Following a better than predicted November, with Pulse merchants online holiday sales growing 26% and transactions up 40%, many industry watchers wondered if the momentum could be sustained.

Source: Pulse Index

• One third of this year’s Inner City 100 companies are minority-owned.  Nationally, just 8 percent of companies with annual revenues over $1 million are minority-owned.

• Twenty-four percent of the 2011 Inner City 100 are women-owned. Nationally, only 10 percent of companies with over $1 million in annual revenues are women-owned.

• The 2011 Inner City 100 boasts an average workforce that is comprised of 37 percent of inner city residents.

Last year’s record volume includes transactions processed using Syncada’s invoice
processing, invoice financing, and payment tools. Syncada’s financial supply chain solution allows financial institutions of all sizes to offer their commercial clients standardized business-to-business (B2B) invoice and payment services across a variety of payment types and local currencies. Corporations and governments use Syncada to improve their financial supply chains, promoting automation, visibility, and collaboration to create leaner, more competitive enterprises.

“Creating efficiency in the financial supply chain has a direct, monetary benefit for
banks and corporations, and the dramatic boost in payments processing
demonstrates that our customers recognize Syncada’s value more and more,”
said Kurt Schneiber, Chief Executive Officer of Syncada.

“We are pleased to see Syncada experiencing growth along with the broader Purchase to Pay market. PayStream’s 2012 estimates call for 14% growth in North American transaction volume.  Solution providers like Syncada which bundle invoice, financing and payment capabilities are capturing the attention of finance and treasury managers and driving eInvoice adoption,” states Henry Ijams, Founder of PayStream Advisors.  “We are thrilled with Syncada’s success and anticipate continued growth throughout 2012.”