How Cloud Accounting Streamlines Payment Operations

Overcoming The Bottlenecks of Modern Payments Operations

When it comes to payments, organizations still face challenges. Major inefficiencies, siloed data, and a lack of visibility into the payment process is causing organizations to miss out on their potential. But despite this dissatisfaction, few are taking action to improve the process.

Far from being a simple lack of goodwill, despite the desire and need for improved payment operations, many decision makers face barriers that prevent them from making those improvements. According to Modern Treasury's 2022 report 'The State of Payments Operations' 81% of decision makers say they face barriers to upgrading their company’s payment operations. Barriers they noted included:

• A lack of resources from the technical team (39%),
• Changing existing processes (31%)
• Existing technologies would be difficult to change (31%).

Finally, some companies struggle with cultural resistance to change within their organization. In an episode of the Cloud Accounting Podcast from June 2022 "Why Accountants Don’t Trust Tech", CPA and Accounting Technologist Blake Oliver reflects on why accountants tend to be skeptical of new products, and adoption tends to be kind of slow:

"The reason the sales cycle is long, it's not just because accountants are conservative by nature. It's because we have to vet the apps for our clients, because the worst thing is when you recommend something to a client, and then it disappears."

"Not to mention for accountants in the sales circle, your time's dictated by the tax year and deadlines (...). And then on top of that, your clients are small businesses and they have their own schedule and variables."

Despite perceived obstacles, the adoption of modern payment processes is vital for a number of reasons, such as:

• Enabling game-changing innovations—including and real-time technology
• Cutting costs (across investments in tech, time, and human resources) and making businesses more efficient.
• Maximizing profits including faster go-to-market, greater efficiency and clarity, and increased capacity for scale.

The good news is that these barriers can be overcome with some thoughtful planning and strategic investments in modern payment processing technology. Hence the fact that more and more accountants and bookkeppers use Cloud accounting as a straightforward way to streamline payment operations.

How Cloud Accounting Software Eases the Transition from Manual to Instant Payments

Cloud accounting isn't a new concept. In fact, it's really just the beginning of a technology revolution that will dramatically impact how you do business.

Background: For years, cloud computing in general has slowly been shaping the way businesses operate. However, most accounts payable processes and systems remain on-premise and continue to be manual and slower than they should be. As emerging technologies like real-time and embedded payments become more mainstream, business processes and systems need to evolve to keep up with changing expectations — both from the client's point of view as well as within your own firm.

To meet these demands, many firms are turning to open source software and cloud accounting jobs for help. Today's open source solutions offer flexibility and scalability that can make them invaluable tools for any organization's payment operations team. Simply put, Cloud accounting streamlines the process to make invoices to cash processes smoother and more efficient. It eases the transition by combining payments, invoicing and software tools into one seamless system:

Taking the 'pain' out of payments: Modernize your Payment Operations with the cloud

Payment operations are the lifeblood of any business. Therefore if your current payment processing system is outdated, it may be costing you money in fees, lost time, and risk of fraud. Cloud accounting solutions are now the standard for most businesses. They allow firms and companies to make simple and secure payments without chasing bank account details or having to log into online banking.

When it comes to payment operations, there are many advantages that come with using Cloud based accounting software such as multiple payment options (BACS, Open-Banking, Wallet, bulk payment, request approval, pay a deposit) or payments of invoices in foreign currencies.

So far, nothing really new, as many traditional accounting software already include these features. The real strength of Cloud accounting lies in its ability to create approval paths and automation rules including:

• Automated validation workflows, ready to use and configurable
• Differentiated management of user rights
• Fraud control via internal processes

It provides an audit trail of all transactions thus reinforcing security, transparency and control. By automating many of the processes involved in making payments, firms and companies streamline their payment operations, reduce costs and paperwork and get an holistic view of the payment cycle.

A Safe Platform For Secure Transactions

One of the disadvantages of cloud based accounting software is security. Many businesses are still reluctant to use cloud solutions because they don't feel like they can trust them with sensitive data such as customer payments. Fortunately, this is not the case with Libeo.

All payments made with Libeo are ran through a fraud analysis based on multiple criteria to detect risky / unusual activity :

• IP addresses (different country or IP address compared to usual, etc.)
• Volumes of payments
• Previous activity
• Destination
• Etc.

Every day, CSM teams check high fraud risk to control validity of the payment. If the risk is identified as high, payment is blocked and CSM will make a call to check.

In short, if your company is considering making the switch to cloud accounting software but security is holding you back, rest easy and take a step into the Cloud to enjoy these benefits.