Some Australian businesses still fail to use B2B payments – report

According to results published in the report B2B Payments: 2015 Australia and New Zealand Research from consulting company Deloitte, card and digital account-based payment mechanisms are typically considered better, faster and cheaper by organisations that use them.

Deloitte has surveyed 150 medium and large organisations (67% in Australia and 33% in New Zealand) to ascertain key B2B payments metrics and trends.

As banks, card networks and fintechs increasingly work together to bring digital solutions to market to improve making and receiving payments, the findings that card and digital account payments can be at least 70% more cost effective than the traditional purchase order process are compelling.

The survey respondents say digital solutions also provide downstream benefits of better data for analytics and reporting (reported by 63% of buying organisations), enhanced cash flow (73%) and reduced manual work via process automation (74% reported reduced approvals and 68% experienced a reduction in administration).

However despite the fact that digital B2B payments help rid businesses of red tape, many still struggle to cut out paper. With almost half of survey respondents (47%) not using the available solutions and 100% still having paper processes to support cheque payments, there is still considerable opportunity to improve take-up.

Eighty two percent of survey respondents reported that cards were faster and a very efficient way to streamline the overall procure-to-pay workflows, increasing the average speed of cards over traditional processes by 1.4 times.

And when it comes to being paid, 73% of the survey respondents rated faster payment as an important benefit of accepting cards, with 49% saying that cards reduced the cost of doing business.

The report notes that users are shifting away from thinking of cards just as a tool for managing employee expenses, to realising the potential of digital payment and reporting solutions. Sixty one percent of suppliers responding reported spending less effort in chasing payments, 60% claim better customer relationships, and 51% post improved reconciliation.