You Never Asked for it, or Wanted it, but YOU GOT IT! The Portal Dilemma – Seamless A/P and A/R Integration
Portals…. The credit professional didn’t ask for it, but they’re here and must be dealt with. Over the past 10 years AP and AR portals have become an ever-growing nuisance for the credit professional. In fact, on average each CRF member deals with more than 15 portals and many have hundreds of these headaches. We are certainly in a self-service environment and the onset of a growing e-commerce landscape has added even more complexity to traversing the accounts receivable portal environment.
FIS, a CRF Platinum Partner, shared with us (through a recent webinar) how portals came into existence, the benefits they bring, and the best practices for credit professionals to consider when entering this complex landscape.
“Why Do Portals Even Exist?” Here are the top reasons:
- The intent is to reduce manual work when considering the procure-to-pay process.
- They operate 24/7/365 and allow customers to purchase when and where they want.
- They are supposed to reduce the reliance on human capital.
The reality is that they come with challenges – and here are several for consideration:
- They do not eliminate the reliance on human capital and many organizations have limited resources to support this changing environment.
- There is a lack of leverage when dealing with portals because of the strict rules that must be followed in order to present and get paid for goods and/or services sold to a customer.
- Each portal environment is different, resulting in a one-to-many relationship and therefore a lack of consistent and repeatable processes….they are independently unique.
Given the above, and as Keith Cowart of FIS shared, several best practices can be followed in order to mitigate the complexities of operating in a portal environment including:
- Data Integration – Establish your data feeds and updates to be in real time as compared to a batch model. This allows you to detect differences quicker and address them as they occur.
- Multi-Channel – Your process should be bilateral and include a multichannel approach for both the delivery of invoices and the acceptance of payment. Today’s environment includes delivering invoices the way a customer wants to see them and for the acceptance of payment that fits a customer’s needs. A one trick pony approach does not fit into today’s business climate.
- Access – Create access points that focus on both a one-to-one and one-to-many so that you meet the needs of both small and large customers, who may have different responsibilities and requirements in the order-to-cash cycle.
Today’s portal environment is certainly complex, and the growth in the use of this technology is placing pressure on credit organizations to smoothly facilitate the invoice and payment process(es). What was shared by FIS creates a framework to approach (and ease) the complexities of operating within these parameters.
The webinar can be found in the Credit Research Foundation Knowledge Store and CRF members can download this (and many other recorded webinars) for FREE.