Turning an electronic payment strategy into action isn't just about checking boxes – it's a roadmap to transforming your AP function from a cost center into a strategic advantage.
Accounts payable (AP) leaders sit at the crossroads of cost control, supplier satisfaction, fraud prevention, and strategic growth. Yet in many organizations, the supplier payment process is still treated like a routine back-office function – manual, messy, and disconnected. The truth is that supplier payments aren’t just a final step in the procure-to-pay process. They influence working capital, shape supplier trust, impact compliance, and directly affect the agility of your organization.
When payments are slow, error-prone, or lacking transparency, the damage goes far beyond late fees. Suppliers become frustrated. Opportunities to capture early payment discounts are missed. Fraud risk skyrockets. Finance leaders are forced to make decisions with outdated or incomplete data.
These inefficiencies snowball, turning a tactical gap into a strategic liability.
Traditional payment approaches – like cutting checks, managing approvals by email, or juggling multiple systems – can’t keep up. They burden teams, expose organizations to risk, and create poor supplier experiences. That’s why forward-thinking AP leaders are turning to payment automation to modernize operations, improve visibility, and help their organizations scale smarter and faster.
Read on to learn the hidden power of electronic payments.
Your Payment Process Isn’t Just Plumbing – It’s a Strategic Lever
Manual payments weaken an organization’s ability to grow and respond to change.
- They drain resources. Teams waste hours every week printing checks, stuffing envelopes, tracking down approvers, and fixing preventable errors. These tasks are not only time-consuming but also draining and expensive. AP talent should be focused on strategic initiatives like data analysis and stakeholder collaboration – not clerical rework.
- They limit visibility and control. Without automation, tracking payment status, managing approvals, or viewing cash flow in real time becomes nearly impossible. Lack of control leads to reactive decisions, misaligned priorities, and inconsistent supplier treatment. Visibility gaps create blind spots that delay action, drive up costs, and increase risk.
- They cause delays and errors. Manual handoffs and fragmented systems increase the likelihood of duplicate payments, payment to the wrong vendor, or missed due dates. These errors erode trust with internal stakeholders and suppliers and potentially impact budgets.
- They undermine supplier relationships. Late or inaccurate payments frustrate vendors and damage goodwill. In competitive industries, that could mean losing access to the best pricing, payment terms, or capacity – or the vendor’s goods and services altogether.
Manual payments aren’t just inefficient – they silently sabotage an organization’s growth, supplier trust, and ability to make smart financial decisions when it matters most.
These are the reasons that more organizations are automating their payments to suppliers.
What’s Driving the Push Toward Payment Automation?
External pressures and internal inefficiencies are forcing AP teams to evolve the payments to suppliers – and fast. Here are four major trends in supplier payments that are hard to ignore:
Trend #1: Digital Transformation
More organizations are ditching paper in favor of digital payment workflows. Digitization reduces the chance for error, accelerates approvals, and creates a centralized view of outgoing cash. With better data and fewer handoffs, AP and finance teams can move faster – and smarter.
Trend #2: Remote Work Readiness
Distributed teams require flexible systems that support secure, anytime-anywhere access. Payment automation enables business continuity, even during office closures, weather events, or global disruptions. With strong controls and audit trails, remote doesn’t have to mean risky.
Trend #3: Rising Supplier Expectations
Suppliers want the same speed, visibility, and self-service options they experience as consumers. They expect timely payments, clear remittance data, and tools to track payment status themselves. Falling short risks vendor frustration, operational delays, and strained negotiations.
Trend #4: Escalating Risk and Fraud
Check fraud, impersonation scams, and business email compromise are rising threats – especially when approvals and account changes are handled manually. Automated invoice-to-pay systems can flag suspicious behavior, enforce segregation of duties, and validate bank account details before funds are released. With billions lost to fraud annually, prevention isn’t optional.
These trends are urgent wake-up calls that demand immediate action from AP leaders.
7 Best Practices for Smarter, Safer, and More Scalable Payments
Follow these proven strategies to bring control, visibility, and efficiency to your supplier payments.
- Go digital. Replace paper checks with Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments, virtual cards, and other digital options to accelerate payments and eliminate postage, envelopes, and manual handling. Digital payments reduce payment processing costs by 80 percent or more and create a more consistent, error-free payment experience. They also enable better tracking, reporting, and audit readiness – while positioning your team for future scalability.
- Centralize payment operations. Bring all payment types and approval workflows into a single platform for greater control and transparency. A centralized hub improves consistency, enforces internal controls, and makes it easier to manage exceptions and anomalies. It also simplifies training, streamlines oversight, and reduces the need to log into multiple systems.
- Modernize payment processes. Offer suppliers multiple digital options and clearly communicate how to enroll and get paid. Align payment terms to incentivize digital payments while improving cash conversion. Empower suppliers with visibility and access – because when they have the right tools, they stop flooding AP with status requests.
- Automate payment routing. Use rules-based automation to apply logic based on payment type, amount, risk level, and timing. This minimizes delays, frees AP teams from repetitive decision-making, and ensures alignment with supplier preferences and payment terms.
- Prioritize supplier enablement. Make onboarding simple with guided enrollment and support resources tailored to your vendors. Provide access to self-service portals with real-time payment status and remittance information. The easier it is for suppliers to get paid, the more likely they are to embrace digital options – and stick with them.
- Strengthen security controls. Prevent fraud by validating payment details, automating dual approvals, and tracking every step of the process. Look for payment solutions that include built-in compliance features, alerts, and bank account verification tools. These controls don’t just protect payments – they protect an organization’s reputation and bottom line.
- Improve visibility. Real-time dashboards allow AP and finance leaders to monitor payment status, working capital, and risk in one place. Early warning indicators flag delays, bottlenecks, and exceptions before they turn into costly issues. With better data, AP can support more accurate cash forecasting and more confident financial decisions.
Smarter payment practices aren’t just a process upgrade – they’re a strategic advantage that protects an organization, empowers AP teams, and drives long-term growth and success.
Build Your Payment Automation Action Plan
If you're ready to future-proof your AP function, start with a clear, step-by-step game plan:
- Assess your current process. Map out every step in your current payment process – what’s automated, what’s manual, and what’s not working. This helps expose hidden inefficiencies and risk. Without this clarity, it’s impossible to prioritize where to improve first.
- Identify pain points and inefficiencies. Talk to staff, review supplier feedback, and measure cycle times and error rates. Look for signs of friction like frequent supplier inquiries or delayed approvals. These insights will become the foundation for your automation goals.
- Engage key stakeholders. IT, procurement, treasury, finance, and leadership all need to be on board with electronic payment initiatives. Show each group how payment automation solves their pain points. Early alignment paves the way for a smoother rollout.
- Set goals and KPIs. Define what success looks like – such as reducing cycle time, increasing adoption, or cutting fraud risk. Establish metrics that are easy to track and are meaningful. These KPIs will help demonstrate ROI and drive accountability.
- Choose a partner and begin rollout. Look for a solution that meets current needs and scales for tomorrow. Don’t get caught up chasing the lowest price – focus on capability, usability, and support. Then start with one supplier segment and expand iteratively.
Turning an electronic payment strategy into action isn't just about checking boxes – it's a roadmap to transforming your AP function from a cost center into a strategic advantage.
The Cost of Doing Nothing
Postponing payment automation might feel safe – but it's costing organizations every day:
- Higher costs per payment. Manual processing, printing, and postage quickly add up – especially at scale.
- Increased fraud exposure. Checks and manual workflows are magnets for fraud, with little auditability.
- Supplier dissatisfaction. Late or unclear payments damage trust and impact operations.
- Missed financial opportunities. Rebates, early-pay discounts, and better terms often go unrealized.
- Limited visibility. Disconnected systems make it hard to understand spending patterns or manage cash flow effectively.
It’s Time to Lead
Payment automation is a front-line strategic move. It’s time for AP leaders to take the reins, modernize operations, and unlock the full potential of every dollar leaving the business. For a deeper look at how organizations are putting this into practice, catch this webinar replay OR Explore how to do exactly that in this webinar replay, packed with expert strategies, real-world examples, and a clear roadmap to help you get started..
About the Author: Mark Brousseau
Over the past 30 years, Mark Brousseau has established himself as a thought leader on accounts payable, accounts receivable, payments and document automation. A popular speaker at industry conferences and on webinars and podcasts, Brousseau advises prominent end-users and solutions and services providers on how to use automation to improve document- and payments-driven business processes. Brousseau has chaired numerous educational conferences and has served on several industry committees and boards. He resides in Center City Philadelphia with his wife and three sons.