Continuing with Ardent Partners’ ePayables Solution Spotlight series, here is the latest one that focuses on the ePayment market and a solution from American Express – PAYVE (access the full report here). The report contains recent market research around electronic payments as well as insights into the technologies and payment mechanisms that are used to optimize working capital. For example, we found that a key capability that seems to be closely connected to working capital optimization and one that 51% of organizations are planning to focus on over the next year is supplier enablement. In addition, part of the Spotlight includes and in depth description of the PAYVE solution/service.
In July 2012, American Express launched PAYVE, a bank-agnostic service that allows mid to large-sized enterprises to centralize the processing and management of multiple forms payment including ACH, check, international wire transfers and Buyer Initiated Payments (BIP). PAYVE introduces efficiency, accuracy and control to B2B payments helping clients to migrate away from manual payments. This service enables clients to focus on the core financial value that can be driven from AP and payment operations such as improving cash flow and the management of working capital rather than payment operations.
The three major components of PAYVE are a spend analysis service, a supplier enablement service and an online payment platform, all of which are included as part of the package that a client receives.
Spend IQ
Spend IQ is an analytics service that uses proprietary technology to aggregate, analyze, and ultimately understand a client’s spend data. More specifically, data around payment methods, frequency, timing, terms, etc. Using this data, the Spend IQ team works in close collaboration with the supplier enablement team to identify, segment and target suppliers and develop a plan to onboard them.
Supplier Enablement
PAYVE includes a dedicated supplier enablement team that works with the client to develop an ongoing enablement strategy and program. This is done by segmenting and targeting appropriate suppliers using the detailed analysis from the Spend IQ service. Additionally, the supplier enablement team will create and manage a comprehensive communication program designed to educate and enroll suppliers.
Payment Platform
The Payment Platform is a secure, online portal that streamlines and enables the processing of multiple forms of payments through one consolidated platform. The different payment methods include:
- Buyer Initiated Payments
- ACH Payments
- Check Payments
- International Wire Payments
The complete report (which can be found here) goes into quite some detail on all of the above aspects and also includes information on the implementation method that clients must go through before using PAYVE.
