One of the more important jobs of the accounts payable professional is keeping up with what is happening in the industry at large. This is critical for a few reasons, including skills development and the hunt for new technologies, but is sometimes difficult to do. That is why, each week, the team at Payables Place collects news stories and announcements on the people, companies, and events that can have the biggest impact on the accounts payable team; this cuts down on the amount of time that the AP professional needs to spend keeping up to date and makes it easier to get back to the task at hand—driving strategic value for the organization.
This week in payables news includes a few developments: the Basware Commerce Network crested 100 million transactions, Tradeshift has become enabled on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and MasterCard made it possible to use corporate cards in digital wallets. Read on to find out more about these and all the other impactful news from around the accounts payable world.
Basware Commerce Network Reaches 100 Million Network Transactions, Reinforcing the Growth of the E-Invoicing Business and Adoption
Finland-based Basware announced earlier this week that the Basware Commerce Network had crested 100 million annualized eInvoice and purchase order transactions sent and received through the network. Governments from the Americas to Europe have pushed eInvoicing for business-to-government (“B2G”) suppliers in recent weeks, a trend that has significantly benefitted the overall growth of Basware’s network. Currently, the Basware Commerce Network connects to more than 200 other business-to-business (“B2B”) networks, which helps push its growth forward.
This is the latest good news for Basware, which last week reported earnings growth and three weeks ago launched a brand-new product in the form of CloudScan. Basware remains one of the leaders in the burgeoning business network marketplace, and this growth in network transactions makes clear that the solution provider is making sound strategic choices and focusing on building their core strengths out. The trend toward eInvoicing in the B2G space should only further benefit Basware and its entire marketplace.
Bottomline Technologies Launches Digital Banking 3.0
Bottomline Technologies this week unveiled Digital Banking 3.0, a cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service that blends cash management capabilities with payments, customer acquisition, and cyber fraud functionality. Digital Banking 3.0 is designed to help financial institutions compete with third-party solution providers for commercial banking dollars with, according to Bottomline, a device-agnostic user experience and personalized interaction model. The Digital Banking 3.0 product also includes a financial management suite targeting small and mid-sized businesses, along with detailed analytics and customer onboarding capabilities. The new product also includes a cyber fraud detection suite that is designed to function as a “system of record” that provides real-time monitoring and enterprise case management.
The world of cash management and payments is fast changing. Where financial institutions once dominated the industry, new solution providers have waded into the field in the past 15 years to capture more and more of the marketplace. Nowhere is this transition more apparent than in the small to midsized business arena, that mid-range where many of the services large banks provide are just barely out of reach. Bottomline’s Digital Banking 3.0 is an intriguing new addition to that competitive landscape, and it will be fascinating to see how the marketplace changes in the next few years.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Provides Global E-invoicing Through Tradeshift Integration
Tradeshift announced last week that customers of the new Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 rollout will have automatic free access to the Tradeshift eInvoicing platform. This means that Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 users can send invoices directly into the Tradeshift platform, which is a net positive from an efficiency standpoint for Dynamics clients. The aim of the integration, according to Tradeshift and Microsoft, is to eliminate the double entry of data that can occur when using a disconnected solution.
Tradeshift is the second AP automation solution provider to announce a Dynamics NAV integration in as many weeks. As a result, it appears Microsoft is attempting to expand the capabilities of Dynamics NAV as widely as possible. This is overall a good thing for everyone involved—interoperability with a large number of solutions on either side tends to be a good strategic move for most solution providers. This is particularly true in the AP space, where invoice automation solutions must work side-by-side with ERP solutions. Tradeshift’s integration with Microsoft Dynamics expands the solution’s profile to a much wider array of clients without expensive direct sales, which can only be a good thing in the long run.
C2FO Reports First Week of over $1BN in Working Capital Volume
Working capital marketplace C2FO this week announced that their platform had its first week of more than $1 billion in working capital volume in September. For the entire third quarter, C2FO reported $8.7 billion of working capital flows—which they reported was five times higher than the $1.7 billion of working capital flows in the third quarter of 2014. According to the company, this is the highest amount of working capital flows in a single quarter since 2010. The new high comes less than a year after C2FO reported its first $1 billion month in December 2014.
Working capital optimization is a critical enterprise capability in today’s business environment; enterprises must make the most of their cash on hand, especially given that the next competitor ready to snap up clients is right around the corner. Marketplaces like C2FO thus fill an important niche, and the working capital volume that the company reports is indicative of the interest level in using solutions like C2FO as part of the enterprise cash management strategy.
Coupa Welcomes H. Tayloe Stansbury to Its Board of Directors; Coupa Hires Markus Hornburg as VP of Global Product Compliance
Coupa announced last week that it had added H. Tayloe Stansbury to its board of directors. Stansbury is executive vice president and chief technology officer at Intuit, where he manages product engineering and information technology. He was previously at Ariba, Calico Commerce, and Xerox, and has accumulated more than two decades of experience in the eCommerce solution space.
In other news, Coupa this week announced that Markus Hornburg will join the company as vice president of global product compliance. Hornburg is based in Germany, and comes directly from Tungsten Network, where he was vice president of compliance and head of new markets. Hornburg‘s responsibilities at Tungsten included working with a governments and large corporate customers on regulations around e-invoicing, tax, and corporate governance. His responsibilities at Coupa will track along much the same lines.
MasterCard Enables Corporate Card Use in All Digital Wallets
MasterCard last week announced that it would provide tokenization support for all its commercial credit card issuers, which would allow cardholders to load corporate cards into participating digital and mobile wallet services. Adding tokenization to commercial cards means that MasterCard will now support the technology across nearly all its products, including consumer credit cards, small business cards, debit and prepaid cards, and now commercial cards. The tokenization protocol is done through the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service (“MDES”), which allows a connected device to be used for business purchases and payments.
This is a significant change for commercial cards, which have lagged the changes in the consumer card space somewhat. Given that many business professionals may have already loaded personal cards into their mobile wallets, the idea that they could not do the same with their commercial card has seemed more than a little unusual. That MasterCard is now offering tokenization for its commercial cards thus puts those cards more on par with advances in the consumer world, which can only be a good thing.
Check out these related articles for more:
Payables News Weekly: Basware Launches New Product; New U.S. Bank Corporate Payments President Named
Payables News Weekly: Perfect Commerce Finalizes Acquisition; NACHA Unveils Mobile Wallet Initiative
Payables News Weekly: China Cuts Reference Rate; Federal Reserve May Delay September Rate Hike
