Esker On Air S5 E8: Can the Chaos of Customer Payment Portals Be Tamed?

The rise in B2B customer payment portals has opened the door to many efficiencies for businesses and consumers alike — but it hasn’t come without its share of unwanted consequences for Accounts Receivable (AR) teams and their customers.

In a recent Esker on Air podcast episode, Dan Reeve, Esker’s VP of Sales, and Maya Cohen, Monto’s Founder & CEO, joined host Scott Leahy to discuss how the Monto–Esker partnership is bringing much-needed order to the chaos of payment portals and positively transforming the way businesses get paid.  

More platforms, more problems

In the past, financial transactions between buyer and supplier were often handled through a relatively straightforward, albeit imperfect, email-based invoicing process (i.e., invoices attached to emails as PDFs). The shift to customer portals, however, marks a significant departure from this convention — requiring all invoices to be submitted to an accounts payable (AP) portal.

The benefits of this change are undeniable: faster payments, more transparency, fewer risks, etc. Unfortunately, the explosion of portal use in the inherently complex landscape of financial transactions is both a blessing and a curse.

Not only are there literally thousands of portals in the market, every customer has different requirements in regard to the fields, formats and processes used. This has ushered in several frustrating challenges, including:   

• A lengthy, complicated and costly portal registration process
• Wasted time and efficiency on tedious, manual activities, including:
  • Invoice uploads
  • PO matching
  • Invoice monitoring
  • Remittance capture  
• Lower productivity due to the lack of a centralized interface and the resulting context switching or “toggle tax” of AR staff jumping between different portals (Note: According to one recent study, the average worker spends nearly 9 percent of their annual time at work toggling between different applications) 
• Downstream impact on other AR-connected teams (Payroll, Customer Service, Logistics, etc.)

Enter Monto. Inspired to rectify these challenges, Monto was created to transform the way buyers and suppliers interact — enabling financial portals to seamlessly cooperate and ensure invoices meet every requirement before they’re even submitted. For Monto’s customers, this has meant minimizing rejections and TTI (i.e., time to invoicing) to almost zero and reducing DSO by 30-50% on average.

Maya Cohen, Monto’s Founder & CEO, expanded on Monto’s mission, saying: “It’s more than just an integration. We build smart connections between the buyer and suppliers, and we do that by learning the buyer’s specific requirements they need in order for the invoice to be accepted and paid. Today’s businesses have to make sure they future proof themselves and have the tools that will enable them to get paid and be compliant. This is a big part of the benefits we provide.”

The Monto–Esker partnership

The partnership of Monto and Esker came about from the mutual needs of both organizations’ clientele. Their complementary capabilities — centered around a reduction of manual effort — free up AR teams at a time when speed and efficiency are at a premium.

For Monto’s customers, Esker’s Accounts Receivable solution suite provided a single interface where invoices can be easily accessed and monitored — no more jumping between systems, manual checking or payment status surprises.

On Esker’s side of things, VP of Sales, Dan Reeve referred to the partnership as “icing on the cake” for Esker customers, adding: “The ability to access portals is a natural extension of invoicing, and there’s a need to ensure that all the fields and filled in with the right information and in the right format. With Monto, it’s a bit like spell check for invoices. You’re not getting to the end of the month and discovering, ‘Oh well, I guess we’re not getting paid on time for this one.’”

The benefits of the duo’s partnership goes beyond just invoice processing. According to Reeve, as much as one-third of an AR team’s day can be spent setting up, accessing and navigating portals. Getting back that time means more attention can be spent on customer relationship-building and other strategic, fulfilling and value-added work.

In the evolving landscape of invoicing and payment portals, the struggle with integration and efficiency is very real. Fortunately, with the right strategies and solutions backing you, these challenges can be transformed into valuable opportunities.

To learn more about the significant strides Monto and Esker are making in toward more seamless, integrated and automated AR processes, listen to the full Esker On Air podcast here.