Are you having trouble getting suppliers enthused about virtual card payments from your organization? While virtual cards have always been a great payment tool for buyers, the supplier side of the equation is not always easy. Suppliers might be frustrated with one or more aspects of the process, such as retrieving the account number to charge, initiating the payment into their point-of-sale (POS), and reconciling the payments within their accounts receivable system. The good news is, Mastercard has launched a supplier-centric solution that can be used no matter the virtual card brand used by their customers. Further, the buyer organization does not need to change anything. You can simply be a potential hero by raising suppliers’ awareness about this option. Keep reading to learn more, including who to contact if you are interested.
What It Is
When Diane Merrigan, a payments professional in the acquiring space, contacted me recently about a virtual card solution that could eliminate pain points for suppliers, I was all ears. It’s no secret that suppliers often struggle with accommodating a multitude of different virtual cards used by their business-to-business (B2B) customers. Anything that streamlines virtual card acceptance is a huge win for suppliers and, therefore, buyers as well. Enter Mastercard Receivables Manager, a turn-key solution with email parsing capability that works by extracting critical remittance and payment-related data, and then sending the payment for processing without any manual effort required by the supplier.
As Diane explains, “The relief and efficiency this creates for suppliers that implement Mastercard Receivables Manager shows immediately by cutting the cost of the manual effort required for virtual card acceptance. Suppliers are also able to reallocate accounts receivable FTEs to other productive tasks. For buyers, there is the benefit of accelerating virtual card spend.”
Overview of the Process
Virtual card-related emails originating from buyers/buyers’ payment partners and directed at suppliers are securely redirected to the Mastercard solution. Emails are robotically opened through the email parsing process. Then the virtual card information is sent through Mastercard’s payment gateways or other supported gateways for automated STP (straight through processing). The funds will show up in the supplier’s bank account and the remittance data can be provided and automatically matched to open invoices for their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Suppliers are offered flexibility in how they receive their remittance data from the platform. Mastercard Receivables Manager can be configured to provide suppliers with a single daily report for all transactions during that day or transaction-by-transaction remittance detail.
What You Can Do
Consider the virtual card program growth that your organization might achieve if suppliers had the Mastercard Receivables Manager to save them time and money.
Identify some suppliers that would likely benefit the most from such a solution.
Contact Diane Merrigan at dmerrigan@runpayments.io or call (619) 920-4421 to learn more about Mastercard Receivables Manager and even connect her with identified suppliers. Diane, who is a member of the Institute of Commercial Payments (formerly the NAPCP), has a proven history in helping suppliers improve their card acceptance processes.
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About the Author
Blog post author Lynn Larson, CPCP, launched Recharged Education in 2014. With more than 20 years of commercial card experience, her mission is to make industry education readily accessible to all. Learn more…