7 Must-Have Features for Streamlining Payments in NetSuite

With over 31,000 customers worldwide, Oracle NetSuite is one of the leading ERPs for accounting teams looking to streamline their payment processing. But there's one problem: Transfering manual processes from paper to the cloud is not enough.

As powerful and robust as NetSuite Credit Card Processing is, many organizations need more capabilities and find their solutions through NetSuite's extensive SuiteApp collection. But how do you choose which program is best for your company, your financial management team?

Seven features stand out as absolute must-haves in looking for a NetSuite payment solution. But before we can cover the possible integration features, let's review NetSuite's core payment capabilities.

NetSuite: Basic Functions

As a NetSuite customer, you are likely already aware of its many payment and accounting functions. But if you've just moved to NetSuite, or are considering investing in the ERP, here are some essential NetSuite payment features you get out of the box:

• Sending and scheduling invoices
• Customizing invoices
• Manual cash application
• Payment receipts
• Customer deposits
• Applying chargebacks and deductions
• Splitting invoices
• Integrating with payment gateways

When working with a payment gateway or third-party application, you can accept ACH transfers, electronic funds transfers, debit and credit cards, and alternative payment methods. However, beyond scheduling functionalities, the NetSuite ERP on its own is not fully automated.

7 Must-Have Features for Streamlining Payments in NetSuite

1. Self-Service Payment Portal

The easiest way to reduce your AR team's workload is to give customers a frictionless payment experience. Self-service payment portals, usually delivered through an email payment link, are a secure way for customers to effortlessly fulfill invoices with their chosen payment method. Usually, a payment portal offers several payment options, such as credit card, ACH payment, bank payment, eCheck, and other electronic payment options.

There are three benefits here.

First, the customer can choose the method that makes the most sense for their business, including recurring billing options. Second, you eliminate costly paper checks and other cumbersome payment methods that take days, and sometimes weeks, to verify.

Finally, you can decide which payment methods you prefer. For example, if you don't want to absorb the credit card payment processing fee, you can shift it to your customers as a convenience fee. Furthermore, you can incentivize preferred payment methods, like ACH payments or bank transfers, by choosing to shoulder the processing fees.

2. Bank Payment Network

To really leverage the power of electronic payments, it helps to be a part of a bank payment network. This cuts out expensive processing costs and lengthy verification wait times as customers decide to transfer funds from their bank to yours directly. Many companies use third-party integrations for this feature, such as PLaid, but they aren't the only ones. Keep in mind that if you choose to use a bank payment network outside of your payment integration, you will need to check for compatibility.

3. Collections Automation

While NetSuite can make financial management and collections easier through scheduling follow-ups, there are better ways to speed up this process. A key feature of any payments platform is creating flexible and automated Collection Plans. Make your follow-up sequence once, and let it loose—this way, you only have to follow up on the genuinely delinquent accounts.

4. Verified Receipts

What if you could leave a digitally notarized trail of receipts and payment documentation without lifting a finger? This payment feature for NetSuite ensures clean audits and transparent financial management. After payment processing has been completed, you and your customer will receive a notarized receipt that offers all essential payment information. The best part? It's completely automated—so your team doesn't have to go through manually and tag-filled invoices ready to be notarized.

5. Automated Reconciliation

Invoice matching is a significant time-waster for manual accounts receivables processes. Finance professionals spend hours combing through invoices and matching them to bill payments, even when using the NetSuite ERP. A NetSuite payments integration that automates the matching process translates into lower invoice processing costs and fewer hours spent on mindless, repetitive matching. At the same time, AR professionals can focus on the small percentage of outstanding payments that need extra addition.

6. Top-Notch Security

No integrated payment solution is worth installing without a stellar security system. No matter your customer's payment method, be it electronic bank payment, credit card, or ACH transfer, sensitive data is being entered, processed, and stored during and after the payment process.

Your integrated payments solution should offer enterprise-grade, bank-level security. This can include extensive encryption, tokenization, and vault infrastructure for storing data.

There are two other items to verify the quality of NetSuite integration's security level. First, if the application is a SuiteApp that has a "Built-for-NetSuite" status, which ensures that the integrated payments solution has made it past NetSuite's extensive usability and security checklist and is approved. Second, any payment processing solution should be PCI DSS compliant.

7. Enhanced Analytics

End-to-end visibility over the payment process makes it possible to make informed decisions over not only an organization's payment strategy but everything related to cash flow. While NetSuite has its own analytics dashboard, your payment solution will likely provide its own set of metrics. Ensuring you have access to data from every point in an invoice's lifecycle offers the opportunities to truly dig down into what is working and what isn't.

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As the Venmo of B2B payment transactions, Paystand is an intuitive NetSuite payment solution encompassing all seven must-have features and more. Click here to learn more about our specific NetSuite Credit Card Processing.