What to Look for When Choosing a Billing Portal

Jun 26, 2017 by Kenzie Earle

In our last look at traditional lockboxes, we learned what is entailed in the involved process and that there is a large margin for error. The current challenges include poor working capital optimization, zero cash visibility and friction in buyer-supplier relations due to frustrating limitations in the payments realm. One of the biggest issues in B2B payment processing is that both buyers and suppliers are comfortable with the way they’re processing payments now – even if the method is antiquated and ineffective. PayStand aims to stand by a progressive methodology in order to promote a higher standard in for players in the world of FinTech and the businesses that are impacted by it.

In exploring the variables needed for choosing a superior billing portal, we take a look at what makes it efficient and worth a migration into the digitization of your AR flow.

By using a digital lockbox – or payment portal – to allow your business agility in AR, you are significantly lowering your risk, time to cash and manual processing – and at the very least, allowing your AR team the time to focus on more strategic initiatives. Through the implementation of a feature rich payment portal, there are benefits that you will find increase your ROI.

A Simple Integration Process: Contrary to most other players in the space, getting your payment portal set up through PayStand is quick and simple and doesn’t require coding – or anything from your development team. As soon as you are an established customer, a billing portal is set up for your brand and is hosted by us, but in true form to PCI compliance, we do not store any of your proprietary information.

User Experience: Digital payment remittance saves your customer time and money. Secure digital payments improve valuable supplier relationships through speed and ease of payment delivery.

A payment portal makes for seamless payment remittance for your customer, which in turn, helps close gaps in DSOs. Convenience is a major player in a superior user experience. It is common for a quality UX to get put on the back burner in B2B, however PayStand believes that quality should not be sacrificed just because you are not transacting in the B2C realm. In fact, we take a stance on the contrary, believing that it is vital that you rise above the sub-par commonality when it comes to commercial financial transactions.

Ability to Apply Custom Branding: PayStand creates a billing payment portal page with a custom URL for your companies accounts receivable. There is no coding required to get this set up. You can apply custom branding to this page to make it feel even more familiar and secure. While it's possible to custom build an online payment portal from scratch, PayStand already supports many third-party shopping carts to help you get started. We also offer hosted payment pages that can transform your existing site into a hassle-free payment collector. Simply insert a few snippets of code, and you’re good to go. 

Payments as a Service: PayStand went and broke the mold with our Payments-as-a-Service model. Most payment processors demand a percentage of transaction ranging between 3-4% + .30. In larger transaction volume, you are guaranteed to be paying a substantial amount that digs into valuable margin. PayStand offers multiple payment rails within your payment portal. These options are fully customizable as well. If you want to limit your customers’ payment remittance options based on the transaction amount, that business logic can be executed, ensuring a gainful ROI. 

PCI Compliance, Encryption and Forward Thinking Levels of Security: Alleviating the merchant from the cost of subscribing to their own security measures, all transactions on all payment rails (eCheck, ACH and credit card) are PCI compliant. PayStand has based our business model around blockchain principals; the very concept of the blockchain takes security to the next level. It was initiated with staggering wit and forward thinking; the technology and mathematical design has created an uneditable and indestructible receipt in a complex DNA thread of a ‘forever ledger’. Taking a revolutionist stance against the banks, there is a clear statement being voiced as businesses should not be required to be charged for money to exchange hands. PayStand stands behind both notions and has used the blockchain technology in a groundbreaking fashion; with a product called ‘Blockchain certification’, PayStand has the ability to improve security and audit transaction based information. Key financial data at a commercial level has been digitally notarized. Once a record has been created, ‘immutability’ mathematically confirms that it has never been modified.

Digital Paper Trail and Reporting: The PayStand billing payment portal offers superior tracking and analytics. An online payment portal provides more recourse in case of a dispute. There is both risk and lack of visibility in the process of sending an invoice or payment via snail mail and the options are limited in the way of tracking. Everything becomes a manual process whether you are on the receiving end of payment or on the remitting side - and there is still no confirmation. With an online payment portal that manages commercial accounts receivables, both parties have greater visibility into the status of an invoice, as well as the subsequent online payment. Online invoicing and payment portals provide invoice delivery receipts, confirmation numbers, transaction receipts, and various other communications regarding the delivery/payment status of an invoice. A virtual audit trail is created with very little effort from either side of the transaction. These emails and notifications are also sent in real time, rather than when the amount is batched.

PayStand aims to be a source of information and truth in the FinTech space. We have partnered with numerous companies across a variety vertices and have seen rising success as they adopt the digital flow across their AR stream. Contact us with any questions you may have. We’d love to play a part in your success.