Skipping the Queue with Automation and Cash Management
Overview
Retail is undergoing a period of drastic change – and so are the banking processes keeping it afloat. With new, exciting technologies changing the way customers are buying products, it’s crucial that your internal processes keep up with the change.
With AccessPay, ambition becomes reality. We help retail businesses just like yours streamline their banking operations – no matter how many countries or subsidiaries they’ve spread across – through a single, automated payment platform. Right now, we’re willing to bet the following rings true for your finance or treasury functions…
ERP Upgrades are Costly
Since Covid-19 struck, many retail businesses have recognised the need for a change in the way they work. Internal processes are often scattered and disparate, meaning that adopting or upgrading an ERP system (likely SAP, Oracle, Navision, or Microsoft Dynamics Business Central) is an appealing choice.
The problem is, doing so is both a pricy and lengthy undertaking. While it’s likely to unify aspects of your workflow, a critical problem remains when it comes to finance and treasury: ERPs don’t natively connect to your banks.
This means that you’re stuck with risk-laden, time-consuming manual processes such as spreadsheet creation and banking portal log-ins.
Non-Bacs Payments are Tricky
The world of payments is so much larger than Bacs. However, retail businesses often struggle when it comes to paying their international supply chains, thanks to difficulties with payment types such as cross-border, CHAPS, or Faster Payments.
Downloading the associated data is not only a surefire way to burn valuable hours in your day, but is also prone to risk and human error.
To add insult to injury, solution providers often charge extra for added functionality such as Host-to-Host connections, statement piping, and API capability – money that would be better invested elsewhere.
Security is at the Top of Your Agenda
Security is a big issue – especially for many retailers – when it comes to international payments. Not only is fraud a large consideration, but human error is commonplace when it comes to manual processes.
Studies suggest that almost 90% of spreadsheets have errors. Mistakes as simple as misplaced decimal points have the potential to send organisations both big and small into shortfall.
Put simply, many banking operations are tearing apart at the seams when it comes to security, especially when catalysed by post-Covid growth.
Case Study
Launched in 1997 Sainsbury’s Bank is the oldest supermarket bank in the UK, and provides multiple products to its 2.1 million customers; including loans, currency exchange, insurance and savings.
Central to the bank’s success is the Treasury team, who oversee and control the group’s cash via their Treasury Management System (TMS), monitoring transactions and making payments as and when they are needed.
The team make high value cross-border treasury payments every day via SWIFT, but without a direct connection to SWIFT through their TMS, the process proved time-consuming when done manually.
Read More“Formatting and uploading the payment data to process these payments manually, then checking it for accuracy, can take hours. This is time our team members could be spending doing other tasks crucial to our bank’s success.” – Warren Hyde, Treasury Operations Manager
Chat to Our Retail Expert Freya Dale
After spending 3 years working closely with retail businesses, Freya has a clear understanding of both the sector’s challenges and solutions.
Having developed relationships with various high-street brands, she’s well-positioned to help breathe new life into your finance and treasury functions.
Why AccessPay?
Given the sector’s fast-changing nature, there’s never been a more vital time to modernise your banking operations. Thankfully, AccessPay is here to help.
We bring order to your finance and treasury functions, acting as the glue between your banks and ERP systems. With a fully-automated, cloud-based solution, you can wave goodbye to those pesky spreadsheets and tiresome manual processes for good.
Not only this, but our Cash Management solution provides total transparency of your business’s funds, compiling your balances from across the world. With AccessPay, you can see your global cash position, regain control of your banking operations through risk mitigation, and optimise your spending with the availability of richer data.
With the availability of HSM, Host-to-Host, API, and statement piping capabilities, there’s nothing more your banking operations will need.
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