Introducing ERP-Bank Integration
With incoming regulations, outdated manual processes, and the growing threat of sophisticated fraudsters – businesses are searching high and low for solutions to the challenges facing corporate banking. Many assume that there’s no silver bullet, no single solution, that can solve all of these problems at once.
But there is: automation.
By establishing a direct connection between your ERP (or other back-office system) and your bank, all finance processes can be managed in one centralised platform. And if it’s a platform like AccessPay, this management can be fully automated into compliant, efficient, secure processes.
40% of businesses say technology is a key objective for transformation. 76% of say improving operational efficiency is also a key driver.
AccessPay, Finance Trends Report 2024
ERP-Bank Integration removes all the challenges that come with your manual-heavy processes and helps to keep you safe and secure from both the regulators and the fraudsters:
1: Automate all payment types
Save time when making payments. BACS, CHAPS, Faster Payments, SEPA, and SWIFT are all fully supported for automated payments – for any number of transactions, in all ERP and bank data formats.
You can also manage Direct Debits collections, and retrieve bank statement data, without ever needing to manually log into your bank portal.
2: Configure user permissions
Increase security by controlling who can make payments. Create approval groups, individual permissions, and smart rules for minimum and maximum amounts per payments. There’ll always be a clear, documented ‘process owner’ and a full audit trail for all actions.
3: Enable compliance and adaptability
Stay on side of the regulators. Compliance is built into out platform so you can never deviate from the rules and regulations in your industry, including ISO 20022, MT940/942, and UK SOx.
Use Account Name Verification (a Confirmation of Payee service) and Verification of Payee to fulfil your anti-money laundering obligations and do business confidently knowing that you don’t need to make manual adjustments every time a regulation is updated. The platform does it for you.
4: Automate financial reports
Get intelligent insights as they occur. Make better decisions with automated reports and insights, delivered straight to your back-office system, and guarantee your audit trail in a system you own.
You don’t have to rely on BACS website reports anymore, which can expire before you download them.
5: Control payments to prevent fraud & error
Protect your payments with a multi-layered defence system.
Automatically spot and stop erroneous payments before they’re processed, with Payment Screening, automatically confirm account names, sort codes, and account numbers with Account Name Verification, and automatically check credit names against 1,000+ sanctions lists with Sanctions Screening.
Regulators have mandated measures like Confirmation of Payee (CoP) to provide an extra layer of defence to reduce APP risk during the payment process. This allows victims to verify the accuracy of the accounts they are sending money to.”
Grant Thornton
By October 2024, Account Name Verification solutions will be mandatory for all firms.
In the same month, you will also become required to reimburse any customer who has been the victim of APP fraud – payable within five working days. Responsible for 50% of the cost, as it’s split between the sending and receiving payment service providers, you may find yourself liable for up to £415,000 per victim.
6: Automate statement retrieval and reconciliation
Save time and reduce the risk of human error and internal fraud. Get bank statements automatically and directly into your back-office system, without any need to log into bank portals or manually retrieve data. Now you can enjoy near to real-time cash visibility, allowing you to make fully informed decisions.
7: Improve efficiency and productivity
Free up staff time and resource to focus on more strategic work. Boost your efficiency and productivity to find cost savings and better allocate your human capital. On average, finance teams using automation spend 30% less time keying in transactions.
The AccessPay platform has really made a difference for us. We are definitely a more efficient team because of it.
Karen Fagan, Head of Treasury Operations at ITV
How ERP-Bank Integration works:
| Automated process | How it reduces risk | ||
| 1 | Check suppliers and payees | Compare your payees against sanctions lists and confirm their details match up, before mistakes are made. | Removes the possibility of erroneous payments or compliance breaches, through automatic flagging via Account Name Verification & Sanctions Screening. |
| 2 | Automate your payment run | Automatically import payment files from connected finance applications via SFTP or API connection. | Removes risk of internal fraud by removing direct access and manual processes. |
| 3 | Routing and File Transformation | Scan your payment file to recognise the purpose and configuration of your payment run, ensuring the file is correctly formatted. | Removes the reliance on error-prone spreadsheet data. |
| 4 | Validate your transactions | Get alerted to sort code and account number errors in your file, giving you the opportunity to suppress erroneous/flagged transactions using configurable rules. | Removes the chance of erroneous transactions being made, that your bank portal would not usually detect. |
| 5 | Approve your payment | Mirror your internal approval processes within the system and utilise dual approval, including customisable user permissions. | Ensures you have a full audit history of who is approving your payments, with assigned owners and authorised approval workflows. |
| 6 | Authenticate your payment file | The file is digitally signed via a secure Hardware Security Module (HSM). | Employ an added, essential layer of security and stay compliant by ensuring the integrity of your financial data and transactions. |
| 7 | Process Your Submission | The file is now ready to be submitted and will be processed on the date assigned, with no manual intervention required. | Reduces the risk of internal fraud, human error, or data manipulation by removing the need to manually log into a bank portal. |
| 8 | Receive payment reports (optional) | Automatically retrieve payment reports (like BACS) into your back-office system. | Ensures compliance with BACS, with audit-ready reports that cannot be manipulated. |
| 9 | Automatic statement transformation | Pull statement files from your connected banks and push them automatically to your back-office system, transforming them into a format consumable by your ERP, Treasury Management System (TMS) or reconciliation tool. | Minimise the risk of fraud by limiting the number of high-risk users accessing your bank statements. The likelihood of data breaches and fraudulent manipulation is therefore vastly reduced. |
To see this process in action with a live demo, please get in touch, or to find out more about how AccessPay can solve your corporate banking problem with ERP-Bank Integration, download our brand new eBook.
