QuickBooks Taps Amex For AP Financing

American Express is a top player in the commercial card space but is perhaps best known in the B2B space as a provider of solutions for larger corporates. The credit card giant has teamed up with a familiar face in the SME FinServ industry, however, to heighten its presence among smaller firms.

Reports on Thursday (Oct. 13) said American Express is teaming up with QuickBooks to provide joint SME clients with financing for supplier payments.

Through their collaboration, American Express will integrate its Working Capital Terms solution into QuickBooks Online for small businesses that are already using American Express OPEN Business commercial cards. Amex will provide short-term financing for small businesses to pay suppliers and manage cash flow, the companies said.

“We’ve heard time and again from small business customers that cash flow is a key area of concern when it comes to managing day-to-day business expenses,” said American Express Global Commercial Payments Executive Vice President of Global Product Management E-Bai Koo in a statement. “By embedding our Working Capital Terms’ digital loans directly into QuickBooks, we make financing available to our customers when and where they need it most to pay vendors, simplifying the payments process and reducing time spent reconciling accounts.”

In their announcement, the firms cited research by the Small Business Administration that highlighted the frequency with which SMEs say insufficient or delayed financing causes them to fail.

They added that combining QuickBooks‘ accounting automation technology with a faster way to access financing can help solve these problems.

In addition to providing a short-term loan, American Express Working Capital Terms offers SME users vendor management capabilities, payment consolidation, reconciliation services and other features to streamline B2B payments and accounting.

The integration into QuickBooks follows American Express’ partnership with Intuit, announced last year, that connects SME users of the Amex OPEN Business Card solution to integrate data from their transactions on the card into the QuickBooks platform.