Vault Introduces New AP Features for Canadian Businesses

Vault has released new functionality for its platform to help Canadian businesses automate vendor payments.

The new addition, announced in a news release Tuesday (Aug. 27), offers businesses a “true two-way sync,” Vault said in a news release, noting that early testing showed businesses could reduce the time needed to pay their vendors by 70%.

“We heard from our customers that they were spending multiple hours per week paying bills,” Vault Co-Founder Ahmed Shafik said. “The Accounts Payable feature is designed to make financial operations more efficient, giving businesses the tools they need to scale.”

According to the release, this feature integrates with accounting software like Quickbooks or Xero, letting businesses sync and import bills directly into Vault. Before this, businesses told the company they “were stuck going back and forth to confirm payment details, often leading to inaccuracies,” the release added.

PYMNTS examined the benefits of AP modernization and automation last week, noting findings from the PYMNTS Intelligence’s study “Accounts Payable and Receivable Trends: What’s Next in Automation.”

That study found that — of the firms earning between $3.5 million and $15 million in yearly revenue — just 5% of such mid-sized firms have fully completed the automation of all processes, and 15% have automated three or more tasks.

Almost 44% have only automated one or two AP processes. More than one-third have not started any automation and are still anchored in paper and manual duties. Paper checks, as has been covered elsewhere in this space, have traditionally been tied to as much as 50% of all B2B payment transactions.

“None of this is to say that the companies themselves are not cognizant of the advantages of AP modernization,” PYMNTS wrote. “As many as 84% of companies we’ve surveyed that have automated all processes say they’ve enjoyed the benefits of savings and cash flow growth, which might come in the form of discounts from vendors for timely or even early payments.”

Vault launched its platform last year, saying it wanted to give small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) access to financial products and services that are not easily available to them otherwise.

“My co-founder, Saud Aziz, and I have parents who are small business owners, and we experienced first-hand the antiquated banking services that constrained their ability to freely manage how they spend, move and manage their money, all while enduring excessive fees,” Shafik said at the time. “We founded Vault to change this.”