Virtual Cards Help Companies Manage Spend In Real Time

Businesses across the globe are making radical changes to adapt to the digital-first environment emerging in the wake of the pandemic.

Most are encouraging employees to work from home while also moving their back-office operations online, and payments operations are no exception. Digital B2B payments innovations as diverse as machine learning (ML) automation, cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and virtual cards are gaining unprecedented traction as businesses move to build sustainable B2B payments operations outside of th e office.

The trouble is that many decision-makers are unsure of which of these countless innovations are right for their firms’ unique circumstances, facing mounting pressure to find technologies that can go the farthest in easing their payment pains. In Enabling B2B Payments For The Virtual Workforce, PYMNTS examines how the race is on to invest in B2B innovations that can help address false positives, shifting employee work habits or old-fashioned growing pains.

Around The B2B Payments For The Virtual Workforce World

The pandemic has fundamentally changed the lives of working professionals across the United States — possibly for good. Forty-five percent of all employed persons in the U.S. now work from home, and 38 percent of businesses plan to allow their employees to work from home long after the pandemic has subsided.

Businesses are doing more than encouraging their employees to continue working remotely, however. Many are also revamping their B2B payment systems to accommodate this semi-permanent remote work arrangement, driving a surge in digital solution adoption. Some studies show that 80 percent of all buyer-supplier transactions could be digital by 2025, in fact, increasing the pressure on businesses to adopt digital B2B solutions — or lose their competitive edge in the rapidly shifting market.

The benefits of using digital B2B payments solutions extend far beyond their ability to support a decentralized workforce. They can also enhance businesses’ broader operational efficiency by providing accurate, up-to-date transactional data, especially crucial given the collective $600 billion per year that businesses lose due to inefficient, manual B2B operations. Digital B2B innovations therefore present not only a solution to the question of how to support a remote workforce, but also an opportunity for businesses to streamline and improve upon their existing clunky legacy payments operations.

For more on these and other news items from this space, download this month’s playbook.

RLJ Financial On Managing B2B Spend With Virtual Cards

Cash flow shortages triggered by the global health crisis are leaving countless businesses struggling to stay ahead. It is no longer feasible to wait until the end of the month to handle expense reports and supplier payments, forcing firms to search for digital innovations that can keep their cash flow in check.

In this month’s Feature Story, Caleb Jenkins, leader of client accounting services for tax and accounting firm RLJ Financial, describes how the firms’ need for real-time payment options is peaking amid the pandemic and how virtual cards can help deliver the faster payments options they need to stay afloat.

Deep Dive: Helping Businesses Navigate A Digital B2B Future

The pandemic has caused a widespread shift to a decentralized office environment, and businesses are gearing up to implement the digital B2B innovations that can help keep their operations up and running while their employees work from home. There are many technologies that are gaining traction in this shifting environment, but virtual cards are emerging as uniquely poised to meet businesses’ need for flexible spend management tools and employees’ demands for touchless payment options.

This month’s Deep Dive explores the various benefits that virtual cards can bring to firms’ accounts payable and accounts receivable processes.

About The Playbook

Enabling B2B Payments For The Virtual Workforce, a PYMNTS and ConfermaPay collaboration, explores how businesses are using digital spend management tools from cloud-based spend management platforms to virtual cards to reshape their payments operations to meet the needs of their decentralized workforces.