InterComputer’s B2B Intercommunications Push

Business-to-business transactions are only as foolproof as the communication between parties. A typo in a contract may mean you wind up with 10,000 screws instead of the 1,000 that were actually needed. A lost invoice translates into delayed cash flow.

Technology has improved the productivity of workers over the past few decades and now serves to improve the actual stream of information, intent and execution between businesses themselves. One company that has been delivering interoperability between buyers and suppliers is California-based InterComputer, which provides electronic transaction software.

In an interview with PYMNTS, InterComputer CEO and President Scott Volmar said that there are pain points on both sides of a transaction between buyers and sellers as they attempt to navigate not just efficient cash flow management but automated processes as well, which help save time and money.

In the case of specific B2B relationships, he added, where large companies must rely on much smaller entities to supply parts (and, in some cases, many different parts in batches, large and small), InterComputer, specifically through its PrivateBusinessDrive (PBD) software, takes workflow, order management and invoicing from larger scale paths, such as Oracle and SAP, through to QuickBooks or Peachtree accounting programs for back-office reconciliation.

But with the newest iteration of PBD, said Volmar, communication between companies, regardless of industry or size, becomes “more intuitive and more streamlined,” with the ability to view documentation, ranging from orders to invoices, in real time, discuss them, change them and even cut down on negotiation time. The interface itself, through utilization of what is known as PrivateLine, lets companies use a feature called “Contextual Chat,” which allows users to track the aforementioned activities, in real or delayed time, with constant archiving tied to each transaction.

Volmar told PYMNTS that, in one case, a transaction with a large unnamed manufacturer, which typically would have taken as many as 60 days, showed time to agreement and final contract signing shaved down to as few as two weeks.

The Contextual Chat offering, said Volmar, “can extend from the purchase order all the way to the sales order,” and along the way, there can be discussion of project details, including specifics, such as, say, paint color. “There’s the ability,” he added, “to send queries to the other party and track them, so there is no confusion” that translates to wasted time and money. Documents that can be traced, changed and archived range from Excel files to ubiquitous Microsoft Word files to images.

The communication between business themselves are conducted through private mail exchanges, named tMail (for Trusted Mail), that have the graphics and functions of traditional email and yet are conducted across secure lines that do not cross servers or the “open” Internet and thus have added security features, Volmar said. Digital document signing is available in the case of contract submissions and acceptances.

“The software offers a unified whole — a gestalt that speeds up decision-making and also helps cut down on human error,” said Volmar, with the eventual repository of information making it through to the accounting system via invoices generated (and thus integrating into accounts receivable designations). Payments can also be facilitated by PBD, with options to either print paper checks or use cash accounts. Though currently focused on the U.S., said Volmar, payments eventually will embrace cross-border functionality and also the future real-time payments initiative that has been a focus of the Federal Reserve.

Volmar told PYMNTS that the industries that are most attuned to adopting digital operations and digital communications include service firms dealing with myriad contracts and invoices for verticals such as health care, law firms and especially homebuilders, where change orders are commonplace (and can be more easily tracked through a system such as InterComputer’s).