Today in B2B: Udaan Sets IPO for May 2023; CFOs Must Understand Hidden Costs of their Companies

Today in B2B payments, udaan said its initial public offering (IPO) will launch in May 2023 as it offers employee stock options and why CFOs need to understand companies’ hidden costs. Plus, Buy It Mobility debuts Buy Pass, and businesses spend 2% of annual sales on average on payment operations.

Today’s CFO Needs to Understand Companies’ Hidden Costs

Manual processes in companies’ back-office operations have a lot of hidden costs, James Ritter, CFO at ABBYY, told PYMNTS. If staffers are working on processes that could be automated, they’re not focusing on things that would be of the most benefit to the company, he said.

ABBYY has embraced automation and digitized solutions, found ways to remove bottlenecks across the organization and aims to help other companies do the same, said Ritter, who joined ABBYY as CFO Feb. 8. Almost 70% of firms across all industries are still plagued by paper in their accounts payable (AP) processes, ABBYY has found.

Businesses Spend an Average of 2% of Annual Sales on Payment Operations

Companies in various sectors face payment struggles, ranging from inefficient processes that result in ballooning costs to old-school payment methods that fail to offer adequate visibility into payment status.

Payment professionals at education, technology and travel organizations that generate more than $100 million annually and derive some of their incomes from cross-border sales report that their companies’ payment operations can carry painful costs.

Businesses spend an average of 2% of their annual sales on payment operations and 0.8% on payment processing, according to the Digitizing B2B Payments Tracker, a PYMNTS and Deluxe collaboration. Companies also found it frustrating when they couldn’t track payments, with vendors saying they needed more knowledge as they awaited compensation and buyers explaining that they fielded too many calls from vendors asking about payment statuses.

B2B eCommerce Platform Udaan Offers Employee Stock Options, Sets IPO Date

Indian B2B eCommerce platform udaan will issue employee stock options (ESOP) to each of its 4,600 employees as it prepares for an initial public offering (IPO) next year and has made a policy change to allow employees to vest stocks each quarter, instead of waiting a year.

Udaan CEO Vaibhav Gupta also put a firmer date on the company’s planned IPO, saying it’s slated for May 2023.

Payments Platform Buy It Mobility Launches ‘Buy Pass’

Atlanta-based digital payments infrastructure platform Buy It Mobility Networks has launched Buy Pass, a product designed to give merchants easier access to branded payment alternatives.

BIM forecasts its market share will grow to 45% of convenience stores and gas stations in the U.S. in the first half of the year, while adding merchants from other verticals, such as quick service restaurants and grocery, during the same period.

Bill Pay Service Corpay Unveils New Mastercard

Digital B2B bill pay service Corpay One has launched a Mastercard that is integrated with its bill pay platform. The card will provide businesses a single “subscription-free solution to make payments and manage spend,” the company said in its announcement Wednesday (Feb. 16).

Corpay’s Mastercard joins its Pay by Card feature, which was launched last year and lets users fund checks and ACH payments with a credit card of their choice, even at vendors who don’t accept that card. Small business users can earn a 1.5% rebate when paying business bills through the Mastercard and a 1% rebate on other eligible purchases, the company said.