How PayMaker by FNBO Can Help Your Business

How PayMaker by FNBO Can Help Your Business

If you are like most small business owners, making payments and getting paid to maintain cash flow is an ongoing struggle. But given the critical role accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) play in the health and viability of your business, neglecting these functions is not an option, even if it takes up your evenings and weekends when you would rather be spending time with your friends and family.

In a study of small business cash flow released earlier this year, 69 percent of small business owners reported they have been kept up at night by ongoing concerns about their cash flow. Just thinking about the labor involved with processing paper checks and invoices, reviewing bills, getting them approved, printing checks, having them signed and stuffed into envelopes and other transactions can keep you tossing and turning all night.

According to the study, nearly two-thirds of small business owners cited the time it takes to process money after receiving payment as having the biggest impact on their cash flow. The AP process can be equally time-consuming with multiple layers of approvals, verifications, monitoring, accounting entries and reconciliation.

Lack of execution when it comes to processing receivables and payables extends transaction cycles resulting in a cash flow squeeze that can choke your company’s growth and profitability.

Risky business

Many small companies still pay by paper check even though they present an opportunity for fraud. The “2019 Payments Fraud & Control Survey” published by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) reported that 70 percent of companies that experienced attempted or actual payments fraud were victims of check fraud. Checks continue to be the payment method most often targeted by persons committing or attempting to commit payments fraud, according to the AFP.

When you send somebody a check you provide them important information including your name, address, and bank account number, which in the wrong hands can be used to defraud your company. Paper checks can be physically altered, or “washed,” using basic solvents to change the name of the payee or the amount due.

Internal theft of blank checks can also occur, even when you take special precautions to keep your supply of business checks under lock and key.

Introducing PayMaker

A new cloud-based business payment and invoicing automation system that eliminates manual processing saves business customers of all sizes both time and money while optimizing methods for faster, more secure, digital payments.

PayMaker by FNBO allows customers to take back their nights and weekends previously spent on administrative tasks and use that time to grow and run their businesses or spend more time on things the matter most. With its mobile responsive design and functionality, PayMaker enables a business owner to review, approve and pay in real-time, on-the-go from any device, anytime.

Available in three tiers, the advanced version(s) of PayMaker eliminate double data entry by syncing with popular accounting packages such as QuickBooks, Xero, Intacct and NetSuite to ensure accurate and consistent data entries. This integration allows the two separate systems to automatically sync as one. Customers who have used PayMaker report more than a 50 percent reduction in the time they now spend on bookkeeping.

Accounts receivable

By moving your AR process into the digital world for convenience and efficiency, PayMaker allows you to accept ACH and credit card payments. Plus, with more payment options, it allows you to get paid up to three times faster than receiving paper checks.

With PayMaker, your business can take advantage of competitive pricing rates for all credit card payments, which decreases the typical costs associated with accepting credit cards.

PayMaker also assists business owners with recurring invoices, payment reminders and overdue reminders and even auto debit. Syncing received payments directly with your accounting software can also significantly reduce errors.

Accounts payable

The AP automation solution provides an approval workflow to manage multiple invoice approvers in your company. These approvers receive an automatic notification when a bill needs their attention, which they can approve from any device with a click or tap. Once approved, bills can be paid via ACH, or if your vendor or contractor prefers to receive paper checks, PayMaker can automatically print and mail those for you.

Plus, sharing access to your account is no problem with PayMaker advanced features, which offer custom user roles such as accountant, invoice approver, payment approver, etc., to ensure a clear separation of duties and to maximize your staff’s efficiency.

Using an advanced version of PayMaker, once a bill is paid, it is automatically synced over to your accounting software, saving you time, reducing the chance of manual entry errors and keeping your books up to date.

Fraud protection

PayMaker also provides strict security measures, such as a permission-based, online system that controls and limits access to crucial financial functions that involve making and approving payments. This system allows employees to pay bills without accessing sensitive bank account information. Other security measures include active anti-virus protection and multi-factor authentication that makes it extremely difficult to break into your PayMaker account.

Plus, with access to the PayMaker network, you’ll gain direct access to millions of vendor and customer account information, removing the requirement to share account information when paying by ACH, which can help eliminate email scamming.

PayMaker is payment and invoicing innovation that saves you both time and money, and transforms the way your business pays and gets paid. PayMaker is your bank and your back office working as one.

So if you are a small business owner who is losing sleep over your cash flow, check out the PayMaker payment and invoicing automation system at PayMaker by FNBO.

About the Author: Clint Sporhase leads FNBO’s efforts to serve small business owners. Clint has 25 years of sales, marketing and strategy experience.