Digital Business Payments Pay Off: Why Ditch Paper Checks

Digital Business Payments Pay Off: Why Ditch Paper Checks

When you run a business or company back office, time is money. Naturally, then, you’ll want to streamline any processes that take up too much of your valuable time. What businesses don’t always realize is that there’s one task that tends to eat up a lot of time: paying bills with paper checks. Digital business payments effectively streamline the process and save time but also offer additional benefits.

Filter Out Fraud

Paper checks present a huge opportunity for would-be fraudsters. Paper checks prominently display the two things anyone needs to defraud a company – the account number and routing number. They’re also easy to manipulate or “wash,” meaning someone can alter the payee or amount due.  Within a company, it’s difficult to control who has access to your blank checks. Even if your check stock is locked in a filing cabinet, someone may be able to gain access to your banking information.

With a digital bill payment system, on the other hand, it’s easy to enact strict security measures. A permissions-based, online system controls and limits access to crucial financial functions like making and approving payments, significantly reducing the risk of fraud. It also allows employees to pay bills without accessing sensitive bank account information.

Paper Is Pricey

When you think about a single check, it may seem rather insignificant in the grand scheme of your company’s finances. But when you start to think of how many payments you make each year, those checks quickly start to add up.

For every check, your employees are spending time manually reviewing or importing invoices, processing approvals, printing the checks, getting them signed, putting them in envelopes, securing postage, and physically mailing them out. Often, many of those steps—if not all of them—are carried out by different people, delaying the process even further. Every delay adds more expense. When you look at the numbers, paying with paper just doesn’t make sense. Additionally, checks themselves are expensive, between the paper stock, ink and postage.

The Convenience of the Cloud and Mobility

As the cloud becomes more and more prominent, it’s difficult to imagine running a business without it. It enhances mobility, giving you access to your critical business functions whenever you need them, wherever you are.

There’s no reason your accounting functions shouldn’t offer the same level of convenience. For example, it’s much easier to review and approve a bill using a mobile app. A few taps or swipes and a bill can be paid from the beach, an airport or a soccer game. Another bonus: imagine eliminating check runs from your company’s to-do list. Instead of dropping everything and running to the bank, your company can find payment automatically added to its bank account.

By paying bills digitally online or via a smartphone app, you cannot only pay bills more quickly; you also get greater security and a better record of your payment activity. The cloud even offers automation, which lets you build efficient workflows that free up your employees to spend their time on higher value-add work.

Ready to give digital payments a try? Learn more about PayMaker by FNBO.