By: Jon Gage

When we were kids, classmates who were “double jointed” appeared to possess something rivaling super powers. I can recall marveling at hyper-extended fingers or legs twisting into seemingly-impossible configurations.

On every occasion I would think, “I wish I was that flexible”.

That desire hasn’t diminished with age, although now it’s “flexible options” and “flexible reporting” rather than a painful attempt at the splits. Everywhere we look, businesses are marketing how flexible they are:

• “Access the service from anywhere in the world”
• “Choose from 45 built-in reports”
• “Sign up for our paperless workflow”
• “Built to suit your busy schedule”
• “Integrates directly with these ten social media platforms”

If the offering is consumer-facing and that audience includes (dare I say it) Millenials, just count how many times the word, “mobile” is used instead to suggest flexibility. We can all agree that a diversified offering is a good thing, but that needs to be tempered with careful exposure.  While it’s a noble goal to provide your customers with 150 options it may be self-defeating. In 2000 Columbia University released a well-known study about this very topic. Researchers set up a booth of jam samples in a grocery store, and throughout the day would rotate between offering 6 choices vs 24 options. Of those that stopped by the booth, 60% were drawn to the large offering while 40% approached the smaller samples. What’s interesting however, and the key take-away from the study is this:

Of the customers who visited the large booth, 3% proceeded to buy the jam. Of the customers who visited the booth with only 6 samples, 30% walked away with a jam purchase.

What this tells us is that while flexibility is important (a robust inventory of jams), what is paramount is ensuring that the offering is both concise and relevant to satisfy your customer’s requirements (making sure that the 6 jams are well selected). Instead of giving your clients and business partners a choice of 30 reports, 5 cut-off times and 9 ways to access their data it may be worth your time to step back and consider what they really need. Who will be using the service? Why are they using the service? What will they do with the information? Will they get lost in a sea of choices? In short, your customers look to your expertise when it comes to choosing the “jam”.

Just make sure they’re all delicious.

By: Jon Gage

According to a recent survey conducted by American Express, 3 in 5 Americans (59%) would try a new brand or company for a better service experience.

Think about that for a minute – at any given time over half of your customers may be looking elsewhere. What’s even more telling is that according to the same survey 7 in 10 Americans are willing to spend more with companies that they believe provide excellent customer service.

So let’s step back and think about what this means for an organization in 2017. Not only are companies at risk of losing their customers, they’re losing them to more expensive alternatives! The reason for this is simple: More and more companies are skimping on customer service as a way to cut costs. Whether it’s reducing qualified service personnel, routing all phone calls to frustrating Interactive Voice Response systems (“Please listen to our menu options as they may have changed”) or hiding behind a dead-end support email address, it seems that consistent quality service is getting harder to find. Even more egregious are companies that outsource or offshore their support organization to teams that have never even seen the products they’re supporting! We all know the painful experience of being walked through a script only to be told “I’ll need to bring in a second level technician”.

As the founder of McDonald’s once said, “If you always put your customer first, success will be yours”. That motto mustn’t end with the sales process but needs to continue through the entire life cycle of a customer relationship. At Creditron we strive to live this every day – customer support is a vital part of our mission statement and something we take very seriously. Our regular customer support surveys yield an average rating of 4.8 / 5.0, thanks in a large part to the many factors that make up the Creditron difference:

• 80% of calls are answered by a live operator
• We allow our customers to connect instantly with a support rep via Live Chat on our website
• All inbound cases (including those sent to our support email address) are immediately logged in our tracking system

Most importantly however, we recognize that the goal of providing excellent customer service is a journey & not a destination. Remember:

Creditron’s software solutions are 100% developed and supported by Creditron employees in North America.

By: Jon Gage

When it comes to traditional AR functions, the end result of posting payments and depositing checks hasn’t changed. You bring your customers’ accounts up-to-date, and you get your money into the bank.

As simple as it sounds these two goals can come with a lot of heavy lifting up front. You’ve got mail to open, extract, sort, image & process. Over the last decade and a half many organizations have invested in automation solutions that include large check transports to help process high volumes of work. Fast forward to 2017 and most of the hardware devices used by these solutions are approaching end-of-life (or have already been retired), leaving AR managers asking, “what now?”

The bad news

Large, dedicated check transports have gone the way of 8-Tracks and audio cassettes – and unlike vinyl LPs they are not coming back. You’ve got options, but both of them will change the way your AR team looks in the coming years.

The good news

There are a host of inexpensive, reliable check scanners out on the market today. They won’t hold as many items as the old “big iron” transports did but their price point and ongoing maintenance cost reflects this. These scanners can represent a quick “win” and (for the most part) let your AR team continue doing what it does today. As consumer-to-business check volumes decline these devices will offer scalable capabilities to meet your demands. Now that’s the good news….

The great news

…but the really good news, the great news, is that the retirement of the old scanning hardware represents an opportunity for you. More and more organizations are looking to turn the scanning piece of their AR activities into a shared service offering, going well beyond the walls of the typical receivables group. By implementing a solution capable of capturing not only checks but a myriad of other full-page documents you can give your “check capture” team a new lease on life! Instead of simply scanning checks and remittances, you can offer the capability to begin imaging licensing forms, new policy applications, legal documents, mortgage correspondence and more. With a  carefully selected imaging solution you can transform one simple element of the AR process into a centralized service bureau shared by your entire organization!

If you’d like to hear more about how to take your AR process to the next level, reach out to your Creditron rep, or contact me directly at jgage@creditron.com.

Reminder: In case you missed it, take a moment to view Creditron’s webinar on hardware options available here: https://www.creditron.com/webinar/payment-imaging-whats-right-hardware/

By: Jon Gage

Creditron can save you $$ on your annual PCI audit!

It seems that major data breaches are making the evening news on an almost-weekly basis. These days improperly-secured cardholder data represents not just a risk, but an inevitable risk.

If your organization processes mailed-in payments that require credit card authorizations, then you know both the importance and the burden of an annual PCI audit. These audits require that every stone in your processes are overturned with a bright light being shined every step of the way. Maintaining compliance with evolving PCI regulations is an absolute must, and Creditron can help!

We are proud to announce that Creditron is the only provider of PCI PA-DSS (Payment Application Digital Security Standards) certified remittance processing software. By implementing this module for your “card not present” transactions you can turn the processing portion of your audit from a laborious, multi-day process to a simple check box!

Ready to safeguard your customer’s data and reduce your annual audit costs & effort? Reach out to your Creditron sales rep at sales@creditron.com today.

“Checks are going away.”
Every payment expert in 2009

“Check volumes are disappearing!”
Customer to business check processors in 2014

“What’s a check?”
Every millennial in 2017

We’ve been hearing it for years: Checks are going the way of the dodo bird. In many instances, that’s absolutely true.

The Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM) reports that by 2020 over 55% of businesses will receive the majority of their payments electronically. As savvy consumers we already know the benefits afforded to us by “going electronic”. We sign up for paperless billing. We log into our bank’s mobile app to pay those bills. We wave our phones in front of readers attached to cash registers when we buy our morning coffee. We send money to our friends with the click of a few buttons – and none of these examples involve writing out an actual check.

For the most part, organizations that receive consumer payments have seen a significant decline in the number of checks they receive. According to a recent small business payment survey, 64% of consumers write fewer than three checks per month, and 58% are asked by their customers to accept alternative methods of payments. This is a done deal – for consumer-facing organizations the customer experience is key, and that means multiple payment options.

For firms that deal largely in the business to business world however, the numbers tell a different story. B2B check payments are declining, nobody is denying that…but how fast are they going away?

The Federal Reserve publishes a quarterly review that includes details on how many commercial checks it processes every day. In 2006 that number was an average of 42.5 million, but by Q4 of 2015 it had sunk to 21.9 million. A 50% drop in ten years is nothing to balk at, but I’m more interested in what has happened since. From Q4 2015 to Q4 2016 that number only dropped to 21.7 million. That means that the industry is approaching a plateau where the tidal wave of migration has already happened, and we’re left with slow trickle as more and more payers dig their heels in.

Faced with a shift in how payments are received, organizations need to be prepared to continue to manage the paper items. Otherwise while the volumes may be going down headaches will only increase!

So….how quickly will B2B checks disappear?

Check back with me.

By: Jon Gage

The month of May means a few things around here – baseball is back, flowers are blooming and it is time for Creditron’s annual Users’ Conference!

This year’s conference was held in downtown San Francisco and was a terrific success.  The agenda was packed with guest speakers, industry experts and well-attended client case studies. Joining our customers this year were several Creditron partners who took the time to listen and learn from the attendees. The partners also participated in a panel where they were given the opportunity to share their view on payment trends and changes within the industry.

With such a loaded calendar, the Creditron team arrived in California pumped to share our vision and educate the customers. The sessions were informative and the speakers clearly articulated their take on things – in short, the content was solid.

What struck me most however, was that it didn’t end there. We had customers from a wide variety of industries – insurance companies banks, municipalities, electric utilities, non-profits etc. When I looked around the room I was struck by how engaged they were….with each other. Over the two days of sessions (and even during the Customer Appreciation events) I was so pleased to see these customers from disparate worlds learning from one another! I witnessed one customer actually solve another’s problem by suggesting an alternative approach. We had a client offer to demonstrate their system to other attendees simply because they were proud of it.  I was repeatedly told that the opportunity to interact with each other and share experiences was just as valuable as the sessions themselves.

The feedback we received echoes this. One customer told us:

“I learned so much not only from the session, but from the other users in attendance.“

As we begin to plan for next year’s event (to be held in Toronto, Canada next year) we will be sure to include more opportunities for shared, open discussion on the agenda. In the meantime we encourage all of our customers to check out the Creditron User Group on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3886487

Looking forward to seeing you in Toronto in 2018!

By: Jon Gage

Ineffective cash application processes make it difficult for businesses to purchase raw materials, manufacture or deliver goods, fund sales and marketing initiatives, or manage working capital.

Yet most businesses rely on manual or semi-automated processes for cash application.  As a result, less than half of all businesses can post the majority of their receivables straight-through, without human operator intervention, according to the Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM).

Making matters worse, new payment channels and types are increasing the complexity of cash application and making it even harder for businesses to understand their cash position.

This is why nearly half of all businesses surveyed by Aite Group are dissatisfied with their receivables and payments processes.

It is for these reasons that more businesses – and the bank lockbox providers that serve them – are automating their cash application process with integrated receivables solutions.

Automate with Integrated Receivables

Integrated receivables solutions: aggregate all paper and electronic transactions (checks, lockbox, cards, ACH, wire transfer, EIPP/EBPP, web, etc.), automate exceptions workflows, streamline returns processing, provide seamless extracts and exports, reconcile payments with remittances and match receivables with invoices, automate posting to the biller’s downstream systems, consolidate payments and receivables reporting, and provide trend analysis across payment types.

Billers benefit from less manual data entry, fewer losses from unauthorized deductions, accelerated Days Sales Outstanding, enhanced cash flow visibility, and stronger customer relationships.  Importantly, by providing a uniform data stream, integrated receivables speeds cash application.

Banks benefit from:

• Reduced operational costs through streamlined exceptions and returns processing
• The ability to meet growing customer demand for receivables solutions
• Stronger customer relationships
• New revenue streams
• More value from their lockbox franchise

Most large corporations are adopting or planning to adopt an integrated receivables platform within the next two years, Aite Group reports.  Of the top 50 U.S. banks, between one-fourth and one-third either already implemented such a solution or are in the process of implementing one.

Want to learn more about how an integrated receivables platform can benefit your organization?  Contact Sales at sales@creditron.com to arrange an online meeting.

By: Jon Gage

As a business, the process of depositing your cheques really hasn’t changed very much in the last twenty-five years. Chances are that like most Canadian firms you rely on three important elements to deposit your paper cheques:

1. A calculator
2. A bag
3. An (expensive) armored car or courier service

What many of you may not know is that Payments Canada (formerly the Canadian Payments Association) recently approved an amendment which allows Canadian Banks to accept electronic deposit files instead of those bags of cheques!

Canadian Electronic Deposit

Any organization that receives cheques is now in a position to take advantage of the latest technology to facilitate electronic deposits. Remittance Automation systems will image the paper, validate that the data is intact and create compliant “x9” files that you can simply send to your bank!

The benefits don’t stop there, though. Because you’ll already be capturing images of the cheques you can get access to those pictures through a robust search engine purely focused on payment inquiries. In addition, electronic cheque deposits will speed clearing and improve security.

One of the biggest wins, however, will be in your backend ERP, CIS or AR system. Automated systems don’t just create deposit files and populate a searchable archive; they also integrate into your host systems to post the receipt of the payments against your customer accounts! Leveraging validation tables, OCR technology, and intelligent automation will go a long way toward cleanly posting your work to minimize operator intervention.

Want to learn more about how an automated solution can help you both deposit & recognize your inbound payments faster and more accurately? Contact Laurie Opie at lopie@creditron.com to arrange a no-obligation online meeting.

If the complexity of your organization’s cash application process is more complex, you are not alone.

Fifty percent of attendees surveyed during an Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM) webinar sponsored by Creditron said that the complexity of their cash application process is significantly more complex (11 percent) or slightly more complex (39 percent) compared to two years ago.

And while one-third of the webinar participants said that the complexity of their organization’s cash application process is unchanged compared to two years ago, it is a safe bet that many of those organizations were already dealing with incredibly complex cash application processes.

Attendees blamed several factors for the complexity of their cash application processes, including incorrect and incomplete remittance data, the growing number of payment types and remittance delivery channels, short payments, over-payments and duplicate payments, and a lack of automation.

The bottom line is that 71 percent of the attendees must manually apply most of their receivables.  Twenty-nine percent of attendees manually apply all the receivables their organization receives!

Attendees have deployed several technologies to address the low percentage of receivables their organization can apply straight-through, without human operator intervention.  These include:

• Bank or third-party lockbox services (used by 76 percent of attendees)
• Electronic invoicing (56 percent)
• Cash application software (51 percent)
• An in-house remittance system (39 percent)
• An online bill-pay service (34 percent)
• Optical character recognition (OCR) software (24 percent)
• Remote deposit capture software (20 percent)

The problem is that none of these technologies adequately address the four biggest contributors to low rates of straight-through processing: diversifying remittance information delivery channels, new payment types, increasing information capture demands, and heightened regulatory requirements.

To address these issues, organizations must change the rules of cash application.

Want to learn how?

E-mail me at mdignen@creditron.com and I will send you a recording of IOFM’s webinar sponsored by Creditron. I also can arrange an online demonstration of our cash application software.

You are not alone.  As one webinar attendee wrote, “It is good to know that other organizations are struggling with the same cash application problems.”