Name: AP in 2026: Stop Just Paying Bills — Start Powering the Business
Uploaded: 2025-12-09T18:31:10.041Z
Duration: 1 h 1 min 56 s
Description: AP in 2026: Stop Just Paying Bills — Start Powering the Business

Transcript for "AP in 2026: Stop Just Paying Bills — Start Powering the Business": K. I will Okay. I guess we can begin. Welcome, and thank you for joining us today for the for our webinar, AP in 2026, stop just paying bills, start powering the business. This is brought to you by Esker and Commerce Bank. My name is Jason Anderson, and I'll be moderating today's webinar. Do have a few housekeeping notes to go over before we, officially get started. If you have any technical issues, please try refreshing your browser. And if you continue to have technical issues, please use either the message tab in the upper right or the q and a tab in the upper right of your screen, and someone will respond as soon as they can. Speaking of the q and a tab, feel free to ask questions at any time by submitting them through that tab in the top right corner of your screen, and we'll leave time at the end of the webinar to answer as many questions as time allows. We also have a resource center for you. If you click on the docs tab that has links, to ebooks, a few customer stories, some information on our next webinar if you're interested in registering for that. And then, also, at any point during this webinar, if you wanted to set up a follow-up appointment or just chat with someone at ESSER, use the DriftChat, which is located next to the public chat tab. And finally, this webinar is being recorded, and you will receive an email with the on demand materials within a couple of business days, so keep an eye out for that as well. Okay. So, again, my name is Jason Anderson. I'm a strategic, alliance manager here at Esker, and I'll be moderating the webinar. But the real stars of the show are Jeff, Mikaela, and Jason. Jeff, we will start. will start. Could you please introduce yourself? Sure. Excellent. So good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jeff Simone. I have been doing or I'm a business development manager for Esker. Been with the organization, for the last year. I have been doing, b to b, tech sales for the better part of the last thirty four years, and the last sixteen of those focused financial or specifically on financial technology. So helping finance and and, accounting professionals such as yourselves, architect, and execute on their digital transformation journeys. I always like to have a disclaimer upfront. I am not an accountant by any means. I I'd like to believe that I play one on TV at times. But having as many conversations that I as I have had over the last sixteen years, I think I've learned a thing or two along the way that I'm looking forward to sharing with everyone. And and I'm looking forward to the conversation with my friends at Commerce Bank today too. So thanks again for joining. K. Mikaela. Thanks, Jason. Hi. My name is Mikayla Node. I am a senior account executive for Commerce Bank. So I specialize in our AP suite of solutions. I office in Kansas City, but I have the pleasure of serving our, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas territories currently. I've I've been with the bank now for twelve years. Ten of those years have all been within the commercial payment space, and helping our our folks in AP. So excited to be here and looking forward to the conversation. And last but not least, Jason Turner. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Really happy to be here. Appreciate everyone's time. I am, the senior solution consulting manager, with Commerce Bank. I've been at Commerce for about twelve years and have spent a little over twenty years in the AP automation space, really helping organizations bring efficiencies and and automation to their accounts payable process, and very much looking forward to the the conversations and and discussion here today. Alright. Thank you. And with that, let's get started. So here's our agenda. We'll start by discussing what accounts payable teams are typically doing on a day to day basis and what options they have for improvement. Then I'll ask the panel how companies can make a strategic shift from transactional to transformational, and then what is next generation AP automation. Then we'll discuss payment modernization followed by the unified ecosystem and strategic roadmap. And, again, at the end of the presentation, we'll, have some time dedicated to answering any of your questions that you may have. Okay. So let's begin by setting the stage on accounts payable reality and the twenty twenty six vision. Jeff, I'm gonna start with you. Could you describe how most companies are are handling accounts payable today versus what maybe they could be doing? Sure. Like I said before, I've I've been, talking with finance and accounting professionals for the better part of the last sixteen years. It amazes me that even sixteen years into this, a lot of organizations are still doing things very manual, lot of paper. Right? AP, I have found, is oftentimes used as necessary evil within an organization that slows down the critical process of getting suppliers paid on time. In reality, as as I've learned, a AP is typically charged with being good stewards of the company's overall financial health. Right? So your your role is important to executives, to boards, to shareholders, and other stakeholders within the organization. Unfortunately, AP's reality is also bogged down under a mountain of mundane data entry, paper pushing, internal approval chasing, and endless back and forth communications with your suppliers. So most professionals I speak with know there has to be a better way. And this is really why I've enjoyed being in this space for the better part of the last sixteen years. You know, the vision for AP is to be a strategic value creator within the organization. Looking for opportunities to control spending and uncover savings that impact the bottom line and improve cash flow. CFOs don't care as much about process and workflow as they do about clarity of the overall financial health of the business. They wanna answer questions like how is cash flow impacted on a day to day basis. AP and AR metrics are key here. Right? DPO, DSO, collection effectiveness index, free cash flow, things like that. And they also wanna know how to strategically, allocate capital within the business. They have choices between parking in the bank, investing, m and a activity, increasing shareholder value through buybacks and dividends, and and early payment supplier discounts, which is where it becomes in. Ultimately, the CFO is focused on driving sustainable growth within the business. Okay. Thank you, Jeff. So, this next question, I'm gonna ask you, Jason Turner. So well, there's actually two questions here. How is the c suite's view of AP shifted over the last few years, and then why is it no longer acceptable for AP to simply be a cost center or a back office function? Yeah. Those those are great questions. I think we've seen, a dramatic shift really due to advancements in automation. And and even if you go back, you know, ten, twenty years, what we've found is, you know, CFOs have become responsible for guiding digital transformation, data analytics, increased risk management. And and a lot of that was was due to some advancements in in functionality from the the ERP systems. However, there there's still a lot of gaps that that exist there. And so as technology has has become more available to both large and and midsize organizations, We we've also seen those CFOs expectations, change around, you know, accounts payable and and how that process is working. And and so if we wanna kinda drill in a little bit more on on that transformation, you know, AP in the past was was considered necessary, but certainly costly. Really just focused on processing invoices and avoiding penalties or fees. So, you know, that cost center back office function type. However, with with some of these recent advances, cloud based automation, ERP integrations, artificial intelligence, which whoever had that on their bingo card, for this webinar, you're definitely gonna hear about that, as well as, machine learning tools. All of these things have have really helped transform, what AP can do, how they can do it, and and ultimately that that's put more expectations, at the c level. And so, you know, we see, you know, the the AP team, being leveraged, for for more than just cost savings as well. The the c suite seems to recognize that that AP is is really a gateway to to their organization's financial agility. It allows the business to manage their cash flow proactively. It also improves transparency, optimizes payment strategies, helps prevent fraud, really more than than just simply executing payments. Some other things that that we're seeing shift their their view, we see a 74% cost savings when an organization moves from a manual to an automated AP process. We see better supplier relationships, reduced operational bottlenecks, and even better success attracting talent in in the AP department overall. And so I think all of that's really led to, you know, the the shift and and where where the c suite CFOs, you know, really are are focusing their efforts. Okay. Alright. Thank you, Jason. So, Jeff, back to you on this one. What what are the most common friction points or silos between departments that prevents companies from maximizing their cash flow today? Sure. Also a good question. There there there's no lack of friction, that I found in in processes within an organization. Right? Because there's a lot of players involved in the buying process. Right? So you get the business buyer who, you know, whatever they order, they want it yesterday. Right? You've got your budget owners who are the ones that are are slow to approve and and often, are causing the bottlenecks in the process or they rubber stamp everything and don't really worry about it till becomes an issue later in the year where their budget is blown. You've got procurement folks who ultimately, they wanna own the the relationship with the suppliers and sometimes interject themselves in the process more than they need to. You've got folks in treasury that are responsible for managing, you know, managing the money and the banking relationships and the cash. And then ultimately, you know, folks in AP who are responsible for controlling the insanity, I always like to say. Right? So oftentimes, the challenges that AP professionals are facing, manifest themselves much earlier in the buying process than when it's, oh, we've received an invoice from a supplier. Now we have to process and pay it. Right? So you've got to deal with things like incomplete or missing purchase requests or purchase order details. Your lack of business context on why, you know, the why behind the request for the purchase. Incorrect supplier information on invoices, you know, often showing up in in quantities or pricing. Lacking information on what's actually been received so that we can pay that invoice. Now this results in AP having to spend too much time chasing down the truth from all the stakeholders. So that lack of visibility and departments and stakeholders results in miscommunication and unnecessary friction. K. Thank you. Mikaela, it's your turn. So I think, you're gonna take part of this question and maybe Jason Turner might address address part of this as well. But, could you talk about the real cost and risk behind, you know, paper checks and why businesses should shift to digital payments? Yeah. I I think when it comes to costs associated with paper checks, there's really several things to consider. Right? So, I I think I'll break it down first into those hard costs that can can really be quantified. First there's, you know, the obvious processing costs. So these are things like, you know, the physical printing of the checks, MICR ink, toner, envelopes, postage, the list goes on. Right? But there's also, you know, those bank fees that can really add up if you're seeing that your team has to do several stop pay requests. Maybe you're having to overnight a lot of checks or, you know, if you have any return checks, those can all really add up as well. Industry standard for writing a check is climbing to about, $10 per check. I I still think that's a pretty conservative estimate, all things considered. So so when you think about, you know, how many checks are part of your organization's payment run, that's that's certainly something to consider, in AP. So those are some of those hard costs, but there's also those soft costs that that aren't as tangible, but still something to keep in mind when you're determining, you know, the true cost of what it's taking your organization to write a check today. These can be things like, you know, the preparation of the checks. So if you don't outsource to a third party, someone in your organization is having to do all of that, you know, manual stuffing of the envelopes, signing all of those checks. So, you know, the time it's taking on its own should should really be considered a cost. And my favorite that I always like to mention is really just the time. Once those checks have finally made it through AP, there's still that time delay associated with the mailing. Checks take days, sometimes several days to clear, which can really slow down that process as a whole. Then you're getting into, you know, any achievement issues and and it can really hinder reconciliation. So so time is money and I and I like to always consider consider that a cost. As far as risks go, we're we're seeing more and more bad actors forge and alter checks. I I'm sure nobody on this call has been a victim of fraud. Right? We all have, and, it's unfortunate and it's on the rise. But checks can also be stolen in transit or or misplaced internally, which can really cause a lot of headaches for AP. Not to mention, you know, they're just harder to track and audit compared to digital transactions. So you may have record of of when a payment was cut, but it's it's really hard for you to tell, a supplier exactly where that check is in transit compared to if you send payments electronically. Check fraud is still one of the most common payment fraud types, so definitely several risks there to consider and and would encourage you adding positive pay if that's not already something that that your organization, takes advantage of today. So, that's all I've got as far as the cost and risk goes. Jason, do you want to maybe cover why businesses should shift to digital? Yeah. Sure thing. So, you know, Mikaela made a great case as far as the the challenges and issues with checks, right, which which ultimately that emphasizes why we need to move in in a digital direction. Especially even when you see the US government, not necessarily known for being a leader in technology or efficiencies, has has taken steps to eliminate as many checks as possible, with an executive order earlier this year. And so when you think about the case being made for for digital payments, it it's ultimately because they are the converse to checks. And so, you know, Mikaela outlined really well how how expensive checks can be and both on the the hard cost as well as the the time and and other soft costs there. Digital payments are are a fraction of that. The the fraud risk that exists with check, where versus a a digital form of payment like a virtual card is is basically fraud resistant. Right? We we see very little to no, cases of fraud specifically with that that payment rail. And then the the visibility concern, you know, as as far as the whole, you know, checks in the mail, which is great, but at at the end of the day, you know, those digital payments are trackable and and they get better cash flow and and forecasting. And, additionally, just from a business agility standpoint, you know, I I mentioned even earlier a better employee experience. Right? We we heard stories, even with COVID when everyone was sent home. You know, they're they're bringing check printers back, you know, throwing them on on the the kitchen counter, and and they're printing checks from their house. Right? Where where digital payments, you know, you you can work remotely and and still issue your your payments that way. So, again, just just a better experience overall. Okay. Mikaela, this will be for you. What does it mean to manage cash flow strategically in AP, and how does payment timing shape working capital? Yeah. So when you're thinking through, you know, how to manage cash strategically in AP, I think the best way to think about it is really you know, the goal is to balance liquidity, cost savings, and supplier trust all while aligning with your organization's financial objectives. Payment timing is is a strategic lever. So you want to ensure, you know, your payments to suppliers are timed so they don't have strain on on cash reserve, but you can also earn some earnings credit on that cash as well while you're maximizing your float and still meet those payment term obligations. We always like to encourage our clients to try and negotiate terms if you have the buying power to do so and and can extend those terms without harming or hindering any of those supplier relationships. But on the other hand, you can also explore if if early pay discounts make sense for you to leverage. Rates are great right now and it's a good time to keep money on hand, but if, you know, that 2% discount or 3% discount you get for paying within ten days or fifteen days could outweigh your earnings credit, then that's something to certainly consider. So I know that's something that we're gonna dive deeper on later on, so I'll just, I'll throw that little teaser out there for now. But it's also important that you're, you're using your payment mix strategically. So choosing to leverage those virtual card payments that Jason was referring to, ACH or or even dynamic discounting can really help balance cost savings and working capital benefits. So, even with virtual cards, your supplier receives immediate payment, but as you, the buyer, you're still able to maximize that cash flow by keeping that cash on hand, and having those virtual card payments tied to a credit line. Those virtual card payments, as Jason mentioned, can also generate a rebate. So, they can really turn your AP team into a revenue stream. Okay. So next generation AP automation. Jeff, I'm going to turn things over to you. I think you want to ask a poll question. Is that correct? a Yeah. And it's actually probably one of my favorite questions I typically ask in meetings. So you'll see, polls tab, I think, pop up on the right side of your screen, I've been told. So, we'd appreciate everyone weighing in on this. And the question is, what is your organization's stance on using AI in the workplace? Are you fully on board with AI? Are you excited about the potential but evaluating where it's fit? Are you curious but unsure of the real impact? Concerns about the risks or consequences? Typically, we'll frame that up as are you skeptical, and then not being considered at all. So if you would put your poll answer, in, and as those are coming in, I wanna talk a little bit about what we're seeing in the industry as it relates to to AI. Right? So as the results are coming in and not to influence any of your individual responses, Gartner did a report, a CFO study earlier this year where they found 58% of finance functions at least piloted some AI technology in 2024. That was up significantly from 37% in 2023, and we expect when the numbers come in for 2025 is gonna be up even more. 69% of CFOs in that study said that AI is key to the transformation journey. And and, you know, when I read something like that, I'll I'll throw the question out there. When is the last time anybody listened to an earnings call, whether your own company or or another company where the CEO or CFO did not talk about their AI strategy? It has a material impact on how business is viewed by its owners, investors, by Wall Street in the case of a public company, and how they, the CEO, CFO, and other leaders are viewed as visionary leaders. And what does it all mean? Personally, I think it means this now is the time for AP to shine. Following you guys ultimately to move away from that necessary evil that I talked about before, get rid of all the the focus on, paper pushing and data entry towards more strategic and meaningful activities that c suites cares about. You know, activities like accurately forecasting, cash flow, identifying cash allocation opportunities like, Mikaela and Jason talked about, and then driving accountability within the buying community. Can we pull up the results from the poll? Alright. So looking at the results, you see that 20%, are fully on board, which is not surprising. Looks like the the bulk of the folks on the call are excited about the potential but evaluating where it fits. Curious but unsure. I've got to, hold on real quick. Alright. Interesting. 0% not being considered at all. So that that's good that in this audience, at least some people are everybody's considering AI in different stages. Alright. Boom. There we go. So let's talk a little bit about where the potential for AI can have an impact within AP. Right? So this slide is showing us kind of the end to end AP automation process. Right? This hasn't changed at least in all the sixteen plus years that I've been talking with AP professionals. I'm sure it hasn't changed in in forty, fifty years. Right? Next generation AP automation focuses on all the typical steps in this process. So things like, how do you make it easier for your suppliers to submit invoices in a timely and accurate manner? Leveraging things like ports, electronic data interchange, EDI, e invoicing, for, organizations that have operations around the globe. Automating the workflow to route invoices to the appropriate approver or processor, providing complete visibility via dashboards and visual workload queues to work what I oftentimes will say smart first and hard second. Intelligent auto matching to purchase orders and good receipts to increase touchless processing. Arden Arden Partners did a study a while ago. They identified best in class organizations that achieve upwards of 65% touchless processing, so it is possible. And this allows you to spend time focusing on the exceptions rather, that require human review rather than the things that can just go through automatically. Allows you to identify suppliers that offer early payments, discounts, and develop a strategy around how and when to take advantage of these. And leverage an intelligent solution that complements, not replaces, but complements your ERP through native integration. I often will say to my customers and prospects, we view the platform that Escrow provides to our customers as a system of action divine designed specifically for finance professionals like yourselves that you can live in it day in and day out. It sits alongside and complements your system of record, your ERP. And then lastly, electronic, electronic archiving to track, trend, and trim spending activity over time to uncover opportunities to drive savings and dramatically improve attitudes during audit season. So when we start talking about AI, where can AI have an impact? Right? To me, AI has become a key strategic partner in all of this. Right? Contrary to popular narratives, I truly believe AI is not here to replace anyone. I think AI should be viewed as being directionally helpful. Right? Allowing professionals to work smart first, hard second. It's all about collecting as much data in the process through the buying process and then leveraging it to make better decisions. AI can recognize the structure of an invoice. So why not let it auto separate, auto separate and process batch invoices that are submitted? Huge time savings for AP professionals. AI can intelligently extract data from invoices. Why not let it auto route to the appropriate department or individual for approval? Stop the chasing around for AP professionals. As AI learns the specifics about your business, why not let it automatically recommend GL coding for non PO invoices? No more data entry. Why not let AI do the heavy lifting of matching invoices to purchase orders and delivery receipts for you, raising awareness on anomalies that require your review. Stop jumping between multiple systems to find the information. And this may be my favorite use case of all that we're talking about these days. Why not let AI triage your AP inbox to identify supplier payment inquiries versus net new invoice submissions, automatically draft responses using GenAI for you to review, tweak, and to send? Huge time savings for big AP operations. All of this is possible leveraging the data flowing around your process within your organization. I'm gonna end with this. Talking about early payment discounts, which I think feeds in nicely to to the Commerce Bank discussion. I believe the power of the platform, the power of escrow's platform is about collecting and surfacing the data in a meaningful way to be helpful to you. Dashboards that present key indicators in green, yellow, and red to draw your attention to where you should intelligently focus your time. Trends on key metrics to help you identify potential bottlenecks in your process that may require your involvement. Servicing opportunities to create value. One customer, it's referenced here, Parts Town. They were able to uncover 30% in monthly savings by taking advantage of early payment discounts. This is actually a good time to point out. There's a section on the right where you can click on docs, and we've uploaded some reference docs including, I believe, the, customer story from. Yeah, you can download, during the event here. And my customers have found that bringing data driven decisions like this forward more often than not gets the year or the year of their CFO. And now I think we're gonna go to another poll question. So it should pop up again. Which of the below strategies are the top importance within your organization? And you can you can choose multiple here. And then as these answers are coming in, I'm gonna throw it over to Jason and Mikaela. Excellent. Excellent. Thanks so much, Thanks. Jeff. Yeah. So we'll, we'll give you just another minute or or two here, to to corral the results. I guess, you know, Mikaela, while while we see these come through, I'd be curious, you know, from from the clients that that you're working with. You know, what what sort of priorities are are you seeing? It's it's really a mixture of and it's kind of interesting because this is how the pulse coming in is is a mixture of of these results. I would say cost reduction and efficiency are probably the top two that we hear most commonly. AP is getting expensive. Costs are on the rise. Postage continues to go up. And and and folks are trying to do more with less. So, you know, as folks are getting into retirement and there's there's turnover, they're certainly taking the time to kind of reevaluate how AP is is leveraging these costs, and seeing where those reductions can come into play. But also from an efficiency standpoint, I mean, they're they're experiencing it from their vendors as well. A lot of vendors wanna shift to digital payments. So, a lot of our our clients are really trying to just optimize electronic payments, be more in alignment with how their vendors want to be paid and and truly, just take advantage of that cost reduction there as well. Yeah. That and that's pretty much in line with, with the conversations I've been having as as well. And and, again, it's, it it's great to see, the the feedback here from this poll, really in line with with that, you know, I think the most votes around efficiency and and cost reduction, you know, process improvement following right behind. So appreciate everyone's, everyone. participation there. Jason, what I what I would add to that, right, looking at the results, Yeah. and which I think feeds in nicely to the next part of this conversation. Right? Only two people put on there, you know, looking for, more efficient payments, right, and then savings through payments. Right? So to me, there's a huge opportunity there. If you can handle the basic blocking and tackling is what I typically say of just the day to day processing of IP, It frees you up to look at more value creation activities like how are you strategically paying your suppliers. And and I think that's the key to unlocking real value and changing the conversation within your organization. I completely agree. And and, again, a perfect segue. So let let's talk about payment modern modernization. And and in order to do that, I wanna start by by talking about payment strategy. And so, really, when when we think about a payment strategy, there there's a number of aspects to it. So first off, we wanna bring that automation into the process. Right? So we're we're eliminating manual steps like printing checks, stuffing envelopes. Maybe you're issuing multiple payment runs, right, for the different, the different payment rails, the different payment methods. And and so in order to do this, you'll really wanna start by digging into your existing process. You wanna uncover where where some of these bottlenecks exist, where you can eliminate, you know, manual steps but still maintain proper controls. You wanna make sure that that your AP team is part of this process as well. You know, they they should feel involved, that they have a say in the direction where things are going because ultimately their their support of this overall is is critical. Now the strategy also needs to include looking at different types of electronic payments and the best practices around those. Some of these do bring revenue generating opportunities. Right? We think of virtual card, you know, ACH plus, which which can help directly the the bottom line. It can help with budgets. We've even seen it help purchase, new furniture and equipment for for AP staff. The one thing I I wanna call out is, you know, these these are going to be a a portion of your spend. Right? We know that you've got sensitive relationships with suppliers, you know, key suppliers that that you're spending an an awful lot of money with on on an annual basis. Those are typically not necessarily great candidates for, say, like, a virtual card. We see more acceptance on on kind of the tail end of your spend, really between, you know, a $1,000,000 overall in spend and and below is is where we see most of that acceptance. And so, you know, this might be kind of a an afterthought, but definitely part of of your strategy, overall. You also wanna make sure that that you're focusing on preventing fraud and working with suppliers. You know Makayla mentioned this leveraging terms, adjusting terms, looking to incorporate discount opportunities where that makes sense or, you know, pushing out terms for suppliers that opt for non revenue generating payment methods. You know, virtual cards make a a really great working capital tool because ultimately you're you're paying the supplier to term, but then you're holding on to to your cash based on the credit terms that you have with that provider. And and there's a lot of value in in that, especially, you know, depending on what your your working average cost of capital is, things like that. So overall, you know, payment strategies are ongoing and you'll want to make sure that you've got the appropriate reporting and tracking capabilities around these payments, so that you can make sure, you know, check your progress, you know, see how they're being made, how quickly they're being made, tracking the revenue that's being earned, you know, discounts being attained, etcetera. And and ultimately, that's gonna help you, monitor your progress to to the goals that that you've put in place. So I do wanna take just a a minute here to to speak to, you know, specifically how how virtual cards work, and and really some of the best practices, things that that you wanna watch for. And and really the I think the biggest component to to a virtual card is what is that enrollment strategy? How are you determining which suppliers are are going to to take this form of payment on on your behalf? And and so it's really about, you know, reaching out, ideally through a direct phone call and and having that conversation to find out, you know, if if that supplier will take virtual card as a form of payment. And and you don't necessarily have to do this yourself, you know, if if a good provider, is gonna help with that. And and so that's something that that you definitely wanna be wanna be looking for. You also wanna make sure then that, you know, you're updating your ERP appropriately as far as identifying the suppliers that that are accepting of this, form of payment so that you can then, you know, generate a a payment file to your provider, and and they're going to then issue that payment on on your behalf. And so we talked about the credit term, options, you know, the the funds become available to that supplier immediately, you know, as far as when they when they receive the email or if they're having those funds pushed directly into their merchant account. But again, you're funding on, you know, maybe a weekly or or monthly basis depending on the credit term that you have. Now from a a reconciliation standpoint for your supplier, an email remittance is typically provided with with all the necessary payment details, that allows them from a a receivable standpoint to to mark those invoices as paid and and ultimately close out that that open receivable. And then there are some situations where, you know, there might be some integration, with that supplier's AR system. And so that information is fed automatically in, making it even easier for for that supplier to take that virtual card payment. We do offer options, and and they should be offered in the space as far as, you know, either a pull or push. Kind of the the traditional push is where the, the funds are deposited directly into the account, the merchant account of that supplier where the pull process is. You know, the supplier receives an email. It has that virtual card number information, and and then they're charging that card for the amount. But for you as a buyer, ultimately, you wanna make sure then that that you've got the appropriate reconciliation reporting, on the back end of that. So, you know, leveraging the technology that that's available, automate that whole process, you know, both between your ERP as well as your bank account. And so we've got, another poll, and I'm I'm gonna turn it over to Mikaela for this. Awesome. Thanks, Jason. Yeah. Our poll question here is what payment types does your organization currently use? And, feel free to choose all that apply here. So we've got four options, check ACH wire transfer and those virtual credit cards. So, go ahead and and fill that out accordingly. I'll I'll kinda watch as the the polls go in here. Nice healthy mix so far that I'm not surprised of. I think, several organizations are probably always going to have to write checks, right? You're gonna have those, you know, mom and pop shops that they're only going to ever, accept a check. So I don't I don't think those are going away, but we're gonna certainly try and work to to minimize that as much as we can. Pretty decent split too with the, ACHs. Almost $50.50 between, the check-in ACH there, I can see. And some of you like to leverage that virtual credit card, which is great. Jason, while these, results are coming in, any any thoughts from you in the consultant space? I mean, as far as what you're seeing when you're talking to prospects on their payment mix. Yeah. I would say, you know, when when I look at this, you know, one of the things that that stands out, you know, still a lot of wire, payments that that are being made, and and I would I would pose this question to the group. You know, feel free if you wanna drop your thoughts in into the q and a. But, you know, I'm wondering with, you know, with FedNow, you know, the real time payment network, things like that, you know, where where people's thoughts are as far as, you know, are are we gonna be able to shift away from wire transfers? Obviously, there's there's a real specific use case, you know, for wire transfer, the the immediacy of of the payment. But but that's something that I've always been curious of and and just kinda wanted to throw that out there. Jason, I'll ask you the question. So when you see wire transfers, does that primarily, reflect, global operations. Right? And they have to do do payments cross. border. Exactly. Okay. Yep. Exactly. And see so from from my perspective, that also means some of these organizations that that are are answering this are having to think about if they haven't already, having to start thinking about, well, how are they going to, meet the mandates that are coming out of, Europe and the rest of the world for e e invoiced. Right? And and so what I will say is is when you look at potentially bringing technology in, make certain that you are, taking everything into account both current state and future state because those mandates are coming. I think they're launching in France in, late next year and in early twenty twenty seven. I'm already having conversations with customers and prospects today about how they're gonna get prepared, to meet all those requirements. Yeah. That's a great point. So I'll cover this slide here, just regarding, what we refer to as a single file solution. So, we've really noticed that CFOs and AP leaders are are truly under pressure now, to optimize that working capital, reduce fraud, and and improve improve those supplier experience. So kind of keeping with the theme of shifting to electronic payments and really payment optimization, one of the easiest ways to digitize everything is through a single file solution where you can offload all your payments to a provider, that manages these payments for you. So we've also noticed that organizations with, you know, b to b payments are really moving away from that fragmented manual process and towards more efficient, digital solutions. So one of the best ways to really work towards that is with a single file solution where you truly have that centralization for payments. So this slide is a nice visual because it really shows, you know, how a single file solution should work and, you know, what to look for when choosing a provider that can help you with this. A single file solution shouldn't just be a tool, to help manage several payment types, but it should also provide control and visibility across all of these payment types as well. From an efficiency and and cost reduction perspective, a single file solution eliminates the need for that multiple payment type run that Jason was referring to, also helps reduce errors, and mitigate fraud, not only by consolidating those workflows, but also by helping you leverage electronic payment types such as those virtual cards. And your payment provider should be in alignment with you and your payment strategy. So whether that's to maximize electronic payments and earn some revenue share or take advantage of early pay discounts or simply just, you know, try and chip away at as many paper checks as you can, your payment provider should be in alignment with you and kind of work with you on that ongoing strategy. One thing to also keep in mind is really the supplier experience. So, I think this is something to always be mindful of. A solution like this is really going to help your suppliers by getting payment quicker through those electronic payment methods. They're also receiving remittance details with payments to help apply those appropriately. And if they're accepting those virtual credit cards that Jason was referring to, they should also be receiving a single use card number to process each time, versus having to keep card information on file or needing to keep login information for those payments each time. So all in all, a single file solution should really be a way to process payments while orchestrating cash flow intelligently and leveraging those digital payment types. So, would highly encourage exploring a solution like this if you're wanting to work towards, any type of payment optimization. Okay. Okay. So, what we'd really like to do is encourage you to to audit your current processes and look at how you can build the road map for 2026 and beyond. And what we mean by that is, you know, what are some of the tasks that take, the most time to complete? What could be automated to free up, your staff? How can you modernize your payment strategies? Maybe review what applications you're you're currently using. Are they are they providing benefit, or do they create, you know, more headaches? Are they integrated, with your ERP system? Do you have visibility in what's going on? What we hear a lot from from prospects, is that they don't know what invoices are are sitting out there unless they've been keyed into their ERP system. So having visibility early on vendor invoices, maybe supplier inquiries, things of that nature, having visibility into that, but also having the real time integration with the source of truth, which is usually the the ERP system. So both of our offerings are tightly integrated with, various ERP systems to provide secure and and real time information. So we, really appreciate your time, and at this point, we're gonna get into the q and a section. If you haven't already submitted a question or you want maybe to submit another one, make sure to use that q and a tab in the upper right hand part of your screen. We mentioned the docs tab, that's up there as well. You can see a few case studies, solution summaries, other, information related to this webinar. So I'm going going ask. go ahead, Yeah. Jeff. I was gonna say while while questions are coming in. Right? You you said a couple of things that that I I wanted to key in on. Right? So, yeah, there's a there's a reason why, my opening comments about introducing myself talked about how long I've been doing technology sales. Right? Thirty thirty four some odd years is a long time. I personally witnessed a lot of change with technology over that time. You know, so when we talk about things like AI, this is just yet another, you know, phase or chapter of change as far as, you know, my perspective. Right? And I've got the the benefit of of that purview. Right? Some people don't necessarily have that. Right? And so, again, I've seen people freak out about change. I've seen people worry about change. But the ones that lean in, the ones that, look for ways to adopt change for the betterment of, their organization and and for themselves professionally and personally, I think are the ones that always come out on the back end, in in a in a better situation. Right? So a lot of times, Jason, you you made a comment about, you know, assessing. Right? And assessing whether solutions that are in place today are meeting the needs of the business still. Right? Doing this for a long time, you realize that technology gets adopted. I I went through the big ERP push in the late nineties and early two thousands where everything was gonna be done through the ERP. And then the middle two thousands when all of a sudden that ERP can't handle everything, so now we go out and we do all these point solutions only to cause a whole bunch of headaches for an organization of great. We've got all these point solutions, but now how do they integrate all together and share data back and forth because that's important. So it's kind of this, chicken and the egg challenge of which which route to go. Right? And I think that's the strength of, having conversations with a partner like Esker because, you know, our approach is is kind of a platform approach. I always call it the the greyhound bus analogy, leave the driving to us. We've got solutions that are purposely built for finance professionals like yourself that focus on all key things like accounts payable and supplier management, which was touched on, sourcing, you know, accounts receivable, even how do you accept and process orders from your customers. And the thing that I like about how we've approached it is it's not a one size fits all. You gotta swallow it all. Right? You don't have to boil the ocean. Right? You can choose what your adventure is. Oftentimes, I'll talk with customers about what does their crawl, walk, run transfer transformation journey look like and how can we align with you as a long term business partner, to promote your success. Right? And and I think that's key. Right? So many vendors are out there. So many technology companies are out there, and they're just trying to get contracts signed and get you quick implemented and push out the door so they can chalk up another, you know, net new logo. Right? You know, the reason why I chose to come to Esker at this point in my career when I did and the reason why I like having conversations both with our customers and our prospects is because we truly are focused on a long term vision of what does a true partnership look like. And that partnership is, you know, when we bring a partner like Congress Bank into the discussion as well because we know that we don't do it all. Right? And why not go to the experts for payment processing, right, to help you define what a strategic payment, payment strategy, can be for your organization. And together, now this partnership is between your organization, between Escar, between commerce payments, But, again, focus solely on what does a successful business outcome look like for you. So, you know, the last I'll I'll I'll leave folks with is, you know, if you haven't started looking at at the impact of AI in in technology yet, do so. Many on this call answered the the poll question. It sounds like they are doing it. Don't get bogged down in analysis paralysis. Right? Start slow. Crawl, walk, run, but make sure you have a long term vision of, what the outcome is, and make sure you align with partners that can help you achieve that vision. Okay. So, first question is, what ERP or excuse me. What AP integration do you have with QAD? So I was a sales engineer when I first started with Esker. This has been twenty some years ago, and I remember that we used to use SIM loads and XML files. So I know we integrate with QAD, but we may have a sales engineer that to follow-up with you on on, other options. And we use also have done connectivity through middleware or iPaaS solutions. So I know we have live customers, and we'll get you more information on that. Maybe if you could put in what version of QAD that you have and if it's on premise or or cloud based, that that can help us with the response too. Next question. And, Jeff, I think I'll ask this one to you. So what steps should organizations take first when trying to align procurement and finance without disrupting disrupting the current operations? Without disrupting the current operation. I love that. Right? I I wish there were an easy answer. Right? It's highly dependent on your organization. What I will say is what I personally have witnessed is procurement coming under the purview of finance organization in the CFO's office, more so than I ever have in the last five years. Right? Which means that, when I'm having conversations with my typical stakeholders, controllers, VPs of finance, AP, directors, and and the teams, more often than not, procurement is at that table. I'll give you a great example. Customer of ours, at Escrow locally here, in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, They are a contract research organization of pharma pharmaceutical, research. And, they have been a customer investors on our accounts receivable or our collection side for the better part of the last three or four years. I went to meet with their controller to talk about, you know, potentially what we could do for them on the other side of of the coin, if you will, for for AP processing and supplier management and and relationships. And lo and behold, their director of global procurement was in that meeting. And, we engaged in conversations specifically around, yes, it's interesting what what Esther can do overall for the office of the CFO, but my hair on fire problem that I'm looking for to solve today is making my, procurement operations and sourcing operations, more impactful on a global scale. So we've engaged with them over the past three or four months, on a portion of our platform that focuses on, sourcing automation because, again, that's kind of the beginning, of the process. Right? Identifying what suppliers you should be doing business with, either the current suppliers or challenging that relationship by looking at suppliers, you know, new suppliers. Right? Where you can drive better, cost competition and and and drive savings for the organization. And how do you efficiently and effectively run, supplying activity, right, or or a request for quotes or request for proposals, whatever it might be, but a sourcing activity that will allow you to identify who who do we wanna do business with. And then as the process is kicked off, okay, existing suppliers or new suppliers, how do we onboard the suppliers, how do we collect all that data and information about them, how do we create contracts around that, and and the list goes on and on. But I think, you know, you see how it ties back to my original comments around collect as much data in the process as early in the process and leverage and service that data to the betterment of of the organization. So, I think by having a broader view beyond just AP processing to that whole buying process and tying it back into the very beginning, I think it's how you welcome that conversation with procurement. And at the end of the day, right, procurement and AP should be hand in hand, and and should be, you know, singing from the same hymn book and and in in sync. And I talked earlier about the silos with an organization. Those silos come down, and all of a sudden, you start realizing, what more you can do throughout the entire prior what we call the source to pay process. So it's and and like any relationship, right, it's all about communication, right, as as I tell my wife every day. Right? Better communication equals better relationships. If only she listened to you. Yeah. I did. I set you up for that one, Jason. So Jason Turner or Mikaela, I may wanna well, I'll ask you this question. As far as supplier data and making sure they're legit supply, what are some of the things that that companies can do to just make sure that the the supplier they're signing up is really legitimate and they have, you know, whatever tax forms that need to be in place? What what types of, things do you see out there, and what should companies look out for? Yeah. I can, I can jump and and then, Mikaela, feel free to to add? You know, obviously, you know, there's a a good deal of of KYC type, that that can be done. Usually, that happens within the procurement department. You know, a lot of times from a, like, a tax form standpoint, you know, collecting a what is it? W w two, you know, as as far as getting their their TIN, you know, and address information, things like that. But, the other thing I would just recommend is, you know, depending on what what it is that you're trying to to validate and verify and things like that, Specifically from a payment standpoint, you know, you wanna make sure that, you are, you know, hitting some of the OFAC checks and and different things like that. A good provider is is gonna help, you do that on your behalf. You know, the other thing that we hear pretty frequently from from customers and clients is, you know, hey. You know, I I wanna get these suppliers set up for for ACH. You know, how can I validate the this bank account information, different things like that? Again, you know, a a good provider is is gonna be able to do that on your behalf. And and, really, it it kinda helps take you out of a lot of that, that process where they're gathering the information, you know, bumping up against different databases or, you know, different other validation tools, things like that. And so when when we look at that, we're thinking, you know, obviously, the the company name, the TIN number, address, and then, of course, phone number as well as the that bank account information. Those are the the key values that that we wanna make sure we're capturing and and using to validate. Okay. Jason, I would just add, and I'm glad you mentioned phone numbers because we, always tell our clients, especially, you know, working with purchasing or procurement, that when your team is out there and you're you're building these new relationships with vendors, make sure that you have a good phone number for those vendors, especially for, when those payment type change requests come in. We are seeing more business email compromise, AI, I mean, is is huge. So impersonation is something that we want to be mindful of. So when you have a good phone number on file for that vendor and you're getting these requests in, you can always reference back to the phone number that you your team gathered themselves, personally from that vendor. So you can, you know, call that phone number that you have on file, not necessarily the one that that came in with the email request or, you know, the from the one that's that's calling in and and trying to make the payment type change. But you've got, you know, something that you have record of that you can reference back to, specifically when vetting those changes. So I I would say phone number definitely is is huge to add add. Thank you. So I think to have. a couple of more questions, but we'll just go with one more, and then maybe we can follow-up with you, after after the event. But AI was just mentioned again, Mikaela, and and, Jeff, I'm gonna ask you this question. So AI AI could be, you know, a beneficial thing, and, obviously, it can provide maybe, people are still leery about it a little bit. But how does AI kind of support, I guess, forecasting across the whole source to pay plane? Where where do you where do you see some use cases with with AI when it comes to source to pay automation? It's a great question. Right? And and, again, I cannot reiterate enough. Don't be afraid of AI, but be mindful of it. And, you know, what I often tell my customers and prospects is, start small. You know, find some find some wins for your organization that can build support momentum, around it, and then grow purposefully in your adoption of AI over time. And, you know, while within our platform, we've got over 50, business use cases of of where we surface AI technology to the to the betterment of finance professionals. Right? And and here's the other thing. Right? We don't just do AI for AI's sake. We've been doing it since 2012. We continue to work closely with our customers to do to define and implement new business cases leveraging the technology. Specifically within the source to pay environment, all sorts of things. Right? So we were just talking about supplier management. Right? What data do you need, to collect on suppliers, right, to run a a a impact on successful strategic payments strategy or or operations. Right? AI can be leveraged there. Right? AI can can, you know, consume all the documents. Yes. You can request the documents, but it takes a lot of, human effort to review and and make sure they're not forged or appropriate, things like that. You can leverage AI to to do that and and to raise awareness. Right? It's all about looking at the data and raising awareness. Right? Finding that the, the the needle in the haystack, right, where you should, spend your time and and turn your attention to. So I think that's just one example. There's many other examples. And and, again, we're continuously looking for ways and opportunities to deliver more value to our customers, through AI. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mikaela, Jason, and Jeff for being our presenters today, and a big thank you to all of our attendees for taking the time out of your busy days to join us. We hope you have a great rest of your day, and we'll follow-up with a a recording of this presentation. Thank you. Thank you all. Appreciate you.