The 2020 financial crisis, triggered by the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, stands as a stark reminder of the inherent vulnerabilities within the global financial landscape. As the world grappled with widespread uncertainty and economic upheaval, financial markets experienced tumultuous fluctuations, and many businesses found themselves struggling to meet their financial obligations. This crisis serves as a modern-day illustration of the fragility of financial systems when faced with unforeseen disruptions. It underscores the vital importance of proactive financial management strategies that can mitigate risks and enhance resilience. In this context, we will explore how managing payments through an ERP system can serve as a linchpin in a company’s financial stability. We will offer the tools and insights needed to navigate crises effectively and avoid the pitfalls that can lead to financial turmoil.

What is NetSuite Payment Management?

NetSuite Payment Management is one of the tools of NetSuite ERP that can help sustain a company during a financial crisis. It offers versatile payment solutions for both sending and receiving payments, resulting in time savings, lowered processing expenses, and enhanced cash flow. It integrates seamlessly with SuitePayments, allowing businesses to accept customer payments through various channels, including credit cards, direct debit, and a wide range of supported payment services. On the outbound side, it supports online bill payments, ACH payments, direct deposits, and other electronic funds transfer (EFT) alternatives, providing comprehensive payment processing capabilities.

Embrace a Paperless Approach

Opting for electronic payment methods like credit cards, debit cards, and EFT offers several advantages over traditional checks. Firstly, electronic payments are considerably faster and more dependable since they eliminate the need for physical paperwork. Additionally, these methods facilitate swift fund transfers, ensuring that transactions are processed efficiently and without delays. This not only streamlines your financial operations but also enhances the reliability and speed of your payment processes.

Boost Payment Speed

Enhance your cash flow and minimize the time it takes to collect outstanding payments by providing your customers with the convenience of alternative payment methods, such as credit cards and other non-check options. This customer-centric approach not only expedites payment processing but also reduces the day’s sales outstanding (DSO), ensuring that your organization receives funds more rapidly. By offering diverse payment choices, you create a seamless payment experience that encourages prompt settlements and contributes to improved financial efficiency.

Comprehensive NetSuite Payment Management Capabilities

NetSuite offers a wide array of payment methods, both online and offline, to provide your business with enhanced flexibility while simultaneously minimizing processing expenses. This comprehensive suite of payment management features empowers your organization to efficiently handle various payment options, catering to diverse customer preferences. This not only streamlines payment processing but also contributes to cost reduction, ensuring a more economical financial operation for your business.

1. Payment Processing

SuitePayments offers robust support for a variety of payment methods, including credit cards and other non-check alternatives. This functionality is achieved through seamless integration with trusted payment gateways and an extensive network of reliable partners. By leveraging SuitePayments, your business can facilitate efficient payment processing, ensuring a smooth and secure experience for both you and your customers. Whether it’s credit card transactions or other payment options, SuitePayments simplifies the payment collection process, enhancing your financial operations.

• Complete Accounts Receivable Solution

SuitePayments comprehensively addresses your accounts receivable requirements. It supports various payment scenarios, including customer-initiated payments via the NetSuite Customer Center, manual entry of credit card transactions conducted over the phone, and merchant-initiated payments associated with recurring billing agreements. Moreover, NetSuite Payment Link simplifies the payment collection process for businesses. It enhances your ability to receive payments by incorporating a convenient “pay now” option on both electronic and printed invoices, providing an easy and efficient way for your customers to settle their bills. With SuitePayments, managing your accounts receivable becomes a seamless and streamlined endeavor.

• Efficient Recurring Billing

SuitePayments is your solution for managing subscription, membership, and recurring billing requirements effectively. It minimizes payment declines by transmitting essential information to credit card issuers, including the Card-on-File and Recurring Indicator flags that they typically examine. Additionally, SuitePayments leverages the capabilities of payment processing gateways, such as their tokenization services and Account Updaters services, to ensure seamless recurring billing processes. This proactive approach ensures that your recurring billing operations run smoothly, helping you maintain financial stability and customer satisfaction.

• Empowering E-commerce Transactions

NetSuite SuiteCommerce solutions harness the power of SuitePayments payment gateway integrations to enhance the e-commerce checkout process. This integration allows for seamless credit card authorization during the web order-saving process, ensuring a smooth and secure online shopping experience. SuitePayments goes the extra mile by offering robust fraud screening measures and enabling secure checkouts through 3D Secure authentication. Additionally, it supports popular payment methods like PayPal Payments and Express Checkout, providing customers with a variety of convenient payment options for their online purchases.

• Enhancing Point of Sale

When it comes to in-person transactions, SuitePayments offers seamless integration with EMV chip-card-reading devices provided by trusted partners. This integration not only ensures a smooth interaction with your ERP system but also enables you to enjoy favorable card-present transaction rates. Whether you’re using SuiteCommerce InStore or not, these devices enhance your point-of-sale experience. SuitePayments also supports no-touch options for NFC technology, including popular methods like Apple Pay, making payments quick and convenient for both you and your customers.

2. Streamlining Electronic Bank Payments

Guarantee the punctuality and precision of payments from various sources, including vendors, employees, and sales partners, by harnessing the power of electronic funds transfer (EFT) alternatives such as ACH payments and direct deposit. Enhance your collection processes by automating customer refunds, charge reversals, and partial credits, all while improving your overall collections efficiency through direct debit support. With these features, NetSuite Payment Management ensures that your financial transactions are optimized and effortlessly managed.

• Simplifying Electronic Bank Files

NetSuite Electronic Bank Payments takes the hassle out of generating bank files for various electronic payment methods, including ACH payments, direct deposit, and customer refunds. With this solution, finance teams can easily create multiple payment batches, each with its unique criteria, protocols, and due dates. The system’s flexibility, driven by rules-based payment aggregation, enhances security by implementing payment controls, such as restrictions on the number of payments made to a single vendor or employee in a day. Additionally, Electronic Bank Payments support automatic collections, allowing for the settlement of outstanding invoices by directly debiting funds from a customer’s bank account. This functionality streamlines and secures your electronic payment processes.

• Enhancing Payment Control

Automated approval routing adds an extra layer of control, mitigating the potential for payment inaccuracies or fraudulent activities. The system generates alerts, prompting designated approvers to thoroughly review payment files to ensure accuracy and appropriateness before initiating the payment process. This feature helps enhance overall payment control and security.

• Enhanced Communication with Email Notifications

NetSuite Electronic Bank Payments offers user-defined payment notifications that streamline communication with trading partners. These notifications are designed to automatically inform vendors when a payment has been successfully processed, thereby improving transparency and efficiency in payment-related communications.

• Seamless Global Payment Capabilities

NetSuite’s advanced payment features seamlessly handle multicurrency and multilanguage requirements while accommodating over 50 different international bank formats. This ensures that your organization can effectively navigate the complexities of global payments with ease and precision.

• Enhanced Fraud Protection

With NetSuite Electronic Bank Payments’ Positive Pay feature, you benefit from robust fraud prevention. This feature proactively informs your bank about the amount and payee of every issued check. Supplying this data to your bank prior to the check presentation enables the bank to verify the check details for any unauthorized alterations. Additionally, the system offers voided check notifications, ensuring that the bank promptly blocks these checks to prevent any fraudulent activity.

Benefits of NetSuite PMS

•     Enhanced Cash Visibility

Experience a significant boost in your cash management capabilities with NetSuite Payment Management. Gain real-time insights into your cash inflows and outflows, empowering you to make well-informed and timely decisions regarding your finances.

•     Strengthened Supplier Relations

Forge more robust relationships with your suppliers by leveraging automatic payment alerts. Say goodbye to unnecessary calls from suppliers inquiring about invoice payments. NetSuite Payment Management streamlines communication and keeps your suppliers informed when their invoices are paid, enhancing collaboration and trust.

•  Streamlined Processes and Reduced Errors

Bid farewell to duplicate data entry and the headaches of managing payments across multiple systems. With NetSuite Payment Management, your payment processes are consolidated within a single, unified system. This streamlining not only boosts efficiency but also minimizes the risk of errors, ensuring that your financial operations run smoothly.

• Cost Savings Through Early Payments

Seize the opportunity to save costs through early-payment discounts. NetSuite Payment Management accelerates vendor invoice processing, reducing the time it takes to settle payments. This efficiency allows you to take advantage of early-payment discounts offered by your suppliers, contributing to incremental savings for your organization.

• Addressing Payment Delays

NetSuite Payment Management is your solution for combating payment delays. By offering a variety of electronic payment options to your customers, you can significantly accelerate the payment collection process, thereby improving your cash flow and reducing delays in receiving funds.

Challenges Solved by NetSuite PMS

•     Lowering Processing Costs

Bid farewell to the high costs associated with processing vendor invoices through traditional means like printing and mailing paper checks. NetSuite Payment Management streamlines the payment process, eliminating the need for physical checks and associated expenses.

•  Enhanced Data Security

Rest assured that your sensitive financial data is in safe hands with NetSuite. As a registered PCI DSS-compliant service provider, NetSuite significantly reduces the complexities and overhead related to PCI compliance, ensuring the security of your financial information.

• Simplifying Business Complexity

Navigating the complexities of local and international payments is made easier with NetSuite Payment Management. Its robust capabilities include support for multicurrency, multilanguage, and multiformat transactions, enabling you to manage payments seamlessly across diverse regions and formats.

When you choose NetSuite ERP for your business, you subscribe to an annual license fee. This license encompasses several key elements, including the core platform, optional modules, and the number of users you require. Additionally, there is a one-time implementation fee to cover the initial setup. As your business expands and evolves, you have the flexibility to activate new modules and add users seamlessly, all within the NetSuite ERP platform. Plus, you’ll be pleased to know that payment management capabilities are inherently included with your NetSuite ERP license. To learn more about NetSuite’s cost, contact your NetSuite partner today.