Mastercard and Australia-based small business accounting platform MYOB are collaborating to streamline vendor payments and payroll.
In a press release on Thursday (Nov. 15), Mastercard said it will enable MYOB users to pay vendors with their commercial cards directly within the MYOB platform, limiting the need to manually initiate payment by keying the details into their online banking portals.
The companies are enabling same-day payments, mobile and web support, and alerts notifying business owners when an invoice is due. When invoices are received and added to the MYOB accounting platform, users can hit a “Pay Now” button that automates payment of the invoice with securely stored credit or debit card information.
For payroll, MYOB users add their employee bank account data to the platform. On payday, the “Pay Now” button allows business owners to issue wages against their stored credit or debit card.
In a statement, MYOB CEO Tim Reed said the companies have completed a six-week trial of the integration, during which MYOB users transacted more than $1.6 billion in payments.
“The strategic partnership with Mastercard will introduce a host of new backend functionality that automates the process and allows business owners to pay suppliers without having to manually upload files or leave their online accounting software,” Reed explained. “This is another example of how we’re developing a financial ecosystem around the needs of customers. By identifying pain points such as manual processing and working with global partners to come up with solutions, we can give small business owners more control over their operation.”
In another statement, Mastercard Australasia Division President Richard Wormald said the company anticipates a major acceleration in payments innovation. The company plans to introduce additional capabilities in small business payments for MYOB customers.
“In the next five years, we will see more changes in payments than we’ve seen in the previous 50 years,” he said. “Enabling small business owners with enhanced payment technology is just the first of many initiatives we will deliver in partnership with MYOB.”
The B2B payments and payroll functionality will roll out to all MYOB users in the first quarter of 2019, the companies said.