For small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), crossing borders magnifies everyday risks. A price quoted at breakfast can be a loss by dinner. Fees appear between banks and chip away at margins. Time zones complicate timing and visibility. Sanctions, documentation checks and unfamiliar payment codes slow the process. Yet customers and suppliers still expect to be paid on time, in full, with a clean audit trail. Those were the themes that emerged in a PYMNTS conversation with Scott Johnson, vice president of product at Convera, Rob Phillips, chief executive of U.K.-based Global Material Sourcing, and Berni Hambleton, owner of intellectual property firm Sterling IP.
“I would encourage SMBs to talk to their providers about the underlying payment network they use to remit payments,” Johnson said. “More sophisticated providers will have extensive local bank account networks around the world, which means what looks like a cross-border payment to the customer is actually two local payments. That avoids intermediary lifting fees and gives you certainty that the entire principal amount will land in your beneficiary’s account.”
That amount often has fees deducted. Hambleton described the most frustrating invisible cost as the one that arrives with a payment already sent. “You’ve done the work, you’ve invoiced, they’ve paid, and they didn’t check the box to pay all the fees,” she said. “The money comes in and some of the fees are deducted at source before you receive it. It might be ten or twelve units, but you can’t reconcile the invoice and then you have to go through complicated accounting systems to fix it. In her experience, those “short pays” sour relationships and soak up scarce staff time.
Johnson’s remedy starts with daylight. Ask for disclosure on rails and routing. Providers that can send funds through local account networks and domestic schemes reduce the chances that intermediaries take a cut along the way. He urged SMBs to press for clarity on who pays what, because predictable all-in pricing prevents disputes and needless rework in receivables and payables.
Phillips added that even when supplier prices are stable, two variables can unsettle costs between order and delivery: currency and shipping. Understanding the real end-to-end cost means looking past a headline FX rate to the total you will actually settle in the beneficiary account.
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The Cash Flow Angle
Cash flow relies on when money arrives, not just where it is headed. Phillips said reliability in this area beats raw speed. “Predictability is the key. You can deal with any fees once you know what they are,” he said, noting that around-the-clock access matters because he often reviews rates or settles while traveling or outside business hours. “To be able to have access 24/7 is important to me.”
Hambleton runs many small disbursements at once and depends on traceability. She batches payments with detailed references so recipients can reconcile instantly and her team can match transactions back to matters in her finance system. If a payment stalls because an extra data point is required, she gets notified and can resolve it quickly rather than waiting weeks to discover a blockage.
Johnson recommended two practical upgrades. First, “stage” beneficiary records in the provider’s system before funds are urgent. That way, if a country, currency and method combination has special field requirements, the missing data can be gathered in advance. Second, pre-fund balances with the provider so settlement on the funding leg does not delay payout. Where available, holding balances allow the provider to move money faster on the customer’s behalf.
Compliance and Operations
Sanctions, know-your-customer checks and purpose-of-payment codes are facts of life for cross-border commerce. Johnson framed compliance not as a nuisance but as a duty. “I don’t think of compliance as an issue so much as a responsibility and obligation. It’s important to keep bad money out of the system,” he said. The way to reduce friction is to work with providers that quickly rule out false positives and to have vendor details prepared so cases can be cleared with minimal back-and-forth.
Hambleton sees the impact at ground level when countries require extra fields or codes. She automates as much as she can with batch files, but certain corridors ask for purpose-of-payment codes and other data that are not always obvious. Having a named specialist she can contact saves time when one code or description is the difference between “processed” and “pending.” Many SMBs cannot delegate every step because some controls require the account holder to authenticate or confirm. Designing workflows that surface issues quickly keeps the admin load in check.
The wild card, however, is usually the exchange rate. Exchange rates can erase hard-won margin between invoice and settlement. Phillips hedges in a straightforward way. He buys forward when he feels exposed by orders in the pipeline or when uncertainty rises around events like a budget announcement. “It’s primarily instinct, and a mixture of what I’m exposed to going down the line,” he said. If the rate improves again, he adds to the position.
Johnson pointed to “lighter-touch” risk tools that fit SMB scale. Holding balances let firms pre-purchase currency when markets are favorable and park it for future payments. They also enable simple netting. “If you are receiving a payment in euro and have a payable in euro coming up, you can park the money in your euro holding balance and not deal with FX conversion at all,” he said. On hedging, he favors forwards for their simplicity. Locking a rate for a future date gives certainty for pricing and budgeting without requiring complex strategies. He also encourages customers to set an annual budget rate then use basic hedges and balances to stay on plan.
Hambleton’s working-capital tactic is operational. She prepares and approves invoices through the month, then pays them in one batch on the last day. That allows her to invoice clients the same day, keep fees consolidated, and minimize the time cash is outstanding. For smaller firms, timing flows can be as powerful as chasing a better rate.
Trust and Provider Resilience
International payments are a means to an end, not a sport. When something goes wrong, SMBs want a human who owns the fix. Hambleton values alerts on rates and real-time help when a corridor needs extra information. “We need them to come back quickly when you’ve got a technical problem. I have a person who’s always available and proactive,” she said.
Phillips prefers one accountable contact to a maze of departments. He recalled a duplicate payment alert that paused a valid second transfer. Rather than navigate systems, he called his relationship manager, who knew where to go to release it. For him, shaving a fraction off the rate is less important than a simple process that works, backed by someone he can reach.
Johnson said contracts should reflect those expectations. He pointed to resiliency, business continuity planning and clear value-date performance as “moments of truth” that SMBs should demand. In Europe, he noted, providers are being pushed by regulation to strengthen operational resilience.
Convera has invested in cloud infrastructure to keep systems available and to meet payment deadlines even when something breaks downstream. Testing and contingency planning matter because issues do arise; what counts is that money keeps flowing.
Looking ahead, Johnson expects network depth to matter even more as supply chains shift and currency volatility persists. “I’m going to double down on the depth and breadth of payment networks being important in 2026. Preserving flexibility by being able to pay or get paid in a diverse set of countries will be really important for small businesses. Given continued volatility in FX markets, simple forwards remain a great product,” he said.
The panel’s message was clear. SMBs cannot control markets or politics, but they can control partners, process and preparation. The international operating stack for smaller firms is not only about a rate on a screen. It is the sum of transparent costs, predictable timing, compliance that moves at the speed of business, practical FX tools and support you can reach when needed. Get those pieces right and cross-border payments become a dependable backbone for growth rather than a source of surprises.
