Today in B2B Payments: SMBs Face Billing Woes; Digital Payments Pave Way for Car Dealers

Today in B2B payments, almost half of businesses say their current systems can’t accommodate virtual cards, while automation is one way to transform your company into a future-focused organization. Plus, Vegrow will expand its AgriTech offering thanks to a recent $25 million funding round.

48% of Businesses Believe Their Current Systems Can’t Accommodate Virtual Cards

Several key barriers prevent many U.S. and Canadian firms from adopting virtual card innovations, according to “Accelerating the Time to Realized Revenue,” a PYMNTS and Mastercard collaboration based on a survey of 409 corporate executives from U.S. and Canadian firms.

The two top reasons businesses give for not using virtual cards are that their current systems cannot accommodate virtual cards (48%), and that they feel they lack the in-house expertise they need to effectively implement them (38%).

Big Problems for Small Business Billing

Manual invoice review is cited by the largest share of SMBs as a problem that they face when making payments to suppliers, according to “The Future of Business Payables Innovation,” a PYMNTS and Plastiq collaboration.

Of the 500 SMBs surveyed, 45% cited manual invoice review as a problem when making payments, with 19% saying it was their top issue and another 26% saying it was among the problems they experience. That ranked it first among 18 problems that were included in the survey.

When invoicing processes are not automated, SMBs lose visibility into cash flows as well as control over liquidity. Manual invoice entry can cause errors that lead to more time spent correcting incomplete payments.

AgriTech Market Vegrow Raises $25M for Expansion

Vegrow, a B2B AgriTech fruit marketplace based in Bengaluru, India, has raised $25 million in a Series B round.

This funding follows last year’s Series A, which brought in $13 million with the help of lead investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Elevation Capital.

Founded in 2020 by Shobhit Jain, Praneeth Kumar, Mrudhukar Batchu and Kiran Naik, Vegrow connects multiple players in the fruit business, working with wholesalers, semi-wholesalers, modern trade and general trade in 100 cities and upward of 20,000 farmers. The company processes more than 200 tons of fruit per day and grew about 15 times from its previous size in the last year.

Digital Payments Keep Car Dealers — and Transporters — Running Smoothly

Auto dealerships often hire transport companies as many as 50 times a month to move vehicles to or from auctions, other dealers and consumers. That typically means they’re writing 50 paper checks a month, each of which must be written, mailed and reconciled.

Autosled, a digital platform that connects dealerships and transporters, reported that 90% of the B2B payments it receives from dealers arrive as checks, and wants to encourage dealerships to transition from checks to automated clearing house (ACH) transfers or credit cards.

Voice of the CFO: Growing a Company Means Looking Beyond the Books

Dennis Schumacher, CFO at Coalfire, said he and his team have been adding automation in an effort to scale the company through optimization, considering how the company’s employees work and the real estate footprint they need to do it, and analyzing possible effects of the changing macroeconomic environment.

Schumacher joined the cybersecurity firm in December, and was tasked with positioning 20-year-old Coalfire for the next level of success.

Interviewed for the PYMNTS series “A Day in the Life of a Digital-First CFO,” Schumacher said the company launched a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with Workday in January and is continuing to execute on its automation road map. This automation also helps with employee retention during the Great Resignation, because it enables the company to keep them engaged and doing challenge work rather than manual work, he said.