Lockstep Adds Payment Acceptance to B2B Connected Accounting Network

Lockstep has added new payment acceptance to its connected accounting network for B2B companies.

The company’s Lockstep Self-Service now enables companies to accept online payments from customers using Stripe, PayPal or the merchant processor of their choice, Lockstep said in a Thursday (April 20) press release.

“A major pain point for B2B companies is the lack of a cost-effective, automated eCommerce solution to accelerate payments,” Lockstep Co-founder and Vice President of Strategy Matt Shanahan said in the release. “By activating payments in Lockstep Self-Service, we are furthering our vision of connected accounting by helping companies automate the collections and cash application while improving the customer experience.”

With the new offering from Lockstep, companies can get paid faster and with less effort by sending an email containing a Lockstep Self-Service magic link, according to the release.

Customers who use the self-service magic link can see their statement, individual invoices, history, and options to pay multiple invoices or partial amounts, the release said.

Lockstep Self-Service is the latest addition to the company’s Lockstep Suite that allows companies to manage their accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) workflows in one place, per the release.

“In addition to making it easy for customers to pay, Lockstep Self-Service gives tools for accounting departments to track adoption of online payments with analytics,” Lockstep said in the release.

This latest upgrade comes about eight months after the announcement that Lockstep would be acquired by payroll, human resources and accounting tech firm The Sage Group.

The companies said at the time that the acquisition would allow Sage’s resources to boost Lockstep’s ways of automating accounting workflows between companies.

PYMNTS research has found that firms that use automation in the areas of payment acceptance get paid much faster.

About two-thirds of firms that have automated AR processes reported that they have benefited from improved days sales outstanding (DSO), and about half said they have achieved lower delinquency rates, according to the “B2B Payments Innovation Readiness Playbook,” a PYMNTS and American Express collaboration based on a survey of 460 small to large businesses.

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