Cleo and Paystand Team to Automate B2B Payments

Ecosystem integration provider Cleo has teamed with B2B payments firm Paystand.

Paystand can help retailers, manufacturers, distributors and software vendors automate their order-to-cash and accounts receivable (AR) processes, letting them collect revenue faster, the companies said in a Tuesday (May 13) news release,

“Since partnering with Cleo, we’re able to offer our customers a fully automated order-to-cash cycle with no manual effort,” said Todd Kibisu, channel account manager at Paystand.

“Cleo’s platform automates the creation of sales orders and invoices in our customers’ ERP systems, and Paystand seamlessly takes over at this point by automating AR processes through the reconciliation of funds.”

Ken Lyons, Cleo’s chief revenue officer, added that the partnership allows businesses to easily integrate their enterprise resource planning (ERP) and payment systems to bolster cash flow and invoicing efficiency.

“By joining forces, we’re delivering a future-ready solution that transforms how businesses handle payments in the ever-evolving and growing digital economy,” Lyons said.

The partnership comes as the process of making B2B payments continues to bedevil businesses, as PYMNTS wrote Tuesday.

“It can be challenging to think of two things more at odds with each other than the mechanics of B2B payments, and the emerging expectations of modern businesses around payment simplicity, security and speed,” that report said.

Although consumer payments have experienced a digital transformation driven by virtual cards, real-time payments and mobile wallets, the report added, B2B continues to find itself deeply mired in manual processes and legacy systems.

“There’s the thought for a lot of companies that, ‘Oh, I have a purchasing card program, I have a virtual payables program — but I can’t use it where I would like to,’” Court Toomey, head of commercial payments, payables at Priority, said in an interview with PYMNTS.

“Less than 10% of total B2B volume in the U.S. can be transacted via credit card, and less than 3% globally,” Toomey added, adding that throughout the United States, traditional B2B payments remain under-optimized.

However, things are beginning to change with the adoption of solutions such as virtual cards and real-time payments by small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

“The more you move down-market is where a lot of the efficiencies that virtual card and real-time payments bring to B2B payments are needed,” Toomey said, adding that the notion that digital B2B payment solutions are only made for large companies was “the opposite of who should be looking at these solutions.”

“These aren’t one-size-fits-all payment innovations,” he said. “There is a size that fits everyone.”

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