Paper checks are expensive, and the manual processes paper checks involve are error-prone and susceptible to fraud. Yet, a majority of finance departments continue to rely on them.
According to a 2016 Payment Survey by AP Now, 75 percent of B2B payments are still made by paper check, and only 45 percent of those using paper checks reported wanting to reduce the number of checks issued. This is particularly alarming given the newly released annual 2016 Payments Fraud and Control Survey from the Association for Finance Professionals (AFP) which reported that once again, checks were the most popular vehicle for payments fraud last year.
In addition to security concerns, paper checks are expensive and create extra work for accounts payable (AP) staff. The good news is that 83 percent of businesses use ACH payments at some point during their payment process, reported AP Now. However, it’s clear that finance departments still have a long way to come in terms of bringing efficiency and added security to their payments processes.
While ultimately we’d love to see businesses ditch paper checks altogether, we understand that a gradual shift towards electronic payments is more realistic. As FinTech continues to grow, we hope to see more AP professionals integrate automated solutions into their B2B payments processes. Companies that use MineralTree Invoice-to-Pay can eliminate the manual process of fulfilling check payments and capitalize on the various electronic payment options available to them including ACH transfers, credit and debit cards, commercial cards, virtual cards, and purchasing cards.
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