Over the past 10 years, I have had the opportunity to work on a few e-payment projects. These projects were focused on moving the respective company away from printing checks in-house. For those that still rely on this method of sending payments, you know that this means hours of work related to printing, collating, and stuffing. Additionally, you have the added cost of check stock, envelopes, stamps, and finger cuts. Some of the averages I have seen and calculated put the cost of in-house check printing at about $2.50-$3.50 per check. A final major cost of in-house printing involves the time spent dealing with fraud as a result of things like check washing. Even with positive pay, this is still a possibility. Now with positive pay you do have the backing of the bank, but you still have the administrative burden. So what do you do? Move to e-payment.
If you google e-payment, you are likely to see a search result with several product offerings, varying approaches and definitions, etc. The simple concept of e-payment is this: no more in-house printing. Most major banks offer some form of e-payment, which simply involves transmitting a file from your ERP system to a banking institution. This file can usually consist of both check and ACH payment instructions. For the check instructions, the bank takes on the role of check printing, which costs substantially less(~1-$1.25). With regard to ACH payments, the cost is down to about $.25/transaction. More importantly, the file transmission can serve as your positive pay file. This is a plus given that a lot of companies that print checks in-house either fail to transmit a positive pay file, or have not elected this critical service for fraud protection.
Now, many reading this post may have attempted to implement e-payment, but failed to complete this rollout due to issues with an ERP system and/or the bank. I will agree that implementing e-payment is not for the faint of heart, but it is a must for any treasury group focused on the following:
- fraud protection
- customer relationships
- audit trail
- cost savings
- treasury efficiencies
This being said, it is critical to prepare your organization for a successful implementation of e-payment. A major decision concerns the ability and willingness to house vendor ACH information in your ERP system. Personally, I would put the onus on your financial institution. Major institutions offer this service via a portal that allows vendors to set up and control their banking information. From the company’s perspective, the treasury group just needs to work out the following procedural steps:
- notifying vendor of ACH option; you or the bank can run a marketing campaign
- for interested vendors, direct them to the bank portal
- coordinate a notification process with bank when vendor signs up
- on a regular basis, convert vendor(s) from check to ACH in your ERP system
- make sure your process maintains a sound segregation of duties
- understand how your transmission will tie into your cash reconciliation(s)
In addition to preparing the company for a move to e-payment, an internal project lead needs to be selected. Many companies will automatically choose to use an external project manager provided via the bank or ERP consultant. Personally, the e-payment implementation will go a lot smoother if an internal project lead is selected, and instead coordinates the work of the bank and ERP consultant. Below is basic plan for implementation:
Initial meeting
- coordinate an initial meeting between the bank technical lead(TL) and the ERP technical lead
- request a spec file and confirm with ERP TL that a transmission file can be created per the bank’s requirements; sometimes a special character is required for each record to trigger an ACH lookup
- confirm between the ERP TL and bank TL how the file will be transmitted; portal upload, SFTP (secure file transfer protocol), etc.
- confirm if and how ACH and check payments will be differentiated; many times the file can have both payment instructions, but the distinction has to be specifically flagged (this should be detailed in the spec file)
- confirm with bank what special ACH transmission code or account needs to be created; you don’t want to get ready to transmit only to find out that the bank is not ready to receive your file
- make sure the bank provides a testing area to test file transmissions, and you have permission to access it
- make sure your ERP TL creates a testing area to create test files
- review requirements, formatting and delivery options for the remittance advice
- have all parties agree to a preliminary timeline
- consider options for expedited delivery on checks; expedited check payments, check return to add additional documents, etc.
- coordinate with ERP TL on how to flag expedited or check returns in the ERP system
- understand how a specific payment can be cancelled after transmission is completed
- ask bank TL what reports will help you complete your bank reconciliation(s)
Preparation
- get familiar with how databases generally work; specifically how table records are joined to create a file
- get generally familiar with the spec file requirement(s) from the bank; basically, understand how the final transmission file needs to look
- understand how the vendor signup portal works
- understand how testing will work; success is when your ERP system can create a file that the bank can process
- inform your vendors about the move to e-payment, and provide a tentative go-live date
Development
- have ERP TL create a file transmission
- test transmission via bank test portal
- review the test remittance advice; make sure the formatting is correct
- repeat the above steps above until you have a successful transmission
- select a vendor for testing a live transmission; review the results to include checking your intraday bank statement
- update vendors on e-payment rollout
E-payment rollout
- update vendors on e-payment rollout
- get the latest ACH signup list from bank and switch a few vendors from check to ACH
- send a small file with both ACH and check payments
- check the results against your bank intraday bank statement
- get the latest ACH signup list from bank and switch all remaining vendors from check to ACH
- celebrate
This short list is obviously not all-inclusive, but should serve as a guide. More, it shows that a lot of coordination is necessary to have a successful implementation. However, be assured that your company can take the lead and make e-payment a reality. My final pieces of advice are:
- don’t be afraid to succeed
- don’t take anything for granted; trust but verify
- switch banks if necessary
- have fun
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me via the blog e-mail address below, or at rudyhill@rodapa.com.