3 Must-Have B2B Payment Tools for Small Businesses

Small- to medium-sized business (SMB) payers and suppliers often encounter a mismatch between the ways the two players want to make and receive payments — a potential source of continuous friction in the B2B ecosystem.

For the SMB payers, the four most cited issues that they typically face when making payments are manual invoice review, high payment and credit costs, time wasted during payments processing and a lack of financing alternatives. That’s according to “The Future of Business Payables Innovation,” a PYMNTS and Plastiq collaboration based on a survey of 500 SMBs with revenues between $500,000 and $100 million and accounts payable (AP)/accounts receivable (AR) executives with SMBs as clients.

Get the report: The Future of Business Payables Innovation

Solving the Mismatch Between Buyers, Suppliers

Tech-driven, all-in-one platforms solve the mismatch between buyers and suppliers and foster collaboration between enterprises where friction once reigned, Plastiq Chief Operating Officer Stoyan Kenderov told PYMNTS in an April interview.

Read more: How All-in-One Platforms Can Lower the Cost of SMB Payments

SMBs can benefit from modern platforms that enable them to easily capture card payments — even if the supplier doesn’t accept them.

As it stands right now, “payers very often settle for whatever form of payments is asked of them,” Kenderov said.

PYMNTS’ research revealed that many SMBs are ready for an all-in-one payment platform, and most are ready to pay for it.

Sixty-seven percent of SMBs would be willing to pay to use an all-in-one payment solution if the cost was approximately 1% of the payment amount, and 73% would use one if the rewards, time saved and tax deductions offset the cost of the platform.

While SMBs are highly concerned about data security and complexity, they are also eager to reap the benefits of streamlined payments.

Modernizing Payments

In the report, PYMNTS identified three features that SMBs seeking to modernize payments should look for in new B2B payment tools.

The first is payments choice. The ability to use a credit card, for example, to make payments through a supplier’s preferred payment method would enable SMBs to manage cash according to their preferences.

A second feature to look for is integration of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) system with AP/AR. Accurate shared data powers effective long-term financial planning. For SMBs, tracking AP/AR is essential for profitable liquidity decision-making and operations planning.

The third feature to look for in a technology partner is effective data security and fraud protections. The use of a third-party payment solution requires trust in the provider and a user-friendly, modern approach to data management, including streamlined supplier onboarding and identity authentication.