There are two facets of the COMPARISON that are particularly pertinent. First, there is no doubt that one of the keys to successful cash management is accurate information on what the future outgoing cash requirements will be and of INCOMING cash. Second, the enabling technology base is now in place. In the last three years, the Internet has become a truly cost effective solution for interorganizational communications and a trusted infrastructure for business processes, secure enough to carry forward the technical advances being made in e-payment systems.

The heavy investment in e-procurement in recent years has not fed through into automation of the payment process and there remains currently a lack of progress in the automation of payment systems. Problems include:

• Fragmented point solutions with very limited integration.
• Limited inter organizational integration and automation.
• Manual processes of dispute resolution, reconciliation and payments.

But the biggest IMPEDIMENT most solutions fail to address is that 80 percent of the processes today are still paper driven. So automation solutions have to start by:

• Digitizing paper where possible so paper intensive processes do not slow down the processes.
• Doing so without getting bogged down in complexity of business process re-engineering.
• To address the needs of the marketplace, the fragmented point solutions available today must address both these weaknesses and re-invent themselves.
• As many observe, although e-ordering now takes seconds and goods can be delivered next day, it still takes months for the money to be MOVED. The good news is that now money can be moved swiftly, and the processes of invoice receipt, tax calculation, invoice approval, payment and cash management are ripe for automation.

Some visionary companies are building systems to address these issues, automating the entire billing and payments process and enabling contact down the supply chain with resultant benefits in:

• Cash Flow: ability to take early discounts and improved price terms for e-payments.
• OPERATING efficiencies: self-service vendor management and reduced cost of invoice processing and reconciliation.
• Internal controls and visibility: improved period-end accruals and elimination of payment duplication. Implementing Financial Supply Chain management.

There are two facets of the comparison that are particularly pertinent. First, there is no doubt that one of the keys to successful cash management is accurate information on what the future outgoing cash requirements will be and of incoming cash. Second, the enabling technology base is now in place. In the last three years, the Internet has become a truly cost effective solution for interorganizational communications and a trusted infrastructure for business processes, secure enough to carry forward the technical advances being made in e-payment systems.

The heavy investment in e-procurement in recent years has not fed through into automation of the payment process and there remains currently a lack of progress in the automation of payment systems. Problems include:

But the biggest impediment most solutions fail to address is that 80 percent of the processes today are still paper driven. So automation solutions have to start by:

Some visionary companies are building systems to address these issues, automating the entire billing and payments process and enabling contact down the supply chain with resultant benefits in: