Manual Reconciliation Tops List of Bill Payment Headaches for Executives

Manual reconciliation of customers’ bill payments is sending finance executives in search of aspirin.

That’s according to research in the December 2022 edition of PYMNTS’ “The One-Stop Bill Pay Playbook,” which found manual reconciliation to be the most common headache payment executives face when their customers go to pay their bills.

Other common headaches include automatic payments being declined, customer service calls and checks/payments being returned due to insufficient funds.

But manual reconciliation especially is a tender issue in the healthcare industry, where more than half (57.6%) of finance executives cite it as their most pressing pain point, as well as in the government services, where it leaves 1 in 3 executives rubbing their temples hoping for relief. The legacy approach is causing migraines in the utilities industry also, where 41.8% of bill pay leaders would prefer a less-painful solution than manually reconciling their customers’ transactional information.

Supporting research in the PYMNTS playbook finds that 30% of billing and collections executives are not fully satisfied with their organizations’ current bill payments overall ecosystem, and more than 2 in 3 (68%) expect their businesses to incorporate innovations to reduce payment headaches, such as one-stop-shop solutions, within the next calendar year.

Fueling the uninspired sentiment among bill payment executives are complaints from bill-payers. The most frequent center around a lack of payment options on offer, as well as confusing or nonexistent interface features.

Fortunately, emerging innovations in the bill payment space are being designed and leveraged to specifically address these payment pain points — offering more personalized and efficient experiences while reducing internal accounting inefficiencies and headaches that stem from legacy processes.

Collectively, nearly 3 in 4 (74%) billing executives have indicated interest in offering their customers a one-stop bill payment solution portal, with increased convenience being the main driver of their interest.

If these recurring bill pay headaches sound familiar, find out what your organization can do to successfully address and remove them with learnings from PYMNTS’ free to download report, “The One-Stop Bill Pay Playbook.”