Commercial Cards Become Important CFO Cash Management Tool

PYMNTS asked business leaders for their take on how to plan for the rest of 2023, and what they are telling their teams to focus on. Seth Goodman, chief revenue officer at Boost Payment Solutions, says commercial card technology, such as virtual cards, can help CFOs manage payment activity.

While market signals have been varied and the economic environment is uncertain, it is clear that payment digitization continues to be a priority for CFOs who are eager to avail themselves of solutions that help reduce costs, expand working capital, eliminate fraud and remove manual processes from their operations. Large companies are focused on managing how they make and receive payments, and there is still significant opportunity to adopt digital payments for invoice-based spend. From Boost’s perspective, this spotlight has created new and exciting opportunities. The COVID pandemic accelerated an existing a push to automate payment processes which has created positive tailwinds for commercial cards. Boost remains bullish on the potential for 2023 to be another year of significant growth.

There are now a host of technology-enabled options to optimize payments that directly impact the bottom line and commercial cards have emerged as the clear winner for both the accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) sides of the business. In today’s interest rate environment, working capital tools are more important than ever and commercial cards give buyers an efficient way to manage their cash flow and receive incremental revenue through issuer rebates. Additionally, capturing incremental card spend is a top priority for many financial institutions so they promote the latest commercial card technology like virtual cards. Flexible pricing and dynamic rules are becoming mission-critical tools to secure incremental spend and help CFOs manage their payment activity.

As commercial card usage increases on the AP side, suppliers are actively seeking new solutions to accept card payments in a cost-effective and efficient manner. We are seeing that traditional consumer-based acquirers are typically not able to meet suppliers’ complex requirements including rules-based straight-through processing (STP), customized reporting and interchange optimization. As we head into the remainder of 2023, I am excited about partnering with additional acquirers to help them utilize our purpose-built B2B technology. Boost Intercept, our patented STP platform, serves as a bridge between traditional acquirer/processors, helping them quickly and easily offer B2B solutions to their clients.

In a world of macroeconomic uncertainty, our focus is clear: digitize B2B payments to help guide the payment ecosystem through these dynamic changes. We are going to stay focused on communicating the value of automation and digitization, helping our clients and partners future-proof their businesses with cutting edge technology, actionable insights and added security.