Tipalti Launches Partnerships To Extend Value And Drive Customer Satisfaction

Tipalti’s mission is to automate the entire payables process, and, to extend value to its clients, the company partners with other firms that offer complementary services along the way.

Tipalti, for example, can help clients with many steps in the tax compliance process. It can gather, validate and digitize tax forms, get a clean vendor master record and conduct supplier onboarding and withholding. Of course, the last procedure in the process is tax filing, and that’s where a partner steps in. “Sovos picks that up for us,” Tipalti’s chief marketing officer Rob Israch told PYMNTS.com in an interview.

“Additional types of complementary partnerships extend the value that we give to our clients, extend the value that [our partners] bring to their clients and improve customer satisfaction ultimately even further,” he said in regards to Tipalti’s additional partners, funding companies Teampay and Vindeo.

Tipalti, for example, provides early payments automation to its clients, and Vindeo helps to finance those payments. Once companies onboard and verify suppliers and gather tax forms and invoices, there’s still the challenge of payments. Typically, companies pay their suppliers on terms 30, 45, or 90 days after the payment is approved. That isn’t always ideal for suppliers and partners, which have margin squeezes and are looking for cash flow. According to Israch, “A lot of [them] would love to get [paid] one day after that payment is approved — not 45 days after.”

Tipalti’s system, in collaboration with Vindeo, automated the process of reaching out to suppliers to tell them that their payment has been approved and asks them if they would like an early payment. So far approximately 40 percent of suppliers have agreed to have an early payment. The entire process is automated, and takes advantage of, for example, automated email templates. Tipalti handles automation, and as such, it must bring partners such as Vindeo and Teampay to the table.

At the same time, such services can help Tipalti’s clients stand out from the competition. If companies can give suppliers and partners a pleasant payment experience, “that’s a huge benefit to attracting and retaining them, and it certainly distinguishes you against your competition,” Israch said.