Automating and future-proofing operations with digital processes has become a priority for most organizations. This is especially true given the added disruption brought on by COVID-19.  

To optimize their processes and decrease the risk of error, companies must automate and modernize existing accounts receivable (AR) processes. But what is the best method to do so? As more companies prioritize digitization and outsource accounts receivable, there is opportunity to implement a payment solution that solves for the common pain points of existing AR processes.  

To learn more about the current state of AR and how organizations should approach their payments process transition, PaymentsJournal sat down with Beth Bourgoin, Receivables Product Manager at Deluxe, Anna Tallo, Senior Solutions Consultant at Deluxe, and Steve Murphy, Director of Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group. 

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Businesses understand the value of AR automation 

For the past two years, Deluxe has partnered with Strategic Treasurer to survey the state of AR processing, gathering insights on pain points, trends, and key findings within the market. Noteworthy findings from the 2021 Accounts Receivable Survey Report, in which 150 corporates and banks were surveyed, can be found in the infographic below: 

“Over 50% of corporates surveyed still maintain commercial lock boxes for the processing of paper payments. That’s just an interesting fact considering the COVID-19 pandemic that we’re moving through and what we know about payers and their desire for less touches in the payment process. Paper payments are still there, they still exist, and they’re still pretty common,” said Tallo. 

On the other hand, these corporates are very much interested in moving toward a more fully electronic accounts receivable process, with 72% of corporates saying that a fully electronic AR process is important or very important to them.  

“That kind of demonstrates,