Your Ultimate Guide to EIPP Solutions and UX in B2B Payments

As a payment leader in a global business, you're probably familiar with the challenges of managing invoices and payments across different countries, currencies, and regulations. You also understand the importance of providing a great user experience (UX) to your customers, suppliers, and partners, especially if they are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

SMEs are the backbone of the global economy, accounting for 90% of all businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide. They are also important contributors to innovation, competitiveness, and social well-being. However, they face many barriers and challenges in accessing finance, markets, and technology, which can hamper their growth and survival. One of the key challenges they face is the inefficiency and complexity of invoicing and payment processes, which can affect their cash flow, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

That’s why should consider adopting electronic invoicing presentment and payment (EIPP) solutions, which can help you streamline your invoicing and payment processes, save time and money, and improve your UX for your SME stakeholders.

What are EIPP solutions and how do they work?

EIPP solutions are software applications that automate the process of sending, receiving, and paying invoices electronically. They allow you to:

• Send invoices to your customers via email, web portal, or EDI, in their preferred format and language.
• Receive invoices from your suppliers via the same channels, and validate them against your purchase orders and contracts.
• Pay and get paid online, using various methods such as credit cards, bank transfers, or digital wallets.
• Track and manage your invoices and payments in real-time, with dashboards, reports, and alerts.
• Integrate your EIPP system with your ERP, accounting, or CRM software, to ensure data accuracy and consistency.

Why User-Centric EIPP Solutions Are Best for SMEs

By using EIPP solutions, you can enhance your UX and support your SME stakeholders in several ways, such as:

• Reducing errors and disputes: EIPP solutions can eliminate manual data entry, paper invoices, and disconnected remittances, which can cause errors, delays, and disputes. By ensuring that your invoices are accurate, complete, and compliant, you can reduce the risk of payment rejections, penalties, or litigation.
• Improving cash flow and liquidity: EIPP solutions can speed up the invoice delivery and payment cycle, which can improve your cash flow and liquidity. You can also offer early payment discounts or dynamic discounting to your SME customers or suppliers, which can help them access cheaper financing and improve their working capital.
• Enhancing convenience and security: EIPP solutions can provide a convenient and secure way for your SME stakeholders to access and pay their invoices, from any device, at any time, and from anywhere. They can also communicate with you directly through the EIPP portal if they have any questions or issues. EIPP solutions can also protect your data and transactions from fraud, cyberattacks, or identity theft, by using encryption, authentication, and authorization technologies.
• Increasing transparency and trust: EIPP solutions can increase the transparency and trust between you and your SME stakeholders, by providing them with real-time visibility and control over their invoices and payments. They can also access historical data and analytics, which can help them optimize their cash management and budgeting. You can build long-term relationships and loyalty with them by showing them that you care about their needs and preferences.
• Supporting sustainability and compliance: EIPP solutions can support your sustainability and compliance goals, by reducing your paper consumption, carbon footprint, and environmental impact. They can also help you comply with the different tax, legal, and regulatory requirements in the countries where you operate, by generating and storing electronic invoices that meet the standards and formats of each jurisdiction.

Integration Capabilities, A UX Hurdle in EIPP Solutions

Systems integration is a major problem for UX for SMEs, because they often lack the resources, expertise, and support to integrate their systems effectively and efficiently. In a recent survey of Australian SMEs, 59% of SMEs do not use any integration software or platform, and 38% of them rely on manual methods, such as spreadsheets, email, or paper, to transfer data between their systems. This is not just unique to this region, SMEs globally face integration challenges that hurt their business operations. The results?

• Poor data quality and accuracy, as manual data entry and transfer can introduce errors, inconsistencies, and delays, which can affect the reliability and usability of the data.
• Low productivity and efficiency, as manual data integration, can consume a lot of time and effort, which can distract the staff from their core tasks and reduce their output and performance.
• High costs and risks, such as manual data integration, can incur additional expenses, such as hiring more staff, buying more software licenses, or paying for data storage and backup. It can also expose the data to potential threats, such as loss, theft, or corruption, which can damage the reputation and profitability of the business.
• Poor customer satisfaction and retention, as manual data integration, can affect the quality and timeliness of the services and products delivered to the customers, which can lead to dissatisfaction, complaints, or churn.

Therefore, SMEs need to overcome the problem of systems integration, by investing in the right EIPP solutions and platforms, that can help them automate and optimize their data integration processes, and improve their UX for their customers and partners.

EIPP solutions are not only a way to automate and optimize your invoicing and payment processes, but also a way to improve your UX and boost your SME stakeholders in the global market. By adopting EIPP solutions, you can reduce errors and disputes, improve cash flow and liquidity, enhance convenience and security, increase transparency and trust, and support sustainability and compliance.

However, to reap the full benefits of EIPP solutions, you need to overcome the challenges of data integration, such as incompatible interfaces and formats, data inconsistency and synchronization, performance and scalability issues, and systems integration problems. You also need to choose the right EIPP solutions and platforms, that offer ease of integration, high security and compliance standards, and cloud-based and mobile-based features.

WDIR, Your UX Partner in B2B Payments

If you want to learn more about how EIPP solutions can help you create a world where we center the end user in business payments, and how good UX is good for business, contact WDIR, the leading UX agency in B2B payments globally. We can help you create and integrate UX-led strategies to make your EIPP solutions the preferred choice of SMEs and global businesses. Get in touch today!