We are nearly 25 years into the 21st century. For businesses, the shift from traditional, analog methods to seamless, digital-first payment processes should have happened long ago.
“Almost half of B2B payments are still made via check, which blows my mind in terms of the technology that exists now,” Rebecca Schultz, chief marketing officer at Boost B2B Payment Solutions, told PYMNTS for the “What’s Next in Payments: How Do You Do Digital?” series.
Despite a decade of digital payment adoption in consumer transactions, B2B payments remain largely manual, with a staggering portion of transactions still reliant on checks.
The perception that digital payment systems, especially commercial cards, are costly and complicated has often deterred businesses from making the switch. Schultz emphasized that this belief is misleading. With the right solutions and partners, the digital transformation process can be smooth and cost-effective, providing operational and financial advantages.
“It doesn’t have to be a two-year tech cycle,” Schultz said, noting that a quick and simple implementation can yield results for organizations prepared to transition. With a streamlined, fully digital process, businesses can be up and running with digital payments in a few days.
Firms exist and operate in a golden age of business software and computing advances. There’s no longer any reason that digital integrations should take the same time and resource lift that they did years ago — when firms may have initially looked into integrating the first waves of B2B payment solutions.
One of the most entrenched assumptions in B2B finance is that check payments are essentially free, while digital alternatives such as commercial cards carry prohibitive fees.
Schultz challenged this notion, explaining that manual check processing often incurs hidden costs in terms of time, labor and delayed payment cycles. In many cases, digital payments are not only cheaper in terms of transaction costs but also help streamline processes, reduce errors and enhance data visibility by avoiding the inefficiencies of manual data entry, collections delays and processing errors.
Boost provides resources like cost-of-acceptance calculators and payment health checks to help businesses see the financial benefits of transitioning away from checks. However, she stressed that the “hidden X factor” in digital B2B payments lies in data.
“A quarter of [accounts receivable (AR)] teams are still relying on spreadsheets to manage their receivables,” Schultz said, underscoring the backwardness of certain manual processes in the age of big data and automation. By digitizing payments, businesses can collect and use data to become smarter and more efficient.
The transformation begins with making businesses “data-rich,” which requires eliminating manual processes that scatter and fragment information, Schultz said. Once the data is centralized and standardized, companies can use it to unlock insights into cash flow, customer relationships, and potential early warning signs of financial stress.
Schultz explained that this process also allows businesses to optimize cost savings by accessing the best possible interchange rates for card transactions, particularly when dealing with level-three data, which includes invoice-level details.
However, she warned against complacency after partial digitization. If any part of the process remains manual, such as suppliers manually cashing checks, then the benefits of digital transformation and the value of the data exchange are diminished.
“You can digitize the payment, but if the receiver is turning it into cash and manually entering the data, then the value of that exchange has ended,” Schultz explained, noting that true success comes from digitizing every step of the payment process, ensuring a seamless flow of information from end to end.
Schultz said she believes that the responsibility for digital transformation spans multiple departments within organizations. While chief financial officers often initiate the push toward optimized cost savings and fraud prevention, partnership across the treasury, technology and operational teams is essential for success.
She said in her view, everyone from the finance department to shared services and procurement must understand and appreciate the value of digital transformation.
One interesting dynamic Schultz noted is the generational shift occurring within finance departments. Millennials and Generation Z professionals who have grown up using digital payments and banking solutions are increasingly stepping into decision-making roles. These younger finance leaders are accustomed to real-time access to financial information and have no attachment to legacy payment methods like checks. Many have never written a check in their lives, making them natural evangelists for digitization.
As this generational shift continues, Schultz said she expects digital payments to become the norm across all sectors, creating a baseline expectation for seamless, integrated payment systems.
Looking ahead, while she said she applauds the industry’s focus on usability and user interfaces, Schultz stressed that the ultimate goal of any B2B payments transformation should not just be a slick user interface but seamless automation. The vision is a payment process that requires no manual intervention at any step — where payments flow effortlessly from initiation to receipt without any need for logging into separate systems or manually processing data.
“The time to digitize is now,” she said.
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