Developing a Payments Strategy

Over the next 5 weeks, this blog will seek to explore what is involved in developing a payments strategy for any commercial enterprise of pretty much any size. Although the strategy may alter somewhat at the detailed level, I will argue that the approach to be taken is a common one and essentially involves 5 steps. These are:

1. Determining why it is critical to have and maintain a payments strategy
2. Focusing on how to issue bills and invoices in a fast and efficiency way
3. Giving customers as user-friendly billing and payment experience as possible.
4. Making as much payment choice available as possible to customers
5. Building a seamless payments process

Within each of these steps there is a mini-process that it is valuable to follow with the idea that at the end of the five steps, a fully tailored and well-planned payment strategy can be evolved and then implemented.

In some cases, a senior executive in a given organization or a senior manager in finance perhaps will only need to make minor adjustments to current practice, or merely add a few extra steps or approaches to optimize the system already used. However, in other cases the development of a full payments strategy will indicate a much more substantial overhaul and implementation of the billing and payment system and changes will need to be carefully planned. In either of these two extremes, we’ll examine the major considerations and offer some specific advice in terms of options. It should be noted that there is lots of third-party advice available in the market on this subject, much or which is freely provided. As a result, making changes for the better (at least to some degree) is within the scope of any company in this important area of business operations.

In next week’s blog therefore look out for the first in the series-the determination of why it is critical to not only have a payments strategy but to keep it up-to-date and to monitor its success over time.