To most people, purchase transactions probably seem pretty straightforward. However, in many cases there is actually a lot more going on behind the scenes - particularly in the case of business-to-business transactions. Generally speaking, the process a business undertakes when making purchases from suppliers is often referred to as “Procure to Pay,” or P2P. The flip side of the coin, the process of receiving payment for goods or services rendered, is called “Order to Cash,” or O2C.
With years of experience and powerful proprietary technology, Exela has been helping businesses streamline both O2C and P2P processes for greater efficiency and cost savings. Leveraging that extensive background in O2C and P2P services, Exela is able to bridge the gap between the two processes and deliver a more efficient, convenient, and transparent process for all parties involved than ever before.
Order to Cash - O2C
Order-to-cash refers to the entirety of your company’s order processing system, starting when an order is placed by a customer or client. Anything prior to this point is considered marketing or sales. That’s not to say that marketing, branding, and sales functions end when the order is placed - trans-promotional communication can be a powerful tool - but it is at this point that O2C functions kick into gear. The process ends when the invoice is paid and settled.
It may seem like this process is short and simple - order placed, payment rendered - but there are actually a number of important additional steps that ensure accuracy, speed up remittance, and improve processes in the long-term. Businesses across all sectors are realizing that it’s more important than ever to maximize returns at every opportunity, including O2C. By collecting and analyzing data captured throughout the order-to-cash cycle, businesses can better identify trends, weaknesses, and opportunities to optimize processes and practices.
Thanks to advanced automation technology, these O2C processes are more efficient and accurate than ever. A quality O2C process can automate functions like deduplication, reconciliation and validation, and allows for forensic audit investigations, fraud detection, and error correction.
With an integrated O2C software solution like Exela’s O2C, you can significantly improve and streamline all of these functions, allowing you to improve customer satisfaction, minimize errors, and ensure accuracy.
Procure to Pay - P2P
Consumers may not often consider the costs of running a business, but every company, from large multinational conglomerates to tiny mom-and-pop storefronts need to source and pay for goods and services of some kind. The Procure to Pay process is essential to any organization that engages with external vendors or suppliers. The process begins whenever internal teams within an organization requisition a product or service necessary for the business, and continues with purchasing, receiving, and paying for the order - hence the name “Procure to Pay.
As with O2C, the P2P process appears simple at first, but actually contains many opportunities for optimization that can yield significant returns in time and cash savings. At a time when global supply chains are being tested as never before, leveraging effective P2P analytics tools to improve supply chain management is critical to business success.
Getting P2P right is among the most important factors to a company’s bottom line. Pay too much for necessary supplies, and you cut into your profits or other budgetary line items. Go with an unreliable supplier with no quick backup plan in place, and you could be faced with a serious and costly bottleneck slowing down production.
By creating a single, integrated environment where buyers and suppliers can easily communicate and collaborate, Exela’s P2P platform enables businesses to maintain greater visibility into the AP process, reduce administrative costs, improve cash flows, take advantage of dynamic discounting opportunities, and build stronger partner relationships.
XBP - Bridging the Transaction Gap
Between O2C and P2P comes the transaction itself, which requires communication between the buyer and supplier systems. This gap between systems can lead to costly miscommunications and potential security threats that require time to resolve, often slowing down processes for both parties.
Exela’s unique Exchange for Bills and Payment (XBP) platform creates a convenient ecosystem that reduces friction as billers and payers connect, communicate, and transact, all in one place. This next-generation digital payments platform enables organizations to send bills and receive payments via direct messaging, accelerating payments and preempting delinquencies. Simply put, XBP makes the billing component of P2P and O2C electronic, with richer and more actionable data.
XBP introduces some flexibility into the payment transaction, too, allowing for direct communication and direct communication between payers and billers right in the app. For payers, this makes it easier to secure ad hoc financing and handle short-term trading. For billers, it means better liquidity and cash management options and easier collections techniques.
Users can track and pay all their bills via XBP’s centralized experience, creating an easily auditable trail for the entire payment cycle. With XBP, payers and payees can avoid the need for data matching, reconciliation, and exception processing. XBP provides secure return information about the transaction that is completely auditable.
Exela’s robust digital solution set covers the entire step of the process for end-to-end optimization that benefits all parties involved. With our extensive experience and deep industry knowledge, we’re building digital roads to enable a more connected world. Learn more about how Exela can improve your critical financial processes through our Liquidity Solutions and Payment Technologies and Services.
