With it being a new year, people everywhere have big plans to get healthier. Organizations, too, might have healthier plans for their payments strategy. What could possibly stand in the way? The wrong mindset is one. Since business and personal endeavors often mirror each other, let’s take an example pertaining to personal plans. If your 2021 goal is to eat healthier and lose weight, but today you ate a doughnut for breakfast, do you:
A. Say you will restart your diet again on Monday (or other future date)
B. Make better choices beginning now
The above is based on a real-life conversation I recently had with someone who was leaning toward A., but I lobbied for B. Now for a payments quiz. If your organization’s goal is to convert at least “X%” of suppliers to a card solution, but you struggle to get past the halfway mark, do you:
A. Abandon the goal because the plan isn’t working like you had hoped
B. Identify, and then pursue, the necessary changes to increase success
In both cases, of course, option B. is the better path. Do not let a quest for perfection—however you define it—prevent you from achieving a multitude of smaller successes that truly add up. Similarly, do not let one or more setbacks stop your progress altogether. To help get your organization on the right path, below are key factors for payment success.
Payment Strategy Success Factors
If your organization has been running into dead ends in its attempt to improve its payments strategy, maybe you are missing one of the following. Focus your efforts on the missing factor(s) in order to make better progress.
Documenting the business case for adopting and/or increasing the usage of various types of Commercial Cards
Uniting the stakeholders and obtaining management buy-in
Establishing specific and reasonable goals
Dedicating resources to the plan and supporting their continuing education/knowledge expansion
Implementing any available automated controls, such as vendor or payment-related fields/settings within your ERP or accounting systems
Partnering with your issuer/provider
Updating applicable policies and procedures to align with what you are trying to accomplish
Training the stakeholders
Holding people accountable for their respective roles
Tracking and reporting the progress on a regular basis
Finally, not giving up if/when things stall, but adjusting as necessary
These are all common sense steps you have likely heard before, but is your organization doing them? There’s no time like now to start (or restart). If you need assistance, contact Recharged Education about available consulting services.
“You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.”
If your payments strategy keeps running into dead ends, re-evaluate whether you have all the right factors for success.
Contributors to the Blog in 2020
Recharged Education thanks the following people for contributing to this blog last year.
Robin F. Anderson and Bill Kniering, Texas Capital Bank
Stephen Cohen, Boost Payment Solutions
Jenny Hart, Carma Laboratories, Inc.
Paul Newton, Barque Labs
Kelly Paxton, Pink Collar Crime Expert
Debra R. Richardson, Debra R. Richardson LLC
Mary Schaeffer, AP Now
Andre Fortin, college senior
Kayla Robertson, recent college graduate
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About the Author
Blog post author Lynn Larson, CPCP, launched Recharged Education in 2014. With 20 years of Commercial Card experience, her mission is to make industry education readily accessible to all. Learn more…