B2B payments: invoices, net terms and bank transfers that reconcile themselves

B2B payments are not bigger consumer transactions. Purchase orders, approval workflows, extended terms and accounting integration are the whole job, and most processors treat all of it as an afterthought. The result is a finance team reconciling by hand.

Invoicing and terms

Invoices that send themselves, remind themselves and reconcile themselves. Net 30, 60 and 90 terms, with reminders before and after the due date, and a sync into your accounting software so nothing is keyed twice. Payment links on the invoice let a customer pay by card or bank transfer without a phone call.

Bank transfers instead of cards

Card interchange on a $10,000 invoice is real money. Direct debit, wires and standard transfers move that money for less than card rates, settle faster, and reconcile automatically against the invoice. Where a customer insists on a card, Level 2 and Level 3 data brings the interchange down; see Level 2 and Level 3 data.

Purchase order matching

Purchase order to invoice to payment, matched automatically. When the numbers agree, the payment moves forward. When they do not, the mismatch is flagged for a person instead of discovered at month end.

Approvals and multiple entities

Spending limits per entity, rules for who approves what, and controls that hold across divisions and subsidiaries. The right people approve the right payments, and the audit trail exists without anyone building it.

Cash flow you can see

A real-time view of what is coming in and going out, forecasts that show a gap before it hits, and early-payment discounts applied automatically when they are worth taking.

Paying or invoicing internationally

Multi-currency invoicing, international wires and cross-border supplier payments follow the same principle as card routing: settle in the currency of the deal and skip the markup. That is covered in Selling in both Canada and the US.

The full stack is described on B2B payments. If you are not sure how much of your collections process is manual, the free audit is a good place to find out.