Mastercard has partnered with Billtrust, a B2B order-to-cash software, to deliver the new Mastercard Receivables Manager automated solution, aimed at streamlining the way businesses accept and process virtual card payments.
Requiring minimal implementation effort, Mastercard Receivables Manager enables companies to get to market quicker and empowers suppliers to receive virtual card payments with simplicity. This aims to optimize acceptance at scale and increase card spend opportunity for businesses.
The new venture adds to Mastercard’s virtual card platform, first established in January 2022, which boasts the use of machine learning and straight-through processing in order to analyze and automatically initiate instant payment of supplier invoices.
The Mastercard Receivables Manager solution with Billtrust aims to advance Mastercard’s already established virtual card platform in order to accelerate the digitization of B2B transactions across buyers and suppliers.
Virtual cards are rapidly gaining momentum in B2B payments, with over 90 percent of suppliers reporting that they prefer receiving a digital payment, and the related invoice information, over checks.
The shift towards emerging digital-tech has additionally left accounts receivable teams struggling to keep pace with increased virtual card payment processing, underscoring the critical need for an automated solution.
As a result, card companies have been teaming up with B2B software platforms in order to keep up with increasing digitalization of the market, including Visa’s announcement last month they have partnered with SAP SE to address this emerging issue.
Mastercard Receivables Manager solution similarly aims to make virtual card transactions more efficient, secure and cost-effective to process. Suppliers will no longer need to manually capture and enter virtual card details to reconcile the vast number of digital payments received.
The new solution consolidates these card payments from all issuers so the remittance data can automatically be matched to open invoices, and formatted and delivered for their ERP systems, making it easier for suppliers to reconcile invoices with efficiency and accuracy.
This will additionally provide suppliers with new advantages, including the ability to drive early payments and improve overall visibility of their cash flow.
Chad Wallace, global head of commercial solutions, Mastercard, said: “This is a significant milestone in our journey to deliver more seamless, digital-first user experiences to the B2B payments ecosystem.
“We’re bridging the gap between buyers’ virtual card preferences and suppliers’ acceptance challenges by automating manual processes and transforming the way accounts receivable teams operate.”
