Automated Invoice Factoring: Your Secret Weapon in B2B Commerce

B2B online commerce is a complex field, with challenges including customer-specific conditions, elaborate order processes and business payment management.

Nevertheless, manufacturers of goods are increasingly finding that their corporate customers and resellers also want to order online. Payment options in particular play a decisive role in the implementation of B2B orders.

An emerging trend that's shaking up the industry is integrated invoice factoring for B2B sales, driven by automated process orchestration.

Invoice factoring definition 

With B2B factoring, merchants sell their receivables from the delivery of goods and services to factoring companies.

These companies also assume the risk of non-payment. In return, the business customer receives an official invoice for the goods and services with a payment term that can be settled by bank transfer.

The problem with conventional payment methods 

The terms and conditions of purchase are often contrasted with the terms and conditions of sale: almost all business customers prefer to pay by invoice with a payment term of 30 days or more.

If B2B sellers offer their customers this payment option however, new challenges arise. There is often a high administrative burden due to complex negotiations.

In addition, merchants make advance payments and bear the full risk of default. As B2B companies usually receive larger amounts from fewer customers, any delays in payment also have a significant impact on cash flow.

Customers, on the other hand, are not offered popular options such as "buy now, pay later" or installment purchases. However, B2B online shoppers today expect online orders to be processed according to their preferred payment methods. 

This is where integrated factoring for B2B customers comes in, whereby customers can purchase on account, fully automatically. At the same time, sellers receive payment directly and the funds are available immediately.

Leveraging order automation for B2B factoring

The key to success in B2B factoring lies in the automation of business processes. Orders are processed automatically and invoices are generated immediately in the system. No manual data entry means no delays. 

The technological basis is a composable software architecture. Powerful APIs enable the seamless integration of factoring services into order management and ERP systems, orchestrated by a central workflow control system.

This allows modern payment trends such as "buy now, pay later" to be offered to customers, and growth potential can be exploited.

Advantages of factoring and order automation

Integrated invoice factoring, supported by process automation, creates a win-win situation for marketplaces and sellers. It optimizes processes, improves cash flow and ensures a consistently positive experience for all parties involved.  
 
Other benefits include:

• Faster liquidity: Thanks to risk assessments and approvals by the factoring provider in near real time, merchants have immediate liquidity and are independent of their clients' payment terms.
• Secure growth for companies: This in turn promotes business growth and eliminates liquidity bottlenecks, especially for larger B2B orders.
• Reduced risk: B2B factoring companies assume the full risk of any payment defaults.
• Outsourced dunning process: The accounts department is also happy. Once the receivable has been sold, employees no longer need to worry about dunning and debtor management.
• Seamless shopping experience: Customers can make purchases from B2B retailers and manufacturers without prior purchasing negotiations - online, quickly and easily.
• All processes in one system: Merchants can manage invoices and finances within their own ERP and e-commerce system, such as Actindo Core1, to create seamless and efficient business processes.

Improve your payment processes with Actindo and Mondu.ai

A good example of seamless payment transactions in the business customer sector is the integration of Mondu.ai's B2B factoring tool into Actindo Core1. 

Actindo Core1 is the world's most flexible commerce ERP, and is based on the proven MACH architecture with microservices, API-first, cloud-native and headless architecture. Powerful APIs and the modular IT infrastructure facilitate the integration of factoring applications such as Mondu.ai. Orders, deliveries and invoicing are automated via fully customizable workflows. 

Thanks to the developer-friendly low-code approach, popular factoring options such as "buy now, pay later" and installments-based purchases can be set up quickly and easily. 

With Actindo Core1, all business processes - from ordering to accounting and beyond - can be individually created and orchestrated.

Manual, time-consuming processes in B2B commerce are handled with Actindo almost in real time, fully automated and in the background. Which means that errors in data transfer are avoided.

Interested? We'd be happy to support you in making your company future-proof.