How a payments provider can boost your supplier enablement

You’ve experienced the potential of virtual cards to create a more efficient payment process and transform your accounts payable from a cost center to a revenue generator. But perhaps you’ve also learned that it’s not that simple when it comes to onboarding suppliers to accept your virtual cards. 

To unlock the full potential of virtual cards, you need to increase supplier acceptance of virtual cards. But how can you boost supplier enablement to increase virtual card acceptance? In the first of a three-part series, we introduce supplier enablement and what you need to know.

Why is this important for AP?

Virtual cards come with many perks for accounts payable teams, including: 

• Rebates when purchasing from a supplier.
• Reduced fraud when compared with other forms of payment.
• Enhanced data capture.
• Faster payment processing.
• And many more!

What could supplier enablement of virtual cards acceptance mean for your business?

That depends on a few factors, including:

• How much your business spends.
• How much you improve supplier acceptance of virtual cards.
• The negotiated virtual card rebate rate between you and your payments provider. 

For example, let’s say your business spends $5 million per year in payment types that aren’t virtual cards. By working with a payments provider that has a dedicated supplier enablement team, you manage to transition 30% of that spend to virtual cards. And you receive a rebate of 2% on your virtual card transactions. 

In that example, your business has earned an additional $30,000 in virtual card rebates alone. That’s on top of the other perks your business receives for the above reasons. 

What are suppliers’ pain points?

Suppliers have real reasons to be reluctant to accept virtual cards, but they often can be solved when working with an experienced payments provider. Primarily, it can be time-consuming to onboard virtual cards, and the process might feel complicated if it’s a new experience for their accounts receivable teams. 

When addressing these pain points, WEX works with businesses to understand challenges and communicate the perks that accounts receivable teams receive in accepting virtual cards, such as faster payment processing, decreased fraud, and streamlined reconciliation. 

What should you expect from supplier enablement?

Businesses often work with their payments provider for supplier enablement. When evaluating supplier enablement services, learn:

• If the provider has a team of specialists who are specifically trained in supplier enablement.
• How much influence your voice has in their supplier enablement approach. 
• Whether the provider has a minimum spend requirement (between you and the supplier) for them to work with a supplier. 

With WEX, you’ll have access to a dedicated supplier enablement team that’s helped onboard over $7 billion in virtual card volume. We work with each client to best understand how they want to approach suppliers so all sides get the best result. And we’ll support supplier enablement for buying relationships of all sizes. 

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice. For legal or tax advice, you should consult your own legal counsel, tax and investment advisers.