The role of finance in business has evolved in recent years from a back-office support function to a key driver of sustainable growth. However, one often overlooked aspect of a successful finance function is the use of tools that enhance the visibility and integrity of financial information. Bank integrations with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems such as Oracle NetSuite, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 can provide significant benefits to organizations.

We've compiled some examples of the pain points these organizations have faced and how they've solved them by enabling bank connectivity through their ERPs.

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1/ Prevent uncollected revenue with real-time transaction visibility

At least 40% companies experience 9-12% in lost revenue a year. While the discrepancy in revenue and what actually sits in the bank account is frustrating, what is worse is the inability to identify the source of the leakage.

Integrating bank data with internal systems has enabled organizations to better identify and prevent the source of this revenue leakage:

• Funding Societies, the leading digital financing platform in SEA, was able to track and reconcile loan repayments in real-time, saving 600 hours a year on manual reconciliation efforts.
• A distribution company was able to know in real-time which invoices have been paid, and which have not. With this upgrade, they changed their processes to only ship out products when payments have been received, removing all risks of having unpaid goods shipped out.
• With full visibility of account transactions across multiple banks in different countries, the CFO of a large regional business was able to track the movement of payments in and out of their account, knowing exactly where cash is flowing.

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2/ Automatic finance operations as a lever for customer satisfaction and growth

Improving internal finance operations has benefits that go beyond just internal optimization and employee satisfaction: Instead, it has both direct and positive externalities on customer experience and in turn, company growth. 

As a result of adopting automated and optimized tooling:

• Luce, a leading office maintenance company, was able to instantly issue payment confirmations to customers via Acme’s solution, with >1000 invoices reconciled in less than 3 minutes. Their customers no longer had to worry about whether their payments were received,or receive payment receipts with incorrect information.
• Glints, Southeast Asia’s leading talent platform, was able to reconcile and collect fees seamlessly from its corporate customers. Faster payment collections means faster provision of services and an enhanced customer experience.

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3/ Reducing mistakes and improving financial controls

The standard process of making account payables from most ERP and accounting systems is manual, requires multiple steps, and is at risk of erroneous processes. Adding to the complication, there are different payment files based on payment methods and banks, and these file formats are subject to changes by banks.

An integrated bill payment process with ERP systems will ensure the accuracy and integrity of these payments, reducing the risk of payment mistakes:

• A B2B player with hundreds of transactions a day improved financial control with 99.9% accurate bill payments automated via their ERP system, leaving no room for manual mistakes
• A regional business used to spend 4-6 weeks a year making updates to their system whenever banks changed their payment file formats. By working with Acme, they are able to continue business as usual throughout the year with no downtime, with Acme proactively taking care of all bank file format changes in the background

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The Acme approach to bank integrations with ERP systems

Acme provides a solution that focuses on the key levers that make an impact on financial outcomes, starting with bank integrations at the accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) layer. Acme is an ERP-agnostic solution provider that offers customer-specific solutions to improve financial controls, reduce revenue leakage, and optimize AR/AP processes for better customer outcomes. 

For more information on how Acme can help your organization, please contact hello@tryacme.com.