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The marketplace for electronic supplier payments is exploding. According to PayStream's most recent eResearch report Supplier Electronic Payments, 69 percent of finance professionals polled are actively seeking to increase their company's use of Automated Clearing House and Purchasing Card payments for accounts payable in the next 18 months.

Affordable web-based solutions (Software-as-a-Service) and emerging technologies, such as dynamic discounting, are coaxing previously reluctant buyers and even suppliers off the sidelines to at least consider ePayments as a viable alternative to paper checks.

In a recent PayStream survey of payment practices, almost half of the respondents said they were writing fewer checks. An equal percentage reported the increased use of Purchasing Cards, while a whopping two-thirds said they were moving toward Automated Clearing House (ACH) – which is free to suppliers and relatively inexpensive for buyers.

Solution providers are also driving this change, expanding supplier recruitment programs and adding valuable third-party services such as receivables auctions and online supplier networks.

Companies that rely on traditional invoicing, payment and financing practices, which are burdened by many inefficient, manual tasks, will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage to companies that have automated this process, warns PayStream.

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