Kyriba Partners with Openpay

Kyriba has recently partnered with Openpay Group, a global diversified payments Fintech, introducing the US Openpay’s OpyPro SaaS solution to Kyriba customers. OpyPro for B2B payments automates customer on-boarding, transacting and servicing, optimizes cash conversion cycles, and strengthens customer relationships.

The case for an OpyPro type of solution is compelling. Typical challenges businesses face in the B2B space include reliance on manual processes, paper forms and “wet” signatures throughout the seller – buyer relationship cycle – from application and onboarding to invoicing, payments, and reconciliations. Not only are these archaic practices clunky and time consuming – leading to long lead times for risk assessment and on-boarding – they are also prone to errors, leading to invoicing and statement issues which can irreparably harm the buyer – seller relationship. There is a clear need for a platform that automates and digitizes the buyer-seller relationship.

Abhijit Prasad, Kyriba’s SVP Working Capital Finance, commented, “We see Opy as a payment innovator and its OpyPro solution as delivering against objectives that we know our customers are facing. OpyPro allows Kyriba’s clients to digitize their end-to-end process of managing corporate buyer relationships – from application and onboarding to transacting, servicing, invoicing and reconciliations. Kyriba will make the OpyPro solution available to our customers as part of our product suite, specifically focusing on customers where the value from this solution is likely to be greatest. These clients and their CFOs and treasury teams are constantly looking to improve their cash conversion cycle and increase revenue growth; but they are looking for more than just that – they also have been searching for solutions that support their overall digital transformation and eCommerce evolution to enhance the overall efficiency, transparency and flexibility of end-to-end customer management.”

OpyPro addresses urgent needs in the market – specifically:

1. Buying has become complex; longer onboarding times could easily break the deal.

   77% of buyers state that their latest purchase was very complex or difficult.

   The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision makers – such as finance, legal, compliance and account team members – each armed with four or five pieces of information they’ve gathered independently and must deconflict with the group. Examples of the types of information that must be aggregated and reconciled include credit checks, identity information, AML/KYC checks, guarantees, trade contracts and much more. At the same time, the set of options and solutions buying groups can consider is expanding as new technologies, products, suppliers, and services emerge. These dynamics make it increasingly difficult for customers to make purchases and increasingly important for suppliers to address such difficulties given the greater choice buyers now have.¹

2. Customer onboarding matters.

   90% of customers think that companies could “do better” when it comes to user onboarding, automating the on-boarding of customers can reduce costs by a factor of 10 or more. Depending on the number of customers on-boarded by a company, this cost savings can easily be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.²

   Reconciliation remains inefficient.

   Manual reconciliation is a major undertaking for large organizations, – on average 16 employees are dedicated to reconciliation.³ This does not even consider factors such as speed and accuracy that extensive manual reconciliation processes are likely to impact, not just the cost aspect of it.

3. The proportion of overdue B2B invoices in the Americas increased from an average of 48.8% in 2017 to 50.0% in 2020.

   While late payments from B2B customers were reported to occur less frequently, the average proportion of the value of overdue invoices increased to 50%. The delays are costly to American businesses. 21.5% of respondents have had to correct cash flow, 20.3% to postpone payments to suppliers and 17.5% have lost revenue.⁴

4. B2B relationships in the COVID and post-COVID worlds

Malcolm Jull, Openpay’s Head of Enterprise Business, described how OpyPro is uniquely positioned to overcome today’s challenges related to Account Application and Onboarding, “OpyPro allows companies to manage their supply chain effectively with greater visibility on the end-to-end buying process with embedded efficiencies that allows for the scaling, digitization and optimization of business growth without needing to add more and more FTEs all while managing risks across the business and continually meeting legal requirements. And importantly, for all current Kyriba customers the OpyPro solution is easy to “turn on” and integrate, with an implementation cycle of just 4 – 8 weeks.”

Key current challenges to be resolved once business buyers have been onboarded and enabled to transact include updating account details, setting up and modifying purchase orders, revising invoices due to incorrect and/or missing information, tracking unpaid invoices, processing and paying invoices, matching payments to open invoices, reimbursing employees, monitoring for fraudulent employee/supplier behavior and reviewing/reporting on overall supplier/supply chain effectiveness and optimization.

The flexibility in making and receiving payments for products and services once an invoice has been issued can make a big difference – choice is increasingly important as is the ability to integrate with receivable tools and accounting software. When asked how OpyPro can help with this, Brian Shniderman, Opy USA CEO and Global Chief Strategy Officer, commented, “Customers, suppliers and buyers all need a variety of payment options that optimize their cash conversion cycles and strengthen relationships. Through efficient, effective on-boarding, risk assessment, multiple payment options and robust reconciliation processes, OpyPro creates a truly collaborative and transparent platform that benefits all parties.”

The Kyriba / OpyPro partnership is a solution for B2B payments that automates customer on-boarding, transacting, and servicing, optimizes cash conversion cycles, and strengthens customer relationships. Businesses facing the aforementioned challenges would be well served to explore the advantages of OpyPro.

To learn more about OpyPro, contact Mike Lomax, Kyriba’s Working Capital Finance subject matter expert at [email protected] or learn more at the Kyriba-OpyPro site.

Notes and Attributions:

1. ¹ https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey
2. ² https://procurement.wordpress.com/2006/05/02/65/
3. ³ https://flatfile.com/blog/onboarding-statistics
4. ⁴ https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2021/data-digest-late-payment-pandemic/

   https://tradesecurely.ca/the-americas-an-increase-of-overdue-b2b-receivables/