Implementing a B2B payments platform

When you have a tried and true way of doing payments, the time and effort it can take to try something new can feel daunting. Because breaking old habits is hard. We get it. 

That’s why the transition to B2B ecommerce payment adoption needs to be as easy and intuitive as possible. But what does that actually mean? In this article, we’ll dive deep into the planning, development, and launch of a B2B payments platform.

Getting started with B2B payments: Think partnership, not one-off

Our first priority is enabling long-term growth for our customers, while making sure that they have what they need along every step of the way. What exactly those needs are really vary merchant by merchant.

Some customers that come to us are already transacting online, others are only beginning to process online payments. Or, they are somewhere in the middle, accepting both offline and ecommerce orders.

If this is the case, merchants often start by leveraging our dashboard to finance, manage, and track offline transactions, then as they grow their ecommerce channels they’ll move to leveraging our online checkout SDK to natively and easily accept payments from credit cards, to ACH. 

The next step from there can be automating a portion of their offline transactions. So for example, a merchant can go into their ERP system, manually submit an offline order on behalf of a customer, select the terms they want to offer, and that will trigger an API call for Balance to initiate a transaction.

This automatically creates a digital invoice, with payment methods attached, that businesses can send out to buyers. This exact flow can also be done for just a portion of the total order volume as a way to test and understand the ways buyers benefit from and adopt net terms online.

It all comes down to meeting customers where they are, adjusting to their needs, while also planning ahead so that they can meet future growth goals as well. 

Structuring our team to support growth

Implementation is not just a technical development project where the goal is to get from point A to point B. While we do want to deploy customers quickly, we optimize for the entire customer experience, which entails so much beyond just the developer experience.

Everything our team does is structured around that. And everyone plays their own important role from project kickoff to launch. Here’s an overview of what that means:

Account Executive:

The account executive’s job is to know exactly how the merchant’s business works and translate that to a B2B payment product and experience. Most merchants don’t come to Balance with a perfect idea of what kind of payment solution they need.

They may have identified one or two goals like boosting working capital or reducing financing charges or transaction fees.

Ultimately, each case is unique because how one company manages payments can look drastically different to another. Plus, since the digital adoption of B2B payments is still a relatively new space, merchants are still learning about what the potential applications and opportunities truly are. 

Solutions Engineer:

The solution engineer is the technical lead on implementation. Their focus is first to make the technical steps as easy and frictionless as possible.

Overall, across all of our customers, we’ve been able to decrease implementation time by 60% over the last year.

Because when moving trade online is your company mission, you can’t have development resources slowing down or limiting that transition. 

Customer Success Manager:

‍The CSM is the business lead on implementation. If executed well, a successful implementation strengthens customer relationships and sets up the partnership for long-term success. We do this by making continuous improvements to implementations based on data-driven insights and customer feedback.

And as new product features and capabilities are released, the team works to ensure customers are taking full advantage of our platform. 

Product:

There are a number of products we offer our customers—from financing to payment processing and A/R reconciliation. Each one requires a unique onboarding process. For example, for financing, we work with customers to understand their capital requirements, their net term limit preferences, and user experience preferences.

Additionally, our product team works closely with all of our customers to resolve any technical issues, while also prioritizing and shipping new feature requests.

Making a plan for success

Once a contract is signed, there are a number of steps that we prioritize to ensure that merchants know exactly what to expect and when. First, we establish open communication channels for faster support and provide a lot of training so teams are comfortable using the platform. We also schedule regular sync meetings in order to discuss any open questions along the way or requests with the core implementation team.

Once live, our team is on standby to monitor performance and iterate on any necessary integration improvements. This is where we focus on taking a consultative approach because once buyers are using the product, a lot of new and unexpected questions can arise.

For example, onboarding buyers can be an unexpected challenge merchants face. They’ve launched a great new product but are having problems getting buyers to use financing at checkout or try new payment methods. 

One thing we do to help our merchants go-to-market is that our CS team will train accounting and customer care teams to become Balance experts, equipping them with knowledge to be able to get your customers to want to transact online.

We also provide buyer education materials to get them excited about the possibility of B2B payments. Why? As innovative as merchants want to be, they still need to deal with the challenge of transitioning legacy industry buyers online. 

Measuring results

The best way to understand the implementation process is with real numbers and examples. inBuild helps construction businesses manage their invoices and payments. Thanks to Balance, they introduced electronic payment capabilities for their customers, who were previously used to cutting paper checks. 

Thanks to the fast implementation process, inBuild was able to go live in just over 60 days, accelerating time to value and going to market with a solution that involved minimal development resources. Balance worked with inBuild to understand the goals they wanted to achieve, what kind of experience they wanted to build, and which Balance products and APIs to use. 

Of course, speed of implementation depends on a number of factors, one being our existing integration support for the platform. Balance integrates seamlessly with platforms like Shopify and Magento through one-click integrations, so merchants can enable a full B2B checkout in no time.

Take Pittsburgh Spray—a Shopify Plus merchant that implemented our Shopify app and launched in just one day. They are leveraging the entire suite of our products and are now working on integrating net terms qualification and invoicing directly into their ERP system. 

“We evaluated a few providers to offer quick, seamless, simple online and offline net 30 account approvals and ordering for customers. For a small fee, Balance provided us with 100% upfront payment, whereas others didn't provide anything close to this. The integration to our online Shopify Plus store was a breeze and within 2-3 hours we had the integration up and running. We now have a quick and effective way to qualify new customers for net 30 purchases, directly on our site. Plus, we no longer have to put our own efforts towards collections.”

These are just two examples of where we’ve been able to accelerate development thanks to our investment in the implementation process. It’s important to say that moving quickly is not about deploying a quick-fix solution, but rather being in a position to respond to the rapidly evolving B2B payments landscape and increasingly sophisticated buyer needs. 

Unlocking B2B payments for your business

When we’re able to help merchants get up and running as soon as possible, while also prioritizing every feature and function that will allow for the success of their payment experience—that’s success in our book.

Businesses are already doing so much in their digital transformation journeys, the least we can do is take payments off their hands. Contact our team to learn more.