SAP Payments: Integrate with B2B eCommerce

Even in this modern, Internet-saturated age, Blount International was like many other global manufacturers and still used a few paper-based business processes.

Until recently, the company was receiving and processing SAP payments from customers by check through the mail.  That fact alone inserted at least 6 business days into the process…4 days of mail time and a minimum of 1 day of processing time on each end.

Blount’s CEO, Barry Brunetto, saw an opportunity to use web-based SAP payments to improve an inefficient process.  He wanted to:

• Provide Blount’s customers with more convenient payment options
• Use technology to “do more with less”
• Reduce receivables
• Allow customers to easily reconcile their accounts

When Blount approached us with this request to integrate electronic payments into our system, we welcomed the challenge.   With this initiative, our client provided the vision, and we provided the infrastructure and SAP payments integration — and our WebAR service was born.

Together, Blount and Corevist have a long history of using technology to gain operational efficiencies.  In 2008, we helped the company launch a web-based order management system that features real-time SAP integration.

Since then, the company has realized huge return on that investment.   On average, Blount’s global customers now “self-serve” more than 8,000 web orders, status checks and document downloads per month.

• Integration with SAP ECC 6.0
• Integration with Paymetric

Blount wanted to:

• Automate the clearing of open receivables
• Reduce the overhead required to manually manage open receivables
• Improve customer service by:
  • Giving customers online access to real-time SAP payments data on open invoices
  • Allowing customers to use credits card or eChecks to make payments
  • Allowing customers to apply credits to the open items as they see fit
  • Offering discounts for early payments

Blount’s customers wanted:

• To “see” the same thing that Blount’s AR department saw, so that they could more easily reconcile their accounts
• To manage their credit limit in real-time, instead of waiting 5-7 business days for postal delivery and processing of a paper check

• Used Paymetric’s web service for authorization and tokenization
• Posted transactions in real-time through an RFC for real-time payment integration to SAP
• Integrated real-time accounting and credit limit data into our existing order management portal

For Blount:

With our WebAR service, Blount International has:

• Improved customer service
• Improved operational efficiency and reduced overhead by allowing customers to “self-serve” routine transactions
• Enjoyed a reduction in Days Sales Outstanding with faster payment collections
• Improved reporting to customers about which items are “open”

For their customers:

Now Blount’s customers can:

• Take advantage of early payment discounts
• Apply payments to the “Open Items” of their choice
• Apply credits to payments of their choice
• Have tighter day-to-day control over their credit limits
• Eliminate the cost and hassle of printed checks and postage fees

After paying 26 invoices online using an eCheck, one of Blount’s customers said:

“I like it because I know that our systems are in sync.  It’s not like when I send in a check and the person in AR applies it however they want.  This way, I know exactly which invoices are being paid and our systems are totally in sync.”

Supported Payment Processors include:

• Paymetric
• Delego Software
• Princeton Payment Solutions
• Authorize.net