Whether it’s collecting payments, following compliance rules, or analyzing your transactional data, there are a lot of things that go into managing an ecommerce business. By integrating these mechanisms together, your business stands to benefit tremendously.
Whether you’re running an ecommerce business, or planning on increasing your sales, there are lots of elements that need to be managed to keep it operating and transacting healthy. In the world of business, time is money, and a lot of time can be saved depending on some of the decisions you make. This concept also applies to your payment processing capabilities.
For example, if you’re manually collecting payments, entering transactional data into your customer relationship management system, or trying to reconcile your daily purchases in your accounting software, you may quickly find yourself juggling all your payment processing needs and distracted from what should actually be the focus – your business.
An integrated payment approach involves the interconnection of all tools that have a role to play in the payment environment and automating areas that would normally have been done manually. This can include tools like your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or accounting software, your customer relationship management (CRM) system and your fraud and chargeback tools.
Taking an integrated approach to your payment processing can strengthen your business in a variety of ways. Here are a few areas where a good integrated payments solution can really make a positive impact:
Streamlining Operations
Integrated payment solutions will connect your business applications together and automate many of their functions that you would normally be doing manually. This includes inputting and reporting on transaction information within your accounting, CRM or ERP tools whenever a purchase occurs. It also means that this data is available to view in real-time, giving you better visibility on the health of your payments.
Better Security
One of the most significant elements of an integrated payment solution is the fact that they will include all of the items required to accept payments safely and adhere to security standards. In fact, because many integrated payments provide services like EMV, tokenization, and end-to-end encryption, you will actually be finding yourself ahead of the game from a security aspect, ensuring that your business remains viable and you don’t take a devastating hit to your revenue.
An integrated payment solution will not only preserve the integrity of your business data, but also that of your customers. Maintaining the privacy of their payment information will increase their trust and confidence in your brand as an added benefit, which will likely lead to them continue to do business with you in the future.
Customer Service
Another area that your integrated payments stack will benefit is your CRM. This means that you will automatically have up-to-date records of a customer’s purchase history, and any new customers who make a purchase will be entered into your system with the information they provided upon completing a transaction. This allows your customer service team to provide an exceptional, personalized experience when and if additional contact is necessary.
Like your accounting software, your CRM will also have real-time metrics that can be extracted at any time you wish, giving you better, more accurate information on your customers should you need to report on their activity.
Reducing Human Error
Unsurprisingly, by removing manual processes involved with entering transactional data into your various tools and applications, you’ll also be eliminating the risk of human errors being made – something that will always present a risk if not automated.
Saving Time
Whether its time spent in your accounting software, your CRM, reviewing compliance and security standards, or producing reports, an integrated payments solution will ultimately save you a lot of time. This allows you to spend time on more important aspects of your business that may need your attention.
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Now that you have a better understanding of some of the ways an integrated payments solution can strengthen your business, it’s time to determine the next step: choosing one that will serve your business.
The Origins Ecommerce platform is designed to be the engine that connects and powers all of the technology you have that plays a role in the payments process. This means that it will fully integrate your applications while also offering functionality built with future advancements in mind. Should you need to add a new application to your revenue stack later on down the road, Origins Ecommerce’s APIs will adapt and connect.
By adopting an integrated payments solution like Origins Ecommerce, you’ll be harmonizing your various applications, increasing efficiency, and maximizing the investment you’ve made in your business, accelerating your growth and allowing you to focus on your business goals.
