Introduction: Virtual Cards

With the rise of e-commerce and online purchasing, virtual cards have become more popular than ever. They are similar to credit cards, but because each purchase has its own unique card, the amount is limited to what has been approved.

Virtual cards offer a wide range of opportunities to reduce costs, optimise payments, track, and control your spending. In this blog post, we will discover why virtual cards are a life-changing solution for procurement spending in your organisation.

Replacing invoice-based purchases

Virtual cards offer an alternative to invoice-based purchases. With traditional invoice-based transactions, purchasing can be a very cumbersome process due to the internal processes required. In addition, these processes can be time-consuming and incur costs. Invoice-based purchases are great for higher-value purchases, but they are really too costly for managing indirect spend—especially when it comes to long-tail spend where supplier management and invoice processing can easily become more expensive than the purchase itself if purchased by invoice.

Controlled and tracked spending

Each virtual card is associated with the specific purchase, making it easy to automatically collect all the data and documentation related to the purchase. Moreover, the virtual card is limited to a specific amount for the purchase, so it is easier to control spend. Overall, virtual cards help the organisation to be compliant and prevent uncontrolled spending.

Automated supplier management

Using virtual cards removes the need to onboard and maintain suppliers in your internal systems, resulting in significant savings from internal, manual work.

Increased security

Virtual cards provide more security compared to traditional credit cards, as a unique card is issued for each purchase. This significantly diminishes the chances of fraudulent activities and unauthorised expenditures.

The Future is Now

As technology continues to evolve, the benefits of virtual cards will expand, encompassing more innovative features and integrations. Their ability to adapt to the changing landscape of B2B procurement and business needs positions virtual cards as a cornerstone of the future of managing and controlling spend.

Mazepay offers an end-to-end solution based on virtual cards which simplifies and makes long-tail spend management easier. Processes are automated and empower employees with easy requests and payments. Contact us today to learn more.

Facing the cyclical trends introduced by market dynamics and macroeconomic influencers, companies encounter periods where recessionary pressures challenge their regular mode of operations. During these critical moments, companies must take decisive actions that will make a lasting impact on their organisation’s spend: they should promptly shift from their high spend patterns and set targets to assist them in reaching their objectives, often including a need to reduce the workforce.

During economic downturns, the common targets most often are to:

-       Reduce cost base with short-term impact

-       Simplify the supplier base

-       Adjust employee spend pattern

The challenges that stand in the way of the employee's ability to deliver on these targets are:

-       Lack of holistic understanding of the cost foundation

-       Decentralised and non-transparent decision process

-       Limited compliance with the spend

-       Reactive spend identification

• Matching invoices to transactions without purchase orders (even orphaned)

• Using T&E cards for corporate spend

The process to achieve these targets often starts with a cross-functional project team from finance, procurement, and IT departments that collaboratively tries to address these challenges. They must come together in an attempt to structure the spend overview on the mandate that overall costs are to be reduced by 5-20%[1]. Due to the structure of existing spend management, this means that the first task is to start from scratch by identifying core or strategic spend as opposed to long-tail or indirect spend. The realistic chances to make the target are to identify low-hanging fruits in long-tail or non-strategic spend with suppliers that can easily be terminated, or subscriptions and other expenses that can easily be cut out.

Unfortunately, this approach requires excessive resources from all the stakeholders involved, and in the end, many organisations realise they do not have a consistent, systematic overview of their spend. This particularly applies to long-tail spend, which tends to be unstructured, decentralised, and usually managed without a transparent system (e.g., via emails, verbal agreements). The process leads to many meetings, discussions, and attempts to push for reduction that are hard to realise as well as to frustrations between different departments as achieving targets becomes an issue.

At the end of the day, achieving such targets cannot be realised without a consistent system overview of all costs, while in the meantime precious resources are spent on the joint efforts. This means that the efforts will leave with little or no true impact on the organisation’s spend and the opportunity to make a lasting change to the organisation’s spend management is neglected.

Organisations should start early and not delay in creating an internal, common understanding until the pressures arise, therefore taking a proactive approach to mitigate the negative impacts of recessionary periods. Start today by reaching out to us. We will show you how Mazepay can help you - by keeping it simple - manage the spend that you cannot control.

[1] Mazepay’s research with CFOs and CPOs from 25 European-based corporates with >500,000 employees.

Stanton, who has also served as Chief of Mastercard Data & Services and Mastercard Canada President, will play a vital role in accelerating North American growth and expanding partnerships for Mazepay.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK. Mazepay, a Danish fintech platform that simplifies long-tail procurement and B2B payments, has appointed retired Mastercard Chief Transformation

Officer Kevin Stanton to its board of directors.

The appointment comes at a crucial time for Mazepay, which has grown its ARR by 237% in 2023, with Stanton to accelerate growth and expand partnerships across North America and Europe.

Stanton brings a wealth of experience and strategic insight to Mazepay, having served

across numerous senior roles at Mastercard for over two decades. While at the

payments giant, Kevin was pivotal in developing and leading its global, data-driven

services strategy, propelling it to the forefront of payments and services innovation. As

Chief of Mastercard Data & Services, he transformed the business unit into a thriving

entity that contributed significantly to Mastercard top- and bottom-line growth.

Stanton’s leadership and innovative mindset were further highlighted in his role as

Mastercard Chief Transformation Officer, where he spearheaded efforts to adapt the

company’s operating models and systems to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving

global landscape. He ensured the company’s sustained growth, value creation, and

relevance to customers.

Kevin has also served as President of Mastercard Canada, and VP, Senior Counsel of

Mastercard US & Canada.

Kevin Stanton comments: “There’s no greater professional experience than working with

people who share a passion for transforming lacklustre, traditional approaches to

ecosystem opportunities by using technology to drive customer value and scale. For

that reason, I am delighted to have joined the board of Mazepay. From my first

conversation with the founding team I’ve been deeply impressed with what they’ve

already accomplished, but what is most exciting is what’s ahead. I’ll leverage my

experience and broader network to help accelerate growth and partnerships across

North America and Europe and beyond.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Kevin to the Mazepay board,” said Søren Aabel Hammer,

CEO of Mazepay. “His exceptional track record, deep understanding of data-driven

strategies, and ability to navigate complex global business environments make him an

invaluable asset to our team. Mazepay is growing, and Kevin's extensive industry

knowledge and experience will help accelerate our growth journey as we expand across

North America and beyond. His connections and experience will be vital in establishing

new partnerships with leading commercial banks.”

Kevin Chong, Co-Head at Outward VC, adds: “One of the hardest things for all startups,

but particularly those within highly technical and regulated industries such as payments,

is finding and attracting experienced visionaries who can deliver company-defining

counsel and networks. Expansion to North America represents an important inflection

point for Mazepay. Kevin Stanton’s involvement will play a major role in it reaching its

goal of simplifying payments for all large enterprises globally.”

Terkel Douglas, Investment Associate at Scale, further comments: “Kevin Stanton’s

addition to the Mazepay board marks a significant milestone in the company’s journey

towards revolutionising payment processes. From the first meeting, Kevin has

demonstrated a remarkable ability to understand and tackle complex business

decisions, in a way only someone with his extensive and successful career could.”

Press Release by Nara Communications

Introduction: The Importance of Streamlining

Having reliable and high-quality suppliers is crucial for maintaining seamless business operations.

However, conventional onboarding and managing long-tail suppliers can often lead to complications. This blog post explores the advantages of adopting automated supplier onboarding and management practices.

The Pitfalls of Traditional Onboarding

In traditional supply chain management, suppliers are typically onboarded by manually creating master records for each in the organisation's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), procurement or finance systems. This method has many disadvantages like laborious, manual tasks, inaccurate data due to human error, or incompliance. These multiply when handling infrequent or small-scale suppliers, often referred to as long-tail suppliers.

For a deeper understanding of the challenges traditional supplier onboarding poses and how technology can offer a streamlined approach, read our in-depth article here.

Automated Models for Supplier Onboarding

A contemporary approach to supplier onboarding employs automation that reduces the burden of onboarding and maintaining hundreds of suppliers from the buyer's shoulders and involves the supplier for the most accurate data. In this solution, the vendor can upload and update their information and necessary documentation directly onto your procurement platform after a buyer initiates the supplier onboarding. Once a supplier is onboarded to such a system, they are also available for other buyers. Automation can handle every other aspect of the onboarding process so that teams can focus on strategic tasks.

Managing One-Time Suppliers Through Automation

For organisations dealing with one-time suppliers, a smart approach to data management is crucial. Once an initial transaction with a one-time supplier is completed, it's a common misconception that their data no longer holds operational value. However, maintaining a record of all supplier transactions is imperative due to regulatory, tax, and potential audit requirements.

Automation can streamline the managing process, ensuring every recurring or one-time supplier is managed efficiently and complies with data retention policies. This enables resource allocation to be redirected toward more strategic tasks, like supplier relationship management.

On-time Payments and Long-Tail Supplier Relationships

Consistency and reliability are essential in building supplier-buyer relationships, especially for long-tail suppliers. These suppliers may not have frequent transactions with a company, making them particularly vulnerable to not receiving payment for their invoices on-time. Businesses can foster sustainable, efficient, and compliant supplier relationships by ensuring prompt payment upon receipt and review of invoices.

Mitigating Compliance Risks in Supplier Management

While many organisations perform rigorous compliance checks on their strategic suppliers, conducting the same process for long-tail vendors if often simply not possible with the resources available. With automated compliance checks built into your supplier compliance processes, you can mitigate various risks, including legal complications related to sanctions, involvement with Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), reputation loss etc. This approach is more efficient and often more reliable than manual reviews.

Future-Proof Your Supplier Management with Mazepay

If you're interested in automating your supplier management, get in contact. At Mazepay, process optimisation and compliance are critical priorities for us, so you can focus on tasks that really matter.

Mazepay offers a spend management solution where processes combined with payments help organisations mitigate risks and reduce the impact on operations.

Take the first step towards a smarter, more efficient supply chain and improve supplier relations. Contact us or book a demo to learn more about Mazepay.

Safeguarding personal data has become imperative for organisations worldwide in today's interconnected world. The European Union introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a leading framework to ensure the privacy and security of personal information. GDPR applies to any organisation processing EU citizens' personal data, regardless of its location. Compliance with GDPR is not just a legal obligation but a strategic necessity that organisations cannot overlook. Let's explore why organisations must prioritise compliance with this regulation and the potential repercussions of non-compliance.

Establishing Trust through GDPR Compliance

GDPR compliance plays a pivotal role in establishing and maintaining customer trust. By implementing robust measures to protect personal data, organisations demonstrate their commitment to preserving customer privacy, enhancing reputation, and attracting privacy-conscious customers.

Mitigating Financial Risks

Non-compliance with GDPR can result in significant financial penalties. Violations may lead to fines of up to €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher. Such penalties can severely impact financial stability, making GDPR compliance essential for effective risk management.

Robust Processes for GDPR Compliance

To ensure GDPR compliance, organisations must establish robust processes. One effective method is using virtual cards with a pre-approval workflow, ensuring justifications for procurement requests, relevant documentation attachment, and involvement of multiple stakeholders. This proactive approach reduces the risk of data breaches or non-compliance throughout the procurement process.

Overview of Subscriptions for GDPR Compliance

Maintaining an updated overview of subscriptions is crucial for GDPR compliance. It enables prompt identification and addressing of potential risks or compliance gaps related to personal data processing. Regularly reviewing and updating the overview ensures alignment with GDPR requirements and minimises the likelihood of non-compliance.

Balancing Compliance and User-Friendly Processes

While ensuring GDPR compliance, it is important to provide easy processes for employees. Organisations must strike a balance between compliance requirements and providing employees with access to tools necessary for success and competitiveness. Implementing secure systems and processes protects personal data while enabling efficient task performance by employees.

In conclusion, GDPR compliance is a critical imperative for organisations processing personal data. It establishes customer trust, safeguards privacy, and fortifies personal data security. Adherence to GDPR guidelines mitigates potential financial risks associated with non-compliance. By implementing virtual cards with pre-approval workflows and maintaining an updated overview of subscriptions, organisations can achieve and maintain GDPR compliance while keeping employees productive.

How to save costs and maximise efficiency through marketing spend management

Marketing professionals are always looking for ways to improve their budgets and streamline processes. This post will reveal some lesser-known tips that can help you do just that. From using virtual cards to manage campaign budgets to consolidating licenses and subscriptions and efficiently paying content creators and freelancers, we'll explore how innovative tools can revolutionize your marketing spend management. We'll also discuss how single-use virtual cards can simplify subscriptions, as well as cost-effective approaches to ad-hoc expenses and merchandise. Get ready to discover the secrets to smarter spending in your marketing efforts!

Use case

1. Virtual cards for budgeting

Marketing teams need to react quickly and run dynamic campaigns to capture their audience's attention. However, running out of budget at a crucial moment or waiting for approvals in lengthy purchasing processes can lead to lost momentum. Many marketing professionals currently use company purchase cards or just regular corporate cards for social media campaigns, but this approach has its downsides:

• Only a few have access to such cards, and lending them to colleagues can result in compliance breaches, overspending, or using the card for unapproved campaigns.

• Using one card for multiple purchases across various projects can create a nightmare with cost allocation, especially in larger companies where matching transactions to purchases can consume significant time and effort.

To prevent these problems, companies can utilise virtual cards. Each purchase request is assigned a virtual card, guaranteeing that you do not exceed the approved amount. Additionally, virtual cards can be seamlessly linked to the corresponding transaction, streamlining the reconciliation process. When selecting a solution, it is advisable to choose one that manages the entire process, encompassing approvals and reconciliation. This approach allows you to leverage virtual cards as an effective tool for budgeting campaigns.

Use case

2. Paying content creators and freelancers

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the rise of remote and freelance work, greatly benefiting marketing departments. Now, it is simpler than ever to delegate tasks like SEO, copywriting, and graphic design or even entrust entire marketing campaigns to agencies. These services can be easily obtained through online checkouts or, for larger projects, by contracting and invoicing. With an efficient spend management solution, requesting funds for outsourcing becomes effortless, thanks to the automated approval process. Virtual cards can be issued quickly, and invoice payments can be made promptly when contractors/suppliers provide invoices.

Use case:

3. Manage subscriptions in an effective way

The use of subscriptions and recurring payments is currently at an all-time high and is projected to continue growing. For enterprises, effectively managing these services in a compliant and transparent manner is crucial. Having an overview of all active subscriptions and their owners makes it easier to consolidate different licenses. A robust subscription management system should offer the following features:

• Simple requests for new subscriptions and recurring payments

• Comprehensive overview of all active subscriptions and recurring payments

• Clear visibility of total spend for each individual subscription

• Easy access to transaction details

• Identification of subscription owners

• Simplified receipt collection

By combining these features, stakeholders can quickly make data-driven decisions regarding subscription management. If necessary, they can consolidate multiple accounts into a single one, resulting in cost savings for the organisation.

Use case

4. Social media campaigns

Running campaigns on multiple social media platforms is essential for almost every company. However, managing payments across these platforms can be time-consuming and difficult. Virtual cards can help with budgeting and can also be used for social media campaigns. By creating an ad account for each campaign, you can easily use virtual cards for each individual campaign. This gives you better control and transparency over your campaign spending. Virtual cards are locked to specific campaigns, so they can't be used for anything else. This makes it easier to collect receipts and match transactions with campaigns.

Use Case:

5. Premium Linkedin accounts

LinkedIn has become a valuable platform for connecting professionals and sourcing talent in the job market. It offers numerous opportunities for advertising, recruiting, and content sharing. LinkedIn offers many extra features through its premium subscriptions. Virtual cards provide control and cost savings by ensuring spending won't go over budget due to forgotten, forever-running subscriptions or employee changes.

Use case:

6. Conferences

Connecting with industry leaders is crucial for marketing professionals. Conferences, fairs, and conventions offer great networking and business development opportunities. Managing ticket purchases, booth rentals, and merchandise procurement within budget can be made easier with an end-to-end process and virtual cards.

Use case:

Conclusion

In conclusion, marketing professionals can benefit from implementing various strategies to save costs and maximize efficiency in their marketing spend management.

• By utilizing virtual cards for budgeting, marketing teams can ensure they do not exceed approved amounts and streamline the reconciliation process.

• Paying content creators and freelancers becomes effortless with an efficient spend management solution that automates approval processes and enables timely payments.

• Managing subscriptions effectively is crucial for enterprises, and a robust subscription management system can provide a comprehensive overview of all active subscriptions and recurring payments, resulting in cost savings.

• Virtual cards also prove useful for social media campaigns, providing better control and transparency over campaign spending. Additionally, virtual cards can be used to manage premium LinkedIn accounts, ensuring spending remains within budget and preventing unnecessary charges.

• Finally, conferences and events can be managed more efficiently by using an end-to-end process and virtual cards for ticket purchases, booth rentals, and merchandise procurement.

By implementing these strategies, marketing professionals can revolutionise their marketing spend management and achieve smarter spending in their efforts.

Mazepay is an all-in-one long-tail spend management software that enables the seamless control

of all subscriptions, from approvals to payments. Get in touch today to find out more and gain control over your marketing spend.

Approval happens after the purchase:

One of the primary reasons why subscriptions should not be managed in a TEM system is the issue of post-approval, where approvals occur after the purchase has already been made. Managers or other approvers want to be able to evaluate if this is something worth prioritizing, which is not really possible if the purchase has already been made.

The right tool offers automated pre-approvals that obey business rules. This way, every employee purchases within budget and only subscriptions that comply with the organisation's procurement policies.

Difficult Cost Allocation:

Another challenge arises when trying to allocate costs correctly to the appropriate business unit, cost centre, department or similar. TEM systems do not enable it in a simple way, and often costs simply be allocated to the person owning the card, which may or may not be correct. Without proper cost allocation, organisations may face inaccuracies in financial reporting and budgeting.

With the right tool, you can assign your purchase to the appropriate cost centres, departments, or similar categories prior to making the purchase. This allows you to maintain control, as the purchase will only be authorised if the request is approved and the cost is allocated correctly.

Lack of Overview:

Handling the payment of subscriptions in a TEM system also hampers the ability to have a comprehensive overview of all the subscriptions within the organisation. This lack of visibility can lead to missed opportunities for cost optimization and increased risks. Additionally, it becomes challenging to track and manage subscription renewals effectively.

With the right tool, you can easily oversee all your recurring subscription payments and online purchases in one convenient solution. A virtual card-based solution is particularly beneficial as it provides a comprehensive overview. By using one card for each purchase or subscription, you gain transparency, control over your spending, and automated documentation for financial purposes. This ensures that you have a clear understanding of your payment activities and simplifies the management of your finances.

Dependency on Employees:

When an employee leaves the organisation, their departure can have unintended consequences for important subscriptions. If the employee's card is closed, these subscriptions may "cancel" or become inaccessible, causing disruptions to essential or even business-critical services. Separating subscriptions from the TEM system helps mitigate this risk and ensures continuity even during employee transitions.

With the right tool, you can easily identify the owners of a subscription and transfer ownership seamlessly. This prevents critical subscriptions from stopping or being interrupted.

Receipt Collection:

Collecting receipts for subscriptions can be a cumbersome task within a TEM system. TEM systems focus on the individual transaction on a card and have no way of grouping the transaction together with the correct subscription. Especially recurring payments for marketing spend can be almost impossible to allocate to the correct campaign if all these transactions are handled in the TEM system.

As previously mentioned, using the appropriate tool allows for one card to be linked to one subscription, automatically connecting transactions to subscriptions. This also provides a foundation for automated receipt collection from a designated email inbox, saving time for both employees and finance.

Compliance Checks:

Lastly, including subscriptions in a TEM system makes it difficult to perform compliance checks before making a purchase. Compliance requirements such as GDPR and IT security approvals need to be ensured prior to the purchase being made. By separating subscriptions from the TEM system, organisations can ensure that all necessary compliance checks are conducted in a timely manner.

The appropriate tool allows you to incorporate compliance checks for maintaining business rules. These checks should be integrated into an automated approval process, ensuring a smooth user experience and facilitating compliance throughout the organization.

Managing subscriptions:

Use the right tool for the job. While a Travel Expense Management system is essential for efficient handle travel spend and smaller expenses made on the go by employees, including subscriptions or recurring payments within this system can create several challenges. From post-approval issues to difficulties in cost allocation and lack of overview, there are compelling reasons to keep subscriptions separate.

Mazepay is an all-in-one platform for long-tail spend that enables the seamless management of all subscriptions from approvals to payments. Get in touch today to find out more.

Photo by Ava Coploff on Unsplash

Denmark has gained worldwide recognition for its exemplary working culture. Boasting an array of social, economic and individual advantages. Mazepay has two offices in Denmark, including its headquarters. The team consists of people of different nationalities and backgrounds. And as we continue to grow and look for new talented people, it's time to take a closer look at the work culture that drives our business. In this blog post, we delve into the aspects of a progressive working culture based on our experience in Denmark.

The 3 advantages of working and living in Denmark as an International

#1 Diversity and Inclusion

Denmark prides itself on fostering an environment of diversity and inclusion, particularly for international workers. The country upholds positive human rights principles, ensuring individuals have the freedom to express themselves and develop professionally. This inclusive approach creates an atmosphere that encourages individuals from various backgrounds to contribute to the Danish workforce. In addition, the country is consistently ranked highly in gender equality indexes and has implemented legislation to ensure fair treatment and opportunities for all. Such inclusivity extends to the workplace, where diversity is celebrated, and individuals are respected for their talents and skills, regardless of their race, gender identity or sexual orientation.

However, there are challenges when it comes to integration, particularly in the context of immigration and refugees. The domestication process for immigrants can be cumbersome, often posing difficulties for individuals seeking to establish themselves in the country. Additionally, ex-pats may face obstacles in securing employment, as navigating the Danish job market can be complex. Acknowledging and addressing these integration issues remains a crucial aspect of Denmark's commitment to fostering a truly inclusive society.

Danish is the official language of Denmark. But the majority of the Danes speak English fluently, so as an international, you can get around without learning the language. Nevertheless, it could be a new experience to learn Danish as a new language.

#2 Health Care and Individual Well-being

Denmark's healthcare system consistently ranks high in terms of quality and patient satisfaction, reflecting the effectiveness of its comprehensive and patient-focused approach. It offers a high quality of care and numerous benefits to its citizens. It provides universal coverage, ensuring that everyone has access to essential healthcare services without financial barriers. This promotes equity and a sense of social cohesion within the society. In addition, provide employees with peace of mind, allowing them to focus on their work without undue concern for medical expenses or care for themselves and their families.

However, it does have some notable caveats. One such issue arises when it comes to psychological help, where the state's support can fall short. Citizens seeking mental health assistance often face long waiting times, sometimes ranging from one to three years, which can be incredibly challenging for those in need of timely intervention.

On the other hand, the Danish healthcare system does excel in providing excellent childcare services and initiatives that promote a better work-life balance. These provisions enable individuals to fully concentrate on their work, knowing that their children are well taken care of, thereby enhancing productivity and overall well-being. A new and additional initiative to increase productivity, motivation and support the work-life of employees is the 4-day workweek, which has already been introduced in some companies.

Another important factor for emotional and physical well-being is the living situation and the environment. Danish cities are renowned for modern amenities, urban planning, sustainable development, and cycling infrastructure. Copenhagen was even ranked as the world's safest city. The combination of vibrant cultural scenes, well-designed public spaces, and a strong sense of community fosters a positive working environment, increased working performance and enhances overall well-being.

#3 The Political and Economic Perspective

International workers planning to live and work in Denmark can derive significant value from the country's membership in both the Nordic Alliance and the European Union (EU). These memberships provide opportunities for trade, attracting international talent and fostering a diverse and globalized working environment. It also allows access to a network of like-minded countries, fostering collaboration and professional development in areas such as social welfare, innovation, and environmental sustainability. This membership promotes a shared commitment to progressive policies and provides a supportive environment for international workers seeking to integrate into Danish society. Additionally, Denmark's EU membership offers numerous advantages, including freedom of movement within the EU, enabling international workers to explore job opportunities and cultural experiences across member states.

Overall, Denmark's memberships contribute to a favourable environment for international workers, offering opportunities for professional growth, cultural exchange, and a high quality of life.

However, obtaining a working permission or permanent residency permit in Denmark can be challenging for individuals from outside the European Union (EU). The process can be complex and stringent, often leading to difficulties for non-EU residents seeking employment opportunities or long-term settlements in the country. Moreover, the EU itself faces certain challenges and inefficiencies in handling immigration-related topics, which can result in delays and frustration for individuals navigating the system. It is important to acknowledge that while Denmark has many strengths in its healthcare system, there are areas where improvements can be made to enhance accessibility and streamline immigration processes for non-EU individuals.

Another important influencing factor is the cost of living. Denmark is known for its high standard of living, but this comes with a higher cost of living compared to some other countries. Accommodation, transportation, and daily expenses may be relatively higher, requiring employees to budget and plan their finances accordingly.

The Role of the Danish Working Culture for Mazepay

The progressive Danish working culture has a significant influence on Mazepay's working culture and the way our employees work and collaborate. Another influencing factor for Mazepay's working culture are the United Nation's Sustainability Development goals. Mazepay incorporates three out of the seventeen goals. We, as a company, strive to create local effects as well as an impact on a global scale. We strongly believe that, as an employer, we are responsible for actively improving our employees' well-being. This includes healthy food, regular vacations and additional health benefits. We also strive to ensure office facilities that help promote well-being regarding lighting, acoustics, ergonomics etc. Furthermore, this includes that we want to create decent work opportunities and contribute to economic growth, including new and attractive jobs offering opportunities across countries, nurturing and training young talent and promoting labour rights and safe and secure working.

Besides these formal concepts and guidelines, the following paragraphs summarise three general working principles of the working culture at Mazepay.

Professionalism and Individualism

We foster a flat organizational hierarchy, emphasizing collaboration and inclusivity. At the same time, we place great value on mutual tolerance and respect. In the context of the individual dress codes, the guidelines are generally relaxed at Mazepay. This informal atmosphere allows you as an employee to express your style and work in a more relaxed and comfortable working environment.

Communication & Integration

Personal communication is open and direct. Colleagues and superiors communicate with honesty, authenticity, and respect, promoting transparency and reducing misunderstandings. Constructive feedback and discussions are encouraged, leading to effective collaboration and a positive working atmosphere. Since we are working in a flat hierarchy concept, you as an employee are encouraged to voice your opinions, ideas, and concerns, irrespective of your position within the company. This participatory culture promotes a sense of ownership, creativity, and a shared commitment to success.

Work Concept

Like in Denmark's working culture, we value the concept of work-life balance. You are often granted flexibility in managing your schedules, promoting autonomy and allowing you to fulfil personal commitments while meeting professional responsibilities. This flexibility enhances work-life balance and contributes to overall job satisfaction. You have the opportunity to take advantage of working from home or for some positions even fully remote.

Besides the work, we organize several team events. For example, we have been to a trampoline and a go-kart-racing team-building event, organised a camping trip to the Danish island Rømø and a company event in Madrid.

Are you excited about the future of payments? Join us and become part of the Mazepay-culture.

Invoice Management

Every business in their lifetime must receive or deal with an invoice, one of the essential financial documents. But how long can they have an important role in the age of digitisation? Procurement and supply chain needs to handle a myriad of these documents to operate a business, no matter their size. As we scale up, we can see how the number of invoices grows.

The Billentis report defines two major types of invoices

• Invoices in the narrow legal sense: Bills/invoices with full content and authentication of issuer and receipt. Typically issued by accounting systems. Basis for electronic transmission and automated processing.

• Invoices in the broader legal sense: 'Simplified low value' bills/invoices without customer authentication. E.g., payment receipts, tickets, etc. Typically, anonymously issued by cash registers at points of sale. Not suited for automated electronic transfer and automated management.

Our article will discuss the first group and refer to them as invoices.

Invoices

The Covid-19 pandemic brought change to our economy, where many players in the global supply chain needed to evolve to overcome the difficulties.

One of these was that B2B businesses started to sell their products and services online, which provided an ever-growing need for optimisation.

Problems Around Invoices:

Even though the format is almost as old as the economy, it still possesses some problems that have only escalated with technological development.

The first and foremost problem that comes to mind is missing invoices. Many of them are still mailed in paper form, leading to disappearance or delayed transactions. Paper-based invoicing is the least compliant and unsustainable way of handling transactions. Another problem can occur from missing or incorrect data on the invoice, causing further delays and extra labour for accountants. All of these can pump up the cost of invoice handling on both the buyers' and the suppliers' sides.

Invoice Processing

If done right, you can save many resources for your business. Processing your invoices can mean the following steps:

1. The supplier sends the invoice

2. Accounting or procurement validates whether the invoice is legitimate.

3. The invoice goes through the approval flow

4. Finance onboards the supplier

5. Payment of the supplier

6. Payment is recorded in the ledger

This critical process depends on many players in your business and is strongly connected to your cash flow. It can stall the operation if the ineffective workflow causes missing or is late execution. It is common that purchases can halt, starting a chain reaction that causes severe problems for the whole supply chain.

How to automate the process

We don't deny the existence of experts and specialists in invoice processing. But as we can see above, it depends on many actors, and when the workflow is not watertight, that can quickly start the avalanche. To overcome human error, we need to introduce automation and machine learning to the picture.

With good invoice management automation, you can eliminate many bottlenecks from manual processes and improve your bottom line.

Let's go through which steps can be automated from the invoice processing and how:

• Supplier sends the invoice: you can set up an inbox only for receiving invoices from suppliers. With the help of AI and machine learning, the data can be accessed without manual interaction.

• Accounting and Procurement validate whether the invoice is correct: with the help of machine learning, invoice validation happens right after you receive the invoice.

• Accounts payable approves the payment: ensure pre-approval for every purchase with dynamic request forms and customised approval flows. Automate request-to-purchase processes with business rules that cover all your purchasing needs.

• Finance onboards the supplier: You can automate this step by receiving data from, for example, Mastercard or other trusted third parties. With a vast database of suppliers, automated onboarding, sanction screening and up-to-date data, you no longer have to worry about this step when paying your invoice-based suppliers.

• Payment of the supplier: We are all familiar with the struggle after receiving the green light for a payment. Our vendor is waiting for their money to arrive, but finance hasn't allocated the resources; procurement is caught between the two parties. Digital payments can solve these issues. Virtual cards provide transparency, and we are ready to pay the invoice immediately after approval.

• Payment is recorded in the ledger. Manually extracting data from thousands of invoices is a hassle no company should deal with. All data needed to post transactions should be collected, automated and easily integrated with your accounting systems.

The Future of Invoice Management

At Mazepay, we believe B2B payments should not be complex. If everyday consumer purchases can be simplified into contactless payments, why can't this focus on convenience and simplification inhabit the world of B2B payments? We created Mazepay to enable a global B2B ecosystem that supports buyers and suppliers. An ecosystem that removes all the unnecessary complexity in today's long-tail procurement and instead facilitates trade based on trust, compliance, and on-time payments.

We provide a platform for enterprises to control their spend by simplifying and automating processes and workflows for every layer of the organisation. With the help of Mazepay invoices can long live; all the drawbacks and extra costs are disappearing instead.

If you want to know more about how to get in control of your invoices and improve supplier relations, contact us or book a demo.

In today’s service-oriented economy, subscriptions have become the new normal. Here are the pros and cons of subscriptions for B2B enterprises.

In today’s increasingly service-oriented economy, many products are being transformed into services, a development that is by no means limited to software products either. Manufacturers and media companies and other sectors are also starting to deliver their products on demand, giving themselves and their clients space to scale and adapt with constantly changing market needs. Products from many industry sectors are now being offered in the form of subscription-based services, which are poised to radically change the way B2B enterprises manage their supply chains. The following paragraphs will explain what that means for procurement.

What are the Benefits of Digital Subscriptions?

As we enter the era of ‘everything-as-a-service’, established B2B enterprises face increasing pressure to rethink how they manage their supply chains. Subscriptions help overcome many of the biggest challenges today’s enterprises face, such as the growing need to become more resilient and adaptable to change.

#1 Scalability & Adaptability

One of the most important benefits of subscription-based products is that they are scalable and adaptable, with many products being offered on demand. As such, companies only need to pay for the resources they actually need and use. With new methodologies, such as just-in-time manufacturing, flexible subscriptions are rapidly becoming the new norm.

Subscriptions are inherently more adaptable than one-time purchases since they often come with free trial periods, product samples, or demonstrations. This makes them ideal now that businesses face a growing need to innovate and adapt rapidly.

#2 Simplicity & Flexibility

Subscriptions are typically easy to start and, with many vendors, easy to cancel or scale back and forth per requirements. Costs are also predictable, and most subscription management routines are easily automated.

The boom in subscription-based products was one of the few positive developments during the pandemic, in which paid subscriptions increased by up to 40%. This growth was largely down to the fact that subscriptions enhance business resilience by reducing costs and enabling greater adaptability in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable global economy. In other words, if a business requires a particular product to be provided on a regular basis, then the subscription model is the obvious way to deliver it – especially if the subscription offers a reasonable degree of flexibility.

#3 Improved Spend Management

For procurement teams, subscriptions can save a great deal of time and offer improved cost control, since vendor relationships can be largely automated. This is particularly important in long-tail spend management, in which managing dozens

or even hundreds of minor vendors quickly becomes an enormous burden. Subscriptions, on the other hand, can help alleviate that burden by putting the indirect procurement on autopilot. The traditional approach, by contrast, usually involves manually creating purchase orders for every individual purchase and managing multiple invoices and payments.

Overcoming the Drawbacks of Digital Subscriptions

While there is no denying that subscriptions have come to play a vital role in B2B enterprises, especially in the case of SaaS and other technology products, they do introduce new risks and limitations. For a start, subscriptions come in many different forms, including term-based contracts and consumption-based licensing. Although things are gradually changing for the better, there may also be a risk of vendor lock-in, which can end up negating many of the biggest benefits of subscriptions.

A common drawback of subscriptions is that they are often managed across many employees,

which can make it difficult to maintain oversight. In these cases, some subscriptions may run indefinitely without any evaluation, even when the service is no longer required.

Because of this, it is important to have a clear approval flow that leverages automation to reduce the risk of human error as well as a cockpit to help finance and procurement keep an overview of all the subscriptions in the organisation.

When it comes to procurement and supply chain management, legacy systems and processes were not built to accommodate today’s subscription-based models. This makes subscriptions difficult to track, thereby negating the cost-control benefit.

Fortunately, businesses can resolve such issues by implementing a procurement platform that largely automates the management of subscriptions. This ensures that all transactions remain traceable and that routine operations, such as invoice handling and digital payments, can be automated. That way, procurement teams can free up the time they would otherwise spend managing long-tail suppliers to focus on relationships with strategic suppliers.

Mazepay is an all-in-one procurement platform for long-tail spend that enables the seamless management of all subscriptions from approvals to payments. Get in touch today to find out more.

The use of subscriptions and recurring payments is at an all-time high and is forecast to grow even more. For enterprises, it is crucial to manage these services in a compliant way.

Mazepay ensures a secure subscription and recurring payment management with each virtual card locked to a subscription.

Virtual card locks to subscriptions

When we created Mazepay, security and compliance were among the essential things, which is why approval before purchase plays a vital role in our solution. What would a pre-approved amount mean if it could be spent on anything? Theoretically, a plastic card with a higher spend amount for multiple charges can be exploited. That is why Mazepay is built on the infrastructure of virtual cards. When a recurring virtual card is issued, it will be locked to that subscription(*) after the first charge, meaning it cannot be used for other spend.

Besides compliance, this has many other advantages; e.g. transparency and easy management.

(*) When talking about a virtual card being locked to a subscription, we discuss SaaS subscription services, social media campaign accounts, cloud service accounts or merchants. Different providers have different ways of handling payments; we identified four use cases, which we will explain in detail. For simplicity, we use the term subscription as an umbrella term for the different use cases.

Benefits of subscription-locked cards

Compliance

One virtual card, one subscription. Software-as-a-service purchases remain within the approved budget; new items and services can only be purchased with another approval. The virtual cards cannot be handed over to colleagues for additional items or purchases.

Transparency and control

Finance can easily match the transactions with the ongoing services, identify subscription owners, and move ownership or cancel a subscription.

Budgeting tool

Setting budgets for teams, employees, or campaigns is easy with spend limits and the card's expiry date. It is easy to see spend, revoke cards and allocate resources from one campaign or team to another.

Best practices and use cases

For the best user experience, we collected some best practices and selected some use cases to help you get the most out of Mazepay.

SaaS subscriptions

A convenient and broadly used model for software and other digital services. Many businesses use them; however, they are only easy to follow and control with the right tools. You can easily control this convenient model with virtual cards supported by Mazepay's end-to-end process.

Depending on annual or monthly charges, and team or individual subscriptions, we recommend the following way of requesting and using the cards to remain compliant.

Annual charges

The best way is to request a single-use card, as this is a single annual payment.

Monthly/other charges

We recommend requesting recurring virtual cards for the planned period. Be mindful that the virtual cards will expire after twelve months.

Social media subscriptions

Running campaigns on different social media platforms is a must for almost every company. Navigating between the payments, however, can take time and effort.

Social media billing is usually set up with the option of adding one payment method at a time for an account; this can interfere with the approvals, so we recommend creating separate accounts for each parallel ongoing campaign for the most compliant use and transparency. This way, the cards can be used as budgeting tools; each campaign only runs until their spend limit has been reached and can be stopped by revoking the card.

Here we break down the two most used platforms individually:

LINKEDIN

In the LinkedIn campaign manager for one LinkedIn ad account, only one payment method can be added. However, you can create multiple LinkedIn ad accounts for the same LinkedIn page.

Each LinkedIn ad account can have its own payment method added, so we recommend creating an ad account for each running campaign, that way, their spend can be easily controlled.

FACEBOOK

In the Meta ads manager, you can add multiple payment methods for one Facebook ad account. However, in these cases you need to choose a default payment method, and that will be charged for each campaign. When it cannot be charged, the other methods work as a fallback.

Each Facebook ad account can have its own default payment method added, so we recommend creating an ad account for each ongoing campaign, that way, their spend can be easily controlled.

Cloud services

Similar to social media platforms, we recommend creating individual accounts, but here, for each service. Cloud providers often have different merchants for each service, meaning that one card already locked to a service cannot be used for the same provider's other services.

We break it down into two examples below:

GOOGLE

In Google Cloud, you can set up several accounts for different services. For this, Access Management Roles can be used.

We recommend for each role and each service and their renewals request an individual multi-use card.

AWS

For AWS, we recommend setting up individual payment profiles for each service and requesting individual multi-use cards for these.

None periodical recurring payments

The final category is none periodical billing, delivery services, volume-based billing, etc. We recommend requesting a recurring virtual card for each individual service, set up with a spend limit that matches the expectations of the period.

Facing the growing threat of economic uncertainty and disruption to global supply chains, the need for more adaptable procurement processes has never been more apparent. In today's rapidly changing economic environment, a slow purchase order process is one thing that can cripple your business. Manual processes take too much time, making it all the more difficult to change to new suppliers. But the fact that invoice-based B2B purchases are more complicated than making a B2C purchase online doesn't necessarily mean that the process should be more complex.

A look into existing processes

Traditional purchase orders have always played a central role in procurement, and they will continue to do so. That said, they also rely heavily on manual processes, which are cumbersome, and lacking in agility. Adding them to your ERP system can be difficult and time-consuming. For this reason, the additional costs add up quickly when you use them for smaller transactions.

The problem for many companies is that they use these complex purchase order processes with all suppliers, including the numerous minor, inexpensive purchases that make up the long tail of their suppliers. This makes an expensive and unnecessarily time-consuming process due to the onboarding of long-tail suppliers just to be able to make a purchase.

In a B2B enterprise environment, you don't even think that purchasing could be as easy as a consumer-grade transaction.

The Purchase Request Process is as simple as Writing a Post-it note

Filling out a request form, going through the approval and the payment should not take more than a few minutes.

Nonetheless, traditional purchase orders are costly to businesses because of arcane processes, large amounts of paperwork and lengthy manual checks to ensure full compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) checks and sanction list screenings.

A typical purchase process today

1. Filling out a purchase order request form

2. Complete approval flow of the purchase request

3. Request quotations from suppliers

4. Analyse and select vendors

5. Conduct KYC checks and sanction list screenings

6. Onboard supplier

7. Create a purchase order

8. Complete approval flow of the purchase order

9. Place an order at the supplier

10. Receive goods or services

11. Receive invoice and match against the purchase order

12. Complete approval flow for the invoice

13. Authorise payment to the vendor

14. Pay the vendor using an account-to-account transfer

15. Complete documentation of the purchase

16. Audit and compliance processes

Often, one or many of these steps are outsourced, using over-complicated forms in not-so-user-friendly interfaces that can prolong a should-be simple process even further.

How much do you pay for this?

Due to the significant differences between one industry and another and the complexity of individual purchase orders themselves, it is impossible to give a precise figure on how much it costs to create a purchase order. The Center for Advanced Procurement Strategy provides a range between US$50 and US$1,000 for one purchase order, depending on industry and the inclusion of supporting activities.

The total cost will differ in every situation, depending on the degree to which each process flow stage is automated. For example, businesses might use their ERP -system to automate the creation of purchase orders, but steps like invoicing and records-keeping might still be done manually, consuming valuable work hours.

Traditional purchase orders arose from complex strategic purchases. Handling a few big, regular suppliers cannot be a problem. Long-tail procurement, by contrast, typically encompasses hundreds or even thousands of small suppliers. For a minor purchase worth only €100, it hardly makes sense if the purchase order process costs €50 worth of documentation and working hours each time. You can quickly spiral out of control in terms of cost.

Cut the costs and guide your company out of the maze of purchase processess

Fortunately, there are some proven ways to greatly reduce the costs associated with purchase order creation and management.

We built Mazepay to make B2B payment processes as simple as a B2C purchase.

1. Purchase request:

• Fill out the custom request form with only the essential details

2. Pre-approval

• With automated pre-approval flows, approving purchases doesn't take more than a few seconds.

3. Purchase:

• Complete your purchase and pay online, or by invoice using virtual cards.

4. Posting the receipt

• With automatic receipt collection, you don't have to worry about missing receipts, and accounting automatically gets all the required information for posting.

How Traditional Purchase Orders can be improved?

Leverage online purchases:

Online purchases are not only faster – they are more convenient and provide a complete and readily accessible audit trail.

Use process automation:

Automating procurement processes like purchase order creation eliminates the need for many manual tasks.

Machine learning:

Machine learning helps you get rid of all the time-consuming trivial tasks.

Mazepay reduces the need for conventional purchase orders in long-tail procurement, thus saving time and money. Get in touch today to find out more.

Subscriptions are the new normal in today’s increasingly service-based economy. That said, while they can be convenient and flexible, they also present a risk of hidden costs. Businesses often end up with unused subscriptions that create additional and wholly unnecessary costs. To enjoy all of the unique benefits of the ever-popular subscription model, businesses need to retain visibility and control over their various plans, especially in their indirect procurement strategy.

The hidden costs of digital subscriptions

In any subscription model, customers are charged for a product or service on a recurring basis. However, these models come in different forms, some of which are more suitable than others, depending on the product or service in question. For example, plans may use a replenishment model, in which businesses pay for the replacement of products at given intervals or for new consumables once they have run out. Other subscriptions are charged only when a customer actually uses or accesses a product, as is often the case with cloud-hosted virtual desktops.

For software products, subscriptions are typically priced per user, allowing for a certain degree of flexibility. For example, a business might purchase subscription plans for ten users, adding and removing ones as required. However, unless there is adequate oversight, this also means there is a high risk of subscriptions going unused or having multiple subscriptions for the same user. Abandoned and unused subscriptions cost extra money and deliver no business value. In the case of software-as-a-service (SaaS), they may also present an added security risk, due to the higher potential of unused accounts being misappropriated by cybercriminals.

In other cases, a business might not have enough subscriptions for a particular service due to issues with payment systems failing to accommodate automatic renewals. This can lead to reduced functionality and costly downtime. Unintentionally suspended subscription plans are a common problem when it comes to long-tail suppliers, where manual procurement processes can result in lengthy delays.

Yet another hidden cost of subscriptions are trial periods that are charged automatically after the trial period ends. While legal regulations require that vendors warn their customers if their trial periods are due to expire, things like emails can easily end up being overlooked, and unwanted subscriptions can end up going on for months.

4 Steps to reduce the costs: smart subscription management

#1 Improved flexibility

Correct subscription management can greatly improve scalability and cost-efficiency at a time when demand is ever-changing and often unpredictable.

#2 On-demand purchases

Products and services can be purchased on-demand, and capacity scaled back and forth to meet current circumstances. In the case of SaaS products, customers also get to enjoy regular updates and client support, thereby reducing or even eliminating the cost of maintenance.

#3 Transparency

However, to enjoy these benefits to their fullest, businesses need transparency that gives them full oversight and control over their subscriptions. This is vital, given that the average number of SaaS subscriptions per organisation currently stands at 177 for companies with more than a thousand employees, and it is constantly growing. This figure does not even take into consideration individual plans per employee or team.

#4 Virtual cards

To manage all subscriptions effectively, organisations must first find a way to have a full overview of all subscriptions. At the very least, it should be immediately apparent who owns which subscriptions, the duration of those subscriptions, and the total cost of each plan. Going even further, smart software can automate routine operations like using virtual cards to make digital payments. The use of virtual cards simplifies the approval processes for new subscriptions and ensures that IT security and legal checks can be enforced before a new purchase is made.

Mazepay is an all-in-one long-tail spend management solution that enables the seamless control

of all subscriptions, from approvals to payments. Get in touch today to find out more and gain control over your marketing spend.

Online B2B purchases for long-tail

The Covid 19 pandemic has been causing widespread disruption across global supply chains. However, it has also highlighted pre-existing issues with procurement and forced leaders into rethinking their processes. In particular, the optimisation of long-tail supply chains, which had already been a long time due, is now a top priority.

For many companies, the main priority over the past half a year has been to stay above water by reducing costs as much as possible. But even in these deeply uncertain times, long-term opportunities can be realised. The modernisation and standardisation of long-tail procurement won’t just help now – it will also help drive growth long after the pandemic.

In particular, the need to work remotely has emphasised the importance of new procurement operations, such as online purchases, paperless operations, and automation of Accounts Payable. By harnessing the potential of buying online, businesses can promote greater efficiency, transparency, and adaptability to the constant pace of change.

Drive digital transformation of procurement

An increasing number of companies are offering their products and services digitally, whether it’s software-as-a-service (SaaS), online stores selling physical goods, or subscription-based payment models.

Long-tail suppliers typically account for around 80 % of a business’s supplier portfolio. Yet despite this huge figure, these long-tail suppliers only account for an average of 20% of the company’s total spend. With new digital tools available, combined with the increasing capabilities of many suppliers, companies can now manage their long-tail spend more efficiently and with the same rigour they do for core spending.

By digitising online b2b purchases and their payment processes, employees can request and complete purchases no matter where they are. Automated online procurement ensures that employees must get approval before making purchases, thus reducing maverick spend. Whether approval happens automatically according to business rules or by a manager is up to the business. Complete audit trails ensure there’s no missing information, thus reducing the back and forth between employees and accounting teams. Accounts Payable having to do detective work to try and link countless invoices to the right buying employee in the organisation is a cumbersome administrative process that many enterprises struggle with on a daily basis.

Simplify Accounts Payable processes

Late and incorrect payments have been a recurring side effect of the pandemic, as companies struggle to navigate around furloughs, remote work, and fewer employees. For example, the UK experienced a 209% increase in overdue payments since the beginning of the pandemic.

Through online payments, suppliers are paid instantly. This means enterprises no longer need to spend a significant portion of their time onboarding long-tail suppliers and manually handling invoices from them. Decreasing the workload on Accounts Payable will significantly free up their time to focus on strategic procurement, which is what matters most during Covid-19. By contrast, long-tail procurement should be as frictionless and automated as possible.

Accounts Payable should not have to track down employees to link to invoices that pile up. And they certainly should not spend time creating long-tail suppliers in comprehensive accounting systems based on simple online payments. Automating long-tail procurement is an efficiency booster that enterprises cannot ignore - and for online purchases, there are huge benefits to reap. Moving spend to online payments can greatly simplify procurement processes all the way from purchase requests to posting of invoices and eliminate the expensive and time-consuming process of onboarding long-tail suppliers.

Ensure compliance and auditing

Migrating to paperless operations helps simplify compliance and auditing while giving remote procurement teams full visibility into their critical processes. This presents a big improvement over traditional paper-tracking processes, which are time-consuming and notoriously prone to human error. Also, it’s practically impossible to rely on paper-based operations in the age of remote work.

Utilising cloud technology is the optimal way to facilitate online purchasing processes as it provides easy access from anywhere. And, since every operation happens in the digital space, there’s always a complete audit trail. This also makes things easier from a compliance standpoint since businesses can enforce company policies and regulations at any scale. Compliant and user-friendly processes is a must in the age of remote work to ensure that it’s easy for employees to follow business guidelines no matter where they are.

Improve long-tail supply chain management

Employees across different departments should be authorised to make smaller purchases for the sake of efficiency, instead of having to wait for approval from managers who don’t want to be burdened by approving every single long-tail purchase. However, to make this possible without increasing maverick spend, it’s important to facilitate instant, pre-approved purchases based on a clearly defined set of business rules. If long-tail purchases can be made anytime, anywhere, and aligned with internal policy, procurement will barely have to think about manually managing their long-tail supply chains.

By automating online payments for long-tail suppliers, employees can speed up procurement and increase agility. Managers also have greater control over spend, and Accounts Payable no longer has to handle thousands of invoices every month. Best of all, these fully digitised processes can be managed from anywhere, which means remote work no longer has to be a barrier to procurement. This environment is beneficial to both businesses and their employees, who can benefit from streamlined and instant purchases.

Thanks to the power of cloud technology and automation, online purchases provide greater agility, cost control, and efficiency and empower employees. And these are benefits that companies can continue to realise long after Covid-19.

Mazepay helps procurement teams drive value, improve cash flow and become more efficient during times of economic uncertainty. Get in touch today to learn more about how Mazepay can help you simplify your business.

The Rise of Subscription Management: A New Approach Required

In recent years, subscriptions, as well as other types of recurring payments, have become popular payment models for various B2B products and services such as software solutions, cloud computing services and digital marketing.

While subscriptions and recurring payments offer a convenient and cost-effective way for organisations to access the needed services, managing them should be easier. Companies lack an overview of the different subscriptions, the associated payments, and, importantly, who owns them. A new approach to subscriptions and recurring payments is critical to cater to the needs of organisations employing hundreds or thousands of employees.

The Role of Approval Flows when Purchasing Subscriptions

Approval flows are an important consideration for subscriptions and recurring payments. We have seen in many use cases that personal commercial cards allow employees to spend without approval before purchasing or use them for purchases not allowed according to business rules. We have also seen cases where employees lend cards to colleagues because they do not have cards available, creating significant risks for the enterprise. The lack of a structured process for card payments also causes problems for finance, who must untangle the maze of transactions. Approval flows ensure that all required approvals are completed before a purchase can be made, giving organisations the needed control. This helps businesses manage their spend transparently and ensures that subscriptions and recurring payments are aligned with business rules.

Keeping Subscriptions Secure

Security is an important consideration when it comes to subscriptions or recurring payments. We have already mentioned the chaos caused by personal commercial cards: unauthorised and unnecessary purchases and exceeded budgets. This can lead to wasted resources and, in some cases, to compliance breaches. Pre-approvals and virtual cards with an end-to-end process can help solve these problems. The issued virtual card is tied to the approved subscription, so it cannot be used for other purchases. Approvers can ask for all the necessary documentation before the purchase, approve or decline them easily, making it simple for employees to follow business rules. IT security or legal highly benefit from this by ensuring that the required GDPR documentation and required IT security controls are enforced without spending hours on administration.

Gaining Visibility: An Organizational Overview

Another challenge is to get an overview of all running subscriptions and recurring payments in the organisation. It is often difficult to control personal subscriptions; when we talk about global organisations, these difficulties multiply greatly. This can lead to overlapping subscriptions or subscriptions that are no longer needed. Organisations need a solution where they can easily see and manage all subscriptions and recurring payments.

The Necessity of Efficient Receipt Collection

Finance knows how difficult it is to get receipts for business expenses. Using personal commercial cards for subscriptions and recurring payments makes keeping track of receipts and invoices for subscriptions even more challenging. An end-to-end process supported by virtual cards allows organisations to collect receipts and invoices automatically. A solution like this can notify the employees when the transaction is made; it makes receipt collection fast and reliable. The transactions are connected to their receipts, and ownership and organisational roles are visible thanks to the approval flows, offering complete transparency.

Harnessing Cost Savings Through Subscription Management

You can realise significant cost savings when you have a solution to control your subscriptions and recurring payments.

Without an overview, subscriptions can run forever, wasting resources and creating unnecessary expenses. With virtual cards, each subscription is tied to a specific card with a specific expiration date. The dashboard overview helps everyone keep track of the subscriptions and payments within their area of responsibility.

Conclusion: The Future of Subscription Management

In conclusion, subscriptions are a popular payment model for organisations, but they carry many challenges if not managed appropriately. A solution with an end-to-end process based on virtual cards solves all these problems. This approach provides a clear overview of all subscriptions and recurring payments, ensures approval before all purchases, increases security, and reduces GDPR risks.

If you want to manage your subscriptions and recurring payments with a solution that can do all the above, read more on mazepay.com and enjoy a simplified way of managing your spend.

Mazepay is an all-in-one long-tail spend management software that enables the seamless control

of all subscriptions, from approvals to payments. Get in touch today to find out more and gain control over your marketing spend.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK. WEDNESDAY 8TH FEBRUARY 2023, 11AM CET: We proudly announce that Mazepay has raised a €4M growth round, led by Scale Capital.

Participants in the round include international investment firm Hambro Perks, and London-based early stage venture capital firm Outward VC. We will use the latest funding to expand further across Europe.

Founded in 2018 in Aarhus, Denmark, by CEO Søren Aabel Hammer, COO Dan Kortegaard Nielsen, and CTO Thomas Dragsbæk, Mazepay empowers medium and large-scale enterprises to easily manage all B2B spending within a trusted and compliant global ecosystem.

We count the likes of Polestar, Orsted, Advania, Better Collective, Configit, and Sweco as customers, and have partnerships with leading financial service organisations, including AirPlus International, Nordea, and SEB Kort.

Mazepay’s payment solution platform has also been integrated within the Mastercard ICCP (In Control Commercial Payments) which is connected with over 70 banks globally, and enables a new bank to go live on the platform within 30 days of registration.

Modernising Archaic B2B Payments Processes

We help large corporations deal with the long-tail spend problems that arise from managing thousands of suppliers and tens of thousands of invoices, with archaic methods requiring authorisation and sign-off from multiple stakeholders, making it extremely time-consuming and leading to errors.

Our next-generation SaaS technology automates B2B financial transactions making them as simple and seamless as possible.

According to a report from Goldman Sachs, B2B payments are expected to grow to $200 trillion by 2028 and will be five times the volume of B2C payments, while 7% of the $120 trillion B2B payment volume is conducted digitally, according to Manhattan Venture Research, illustrating how fragmented legacy systems with a lack of data standards are inherent in the B2B transactions space.

Søren Aabel Hammer, Founder and CEO of Mazepay, comments: “With the increased uncertainty that many businesses are facing, and the ever-growing need to cut costs, create transparency of spend, and reduce risk, our solution has never been more important. The B2B payments market is growing at a rapid pace, and our vision is to be the go-to platform for businesses that require a safer and more efficient way to handle purchases.”

Lars Jensen, Founding Partner of Scale Capital, comments: “At Scale Capital we are excited to lead the investment round in Mazepay and support the company’s vision of simplifying corporate spend management. We like the ambition, tenacity, and customer-centric focus of the team, and look forward to seeing the business expand globally.”

Kevin Chong, Co-Head of Outward VC, comments: “Innovation in B2B payments is a long way behind that of B2C payments, but the inefficiencies and risks surrounding B2B payments is a growing problem for large enterprises and their employees. Mazepay is at the forefront of this, and has built a best-in-class product used by some of Europe’s leading companies. We are delighted to support this growth funding round following on from our first investment in 2021.”

Tom Bradley, Partner at Hambro Perks, comments: “We have a track record of backing leading fintechs and a commitment to driving innovation in the fintech space. We were immediately impressed by the Mazepay team, their vision and value proposition. We look forward to working with them to grow the business and expand their international footprint.”

Through strategic partnerships with both international and national banks, and financial organisations, which also introduce the unique payment solution to their own customers, we ensure the global scalability of our fintech platform that is helping to simplify B2B payments for customers in 21 countries across five continents.

Last year we were granted a pan-European payments institute licence by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, enabling us to handle transactions on behalf of companies to pay suppliers’ invoices directly, which adds further automation and compliance to the platform.

About Mazepay

Mazepay is a Danish fintech platform that simplifies long-tail procurement and B2B payments for customers in 21 countries across 5 continents. Founded in 2018, Mazepay employs a team of 28 people, spanning 11 nationalities. Investors include Outward VC, Hambro Perks, and Scale Capital.

About Scale Capital

Scale Capital is an early-stage venture fund investing in digitisation and disruptive technologies within business-to-business. Scale Capital primarily invests in companies in the Nordic region that have the potential and ambition to win in the US market. Its purpose is to deliver impact through technology and create a positive change to the planet and people’s lives. Scale Capital is headquartered in Copenhagen with a presence in the Nordic countries and Silicon Valley.

About Outward

Outward VC is a London-headquartered venture capital firm investing in early-stage fintech startups based in the UK and EU. Championing a broad definition of fintech, its portfolio spans the full range of financial services and connected sectors

About Hambro Perks

Hambro Perks is a London-headquartered international investment firm focused on private investing. It partners with founders and entrepreneurs to support growth businesses at all stages of the investment cycle. Hambro Perks has specialised and dedicated investment teams, working across a number of funds. In addition to their flagship Venture, EIS and co-investment funds, Hambro Perks offers a number of specialist differentiated investment strategies, including Hambro Perks Environmental Technology, Special Situations, and Access, which invests in venture secondaries. It has partnered with some of the most pioneering and ambitious companies in the UK and Europe, including What3Words, PrimaryBid, Moneybox, Oxbury, Humn and Tide.

Sichern Sie Ihre Lieferkette, indem Sie diese 5 wichtigen Tipps befolgen

Fortgeschrittene Angreifer zielen selten direkt auf ihre Opfer, sondern erreichen sie über Schwachstellen in ihren Lieferketten. Hier erfahren Sie, wie Sie sie aufhalten können.

Die heutigen Beschaffungsprozesse umfassen oft mehrere Technologien, um geschäftskritische Vorgänge zu rationalisieren und Routineaufgaben zu automatisieren. Jede dieser Technologien und Prozesse vergrößert auch Ihre Angriffsfläche und bietet Angreifern mehr potenzielle Eintrittspunkte in Ihre Umgebung. Und da es um die Beschaffung geht, liegen viele dieser Angriffspunkte außerhalb Ihrer direkten Kontrolle.

Die Cybersicherheit muss bei allen Geschäftsprozessen im Mittelpunkt stehen, auch bei der Abonnementverwaltung, der Rechnungsverwaltung und der Beschaffung. Die Bedrohungen sind real und zahlreich, und zwar in Form von bösartiger Software (Malware) und Social Engineering-Angriffen wie E-Mail-Phishing. Bei vielen Angriffen auf Beschaffungs- und Lieferketten kommen mehrere Methoden zum Einsatz.

Wie können Sie die Cybersicherheit in Ihrem Unternehmen verbessern?

Hier sind fünf wichtige Tipps zum Schutz Ihres Unternehmens:

#1. Investieren Sie in Schulungen zum Sicherheitsbewusstsein

Eines der häufigsten Missverständnisse in Bezug auf die Cybersicherheit ist vielleicht, dass sie als Aufgabe der IT-Abteilung angesehen wird. In Wirklichkeit ist jedoch jeder im Unternehmen ein potenzielles Ziel, so dass jeder seinen Teil zum Schutz des Unternehmens beitragen muss. Angesichts der Zunahme von Social-Engineering-Angriffen sollte außerdem klar sein, dass die Mitarbeiter die erste und letzte Verteidigungslinie sind. Fortlaufende Schulungen zum Sicherheitsbewusstsein tragen dazu bei, eine Kultur der Verantwortlichkeit zu schaffen, und sie helfen Ihren Mitarbeitern, sich sowohl zu Hause als auch am Arbeitsplatz vor Cyberangriffen zu schützen.

#2. Gehen Sie proaktiv an die Sicherheit heran

Die beste Art und Weise, wie Führungskräfte an das Thema Cybersicherheit herangehen können, ist die Einstellung, dass es nicht darauf ankommt, ob sie angegriffen werden, sondern wann. Diese Denkweise ist entscheidend für die Umstellung der Sicherheitsposition eines Unternehmens von einer reaktiven auf eine proaktive Haltung, in der sie aktiv nach Bedrohungen suchen und sie in ihrem Lauf stoppen. Moderne Technologien, wie z. B. KI-gestützte Lösungen zur Analyse von Bedrohungen, können ebenfalls dazu beitragen, die proaktive Sicherheit zu verbessern.

#3. Verwenden Sie virtuelle Karten für Online-Zahlungen

Eine virtuelle Zahlungskarte funktioniert genauso wie eine physische Karte. Der Hauptunterschied besteht darin, dass es keine physische Komponente gibt, die verloren gehen oder verlegt werden kann. Virtuelle Karten bieten jedoch auch einen weniger bekannten - aber sehr bedeutenden - Vorteil in Bezug auf Sicherheit und Compliance. Da virtuelle Kartennummern für jede Transaktion eindeutig sind, ist das Risiko von Identitätsdiebstahl und Betrug deutlich geringer.

#4. Mehrschichtiger Schutz vor Cyberangriffen

Keine einzelne Verteidigungsmaßnahme wird jemals gegen Cyberangriffe immun sein, weshalb jede Sicherheitsebene durch eine andere verstärkt werden sollte. Dies ist besonders wichtig bei der kontobasierten Sicherheit, wo Benutzernamen und Passwörter lange Zeit der Goldstandard waren. Solche Anmeldedaten können jedoch auch gefälscht werden, weshalb es für Beschaffungs- und Finanzteams wichtig ist, Multifaktor-Authentifizierung (MFA) zu verwenden, um Benutzeridentitäten zu überprüfen und zu schützen.

#5. Verschlüsseln Sie alle Daten bei der Speicherung und Übertragung

Im Zeitalter des hybriden Arbeitens und des Cloud-Computings sind physische Sicherheitsmaßnahmen weitgehend irrelevant geworden. Da Unternehmen heute routinemäßig sensible Informationen online speichern und versenden, war es noch nie so wichtig wie heute, Ihre interne und externe Kommunikation zu schützen. Die Verschlüsselung ist eine offensichtliche und hochwirksame Lösung, aber sie sollte nie als selbstverständlich angesehen werden. Selbst wenn sie vorhanden ist, ist sie möglicherweise nicht standardmäßig aktiviert. Idealerweise sollten Unternehmen auch die volle Kontrolle über ihre Verschlüsselungsschlüssel haben und diese auch besitzen.

Abschließende Worte

Cybersicherheit ist kein Ziel, und es gibt kein Unternehmen, das gegen Angriffe immun ist. Darüber hinaus ist der B2B-Sektor aufgrund seiner relativ großen Finanz-, Technologie- und Beschaffungskapazitäten ein beliebtes Ziel für Angreifer. Aus diesem Grund sollte Cybersicherheit nie ein nachträglicher Gedanke sein, sondern ein integraler Bestandteil jedes Geschäftsprozesses und jeder IT-Lösung.

Mazepay ist eine All-in-One-Plattform für Beschaffungs- und Rechnungsmanagement, die das Management der langen Lieferkette erheblich vereinfacht. Nehmen Sie noch heute Kontakt auf und erfahren Sie mehr.

Secure your supply chain by following these 5 essential tips

Advanced attackers rarely target their victims directly, instead reaching them via vulnerabilities in their supply chains. Here’s how to stop them.

Today’s procurement processes often incorporate multiple technologies to streamline mission-critical operations and automate routine tasks. Each of these technologies and processes also adds to your attack surface, giving attackers more potential entry points to your environment. Furthermore, since we’re talking about procurement, many of these entry points exist outside your direct control.

Cybersecurity must be central to any business process, including subscription management, invoice management, and procurement. The threats are real, and they are abundant, existing in the form of malicious software (malware) and social engineering attacks like email phishing. Many attacks against procurement and supply chains incorporate multiple methods.

How can you improve cybersecurity at your company?

Here are five essential tips to protect your business:

#1. Invest in security awareness training

Perhaps one of the most common misconceptions about cybersecurity is that it’s seen as the responsibility of the IT department. In reality, however, everyone in the business is a potential target, so it is everyone’s responsibility to do their part to protect it. Furthermore, given the rise of social engineering attacks, it should be clear that people are the first and last line of defence. Ongoing security awareness training helps create a culture of accountability, and it also helps your employees protect themselves from cyberattacks both at home and at work.

#2. Take a proactive approach to security

The best way for business leaders to approach cybersecurity is from a standpoint that it’s not a matter of if they’re attacked but when. This line of thinking is vital for changing the business’s security posture from a reactive one to a proactive one, in which they actively hunt threats and stop them in their tracks. Modern technologies, such as AI-powered threat analysis solutions, can also help advance proactive security.

#3. Use virtual cards for online payments

A virtual payment card works in exactly the same way as a physical one, the main difference being that there’s no physical component that can get lost or mislaid. However, virtual cards also provide a lesser-known – but very significant – security and compliance advantage. Since virtual card numbers are unique to each transaction, there’s a greatly reduced risk of identity theft and fraud.

#4. Build multiple layers of cyber defence

No single defensive measure is ever going to be immune to cyberattacks, which is why every layer of security should be bolstered by another. This is especially important in account-based security, where usernames and passwords have long been the gold standard. However, such credentials can also be phished, hence why it’s important for procurement and finance teams to use multifactor authentication (MFA) to verify and protect user identities.

#5. Encrypt all data in storage and in transit

In the era of hybrid work and cloud computing, physical security measures have largely been rendered irrelevant. With businesses now routinely storing and sending sensitive information online, it has never been more important to protect your internal and external communications. Encryption is an obvious and highly effective solution, but it should never be taken for granted. Even if it’s provided, it might not be enabled by default. Ideally, businesses should have total control and ownership of their encryption keys as well.

Final words

Cybersecurity is not a destination, and there’s no such thing as a business that’s immune from attacks. Furthermore, the B2B sector is a favourite target for attackers owing to their relatively large financial, technology, and procurement footprints. This is why cybersecurity should never be considered an afterthought, but instead an integral part of every business process and IT solution.

Mazepay is an all-in-one procurement and invoice management platform that greatly simplifies long-tail supply chain management. Get in touch today to find out more.

Ein effizientes Rechnungsmanagement hat in jedem Unternehmen einen hohen Stellenwert. Und doch haben bis heute 86 % der kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) und 22% der großen Unternehmen immer noch einen manuellen Rechnungsmanagementprozess. In diesem Blogbeitrag erfahren Sie, wie der Übergang vom manuellen zum autonomen Rechnungsmanagement funktioniert und welche Vorteile Ihnen dieser Übergang bietet.

Doch bevor wir beginnen, ist es wichtig, Rechnungsmanagement zunächst zu definieren.

Um es kurz und einfach zu machen: Rechnungsmanagement ist der Prozess, mit dem Unternehmen Rechnungen erhalten, erfassen, bearbeiten und ablegen.

Ist die manuelle Rechnungsverwaltung die Wurzel allen Übels?

Das Standardverfahren für die manuelle Rechnungsverwaltung besteht aus den folgenden Schritten:

1. Der Lieferant schickt die Rechnung

2. Die Buchhaltung oder das Beschaffungswesen prüft, ob die Rechnung rechtmäßig ist.

3. Die Rechnung durchläuft den Genehmigungsprozess

4. Die Finanzabteilung Onboarded den Lieferanten

5. Zahlung an den Lieferanten

6. Die Zahlung wird im Hauptbuch verbucht

Die manuelle Rechnungsverarbeitung hängt von vielen Beteiligten in Ihrem Unternehmen ab und ist eng mit Ihrem Cashflow verbunden. Verschiedene Abteilungen sind an dem Prozess beteiligt, bei dem dieselben Daten mehrmals bearbeitet werden. Insgesamt erfordert dieser Prozess viel Zeit, Ressourcen und Geld. Außerdem erhöht sich durch die Beteiligung verschiedener Personen das Risiko menschlicher Fehler während des Prozesses.

In vielen Unternehmen ist die Rechnungsverwaltung bereits zu einer großen Herausforderung geworden. Fast jeden Tag kommt ein Stapel neuer Rechnungen hinzu, die in vielen Fällen manuell bearbeitet werden müssen. Die Dringlichkeit einer alternativen Lösung zur manuellen Rechnungsverwaltung wird besonders in den Finanzabteilungen deutlich, wo 82 % angeben, dass sie mit der Menge an Arbeit, die mit der manuellen Rechnungsverarbeitung verbunden ist, überfordert und überlastet sind.

The 5 biggest challenges of manual invoice management for enterprises are:

• Manuelle Dateneingabe und ineffiziente Prozesse

• Abgleich von Rechnungen und Zahlungen

• Verlorene oder fehlende Rechnungen

• Doppelte Rechnungen oder Zahlungen

• Inkonsistenter AP-Prozess im gesamten Unternehmen

Aufgrund der manuellen Bearbeitung können die Daten falsch sein oder gegen die Vorschriften verstoßen. Außerdem werden die Mitarbeiter mit anderen Aufgaben beschäftigt, die nicht unbedingt zu ihren Aufgaben gehören. Die manuelle Rechnungsbearbeitung mindert somit deren Effizienz und die Arbeitszufriedenheit der Mitarbeiter.

Die manuelle Rechnungsverwaltung ist oft mit zusätzlichen Kosten für Papiermaterial, Dokumentenablage und Überwachung der Arbeitsabläufe verbunden. Insgesamt kostet Sie die manuelle Rechnungsverwaltung Zeit und Ressourcen. Intern kann die manuelle Rechnungsverwaltung zu Problemen beim Cashflow führen, Ihre internen Prozesse verlangsamen und Ihr Unternehmen und seine Mitarbeiter an einem effektiven Wachstum hindern. Darüber hinaus kann es sich negativ auf Ihre Lieferantenbeziehungen und die gesamte Lieferkette auswirken.

Machen wir uns nichts vor. Unternehmen haben sich nach einer neuen Lösung für die Rechnungsverwaltung gesehnt, bei der Verwaltungsaufgaben ihr Wachstum nicht aufhalten.

Wie autonomes Rechnungsmanagement funktioniert

Um menschliche Fehler zu vermeiden, müssen wir Automatisierung und maschinelles Lernen einführen.

Durch die Automatisierung Ihrer Rechnungsverwaltung können Sie viele Engpässe aus manuellen Prozessen beseitigen und Ihr Endergebnis verbessern. Die Grundlage für eine automatisierte Rechnungsverwaltung sind die Technologien der künstlichen Intelligenz (KI) und des maschinellen Lernens (ML).

Lassen Sie uns durchgehen, welche Schritte der Rechnungsverarbeitung automatisiert werden können und wie:

1. Vorab-Genehmigung: Mit automatisierten Genehmigungsabläufen wird jede Rechnung bereits vor dem Kauf genehmigt. Die Abläufe sind anpassbar, so dass nur diejenigen involviert werden, die es auch müssen.

2. Automatischer Rechnungsupload: Es kann ein Postfach für Rechnungen eingerichtet werden. Alle Rechnungen, die hier eingehen, werden automatisch in das System importiert.

3. Scannen von Rechnungen und Hochladen von Daten: Alle Daten werden mit OCR gescannt und in das System hochgeladen. Fehler werden automatisch markiert.

4. Onboarding der Lieferanten: Ein entscheidender Punkt ist das Hochladen der Lieferanten in das ERP-System, auch wenn es sich um einen so genannten Einmal-Lieferanten handelt. Das automatisierte System umfasst mehrere Funktionen wie Sanktionsprüfung, Validierung der Lieferantendaten, Lieferantenregistrierung und kontinuierliche Aktualisierung der Daten.

5. Auditing und Compliance-Prüfungen: KI und ML helfen Ihnen, Probleme zu finden, und die Unternehmensrichtlinien regeln alles.

6. Bezahlen des Lieferanten: Ein kritischer Schritt in diesem Prozess ist die Bezahlung des Lieferanten. Wir alle kennen den Kampf nach dem Erhalt des grünen Lichts für eine Zahlung. Unser Lieferant wartet darauf, dass sein Geld eintrifft, aber die Finanzabteilung muss die Mittel noch zuweisen; die Beschaffung steht zwischen den beiden Parteien. Digitale Zahlungen können diese Probleme lösen. Virtuelle Karten sorgen für Transparenz, und wir sind in der Lage, die Rechnung sofort nach der Freigabe zu bezahlen oder die Zahlung zu planen, wenn sie fällig ist.

7. Hochladen in das Buchhaltungssystem: Das manuelle Extrahieren von Daten aus Tausenden von Rechnungen ist ein Aufwand, den kein Unternehmen auf sich nehmen sollte. Stattdessen sollten alle Daten, die für die Buchung von Transaktionen benötigt werden, automatisch erfasst und problemlos in Ihre Buchhaltungssysteme integriert werden.

Die Vorteile der autonomen Rechnungsverwaltung

Die autonome Rechnungsverwaltung hat mehrere Vorteile für Unternehmen und ihre Mitarbeiter. Das Balkendiagramm zeigt einige Vorteile der autonomen Rechnungsverwaltung.

1. Reduzierte Kosten pro Rechnung

Geld ist einer der entscheidenden Faktoren im Entscheidungsprozess in großen Unternehmen. Die Rechnungsverwaltung ist mit relativ hohen Kosten verbunden. Oft gibt es "versteckte" Kosten, zum Beispiel für die Klassifizierung. Im schlimmsten Fall, wenn die Rechnung verloren geht oder falsch zugeordnet wird, kann die Bearbeitung dieses Fehlers 200 Dollar pro Rechnung kosten. Das macht es schwer, wettbewerbsfähig zu sein. Es ist bereits erwiesen, dass Unternehmen mit einem autonomen Rechnungsmanagement die Kosten um das bis zu 20-fache senken.

2. Reduzierte Bearbeitungszeit

Der Markt entwickelt sich rasend schnell, und die Konkurrenz schläft nicht. Daher ist die Zeit, insbesondere die effektive Nutzung der verfügbaren Zeit, heute wichtiger denn je. Die Rechnungsverwaltung wird effizienter und profitabler, wenn der Aufwand für Papierrechnungen entfällt und flüssige und zuverlässige Genehmigungsprozesse im gesamten Unternehmen eingeführt werden. Infolgedessen können die Mitarbeiter ihre Zeit anderen wertvollen Aufgaben widmen.

3. Schluss mit menschlichen Fehlern und mehr genaue Daten

Integrating AI and ML offers several beneficial opportunities for your invoice management, e.g., regular sanction screening, continuous updating of supplier data, real-time monitoring, easy sharing of data and autonomous validation of the data according to compliance. You can minimize or eliminate human error and avoid duplicate or incorrect payments by using approved virtual cards.

4. Mehr Transparenz

Alle Rechnungen werden über das gleiche automatisierte System verarbeitet und auf den zentralen Cloud-Servern des Unternehmens gespeichert. Dadurch wird der gesamte Prozess viel transparenter, und einzelne Aspekte können detaillierter und gezielter verfolgt werden. Auf diese Weise können Rechnungen nicht einfach spurlos verschwinden oder menschliche Fehler übersehen werden. Außerdem wird Betrug mit Hilfe von Scheinrechnungen verhindert. Insgesamt wird so die Rentabilität Ihres Unternehmens wieder erhöht.

5. Verbesserte Lieferantenbeziehungen

Der Onboarding-Prozess für Lieferanten wird für alle Beteiligten vereinfacht und beschleunigt. Mit Hilfe des autonomen Lösungskonzepts können Sie Ihre Lieferanten genau und pünktlich bezahlen und so eine langfristige, zuverlässige Beziehung aufbauen. Sie erhalten Lieferantenrabatte bei frühzeitigen Zahlungen. Dies steigert die Rentabilität Ihres Unternehmens.

6. Möglichkeiten für die Individualisierung

Autonomes Rechnungsmanagement lässt sich flexibel an die Bedürfnisse Ihres Unternehmens anpassen. So können zum Beispiel die Genehmigungsprozesse speziell auf die Größe Ihres Unternehmens, individuelle interne Regeln und Strukturen abgestimmt und jederzeit geändert werden. Und obwohl das Lösungskonzept des autonomen Rechnungsmanagements auf ausgefeilten Technologien basiert, ist es für Ihr Unternehmen einfach zu nutzen und umzusetzen.

Ein ganzheitliches Lösungskonzept jenseits der autonomen Rechnungsverwaltung

Mazepay ermöglicht ein globales B2B-Ökosystem, das Käufer und Lieferanten unterstützt. Ein Ökosystem, das die unnötige Komplexität in der heutigen Beschaffung beseitigt und stattdessen den Handel auf der Grundlage von Vertrauen, Compliance und pünktlichen Zahlungen erleichtert.

Wir bieten eine Plattform für Unternehmen, die ihre Ausgaben durch die Vereinfachung und Automatisierung von Prozessen und Arbeitsabläufen auf allen Ebenen der Organisation kontrollieren können. Mit Hilfe von Mazepay bekommen sie die Long-tail Rechnungen unter Kontrolle und gleichzeitig verschwinden alle Nachteile und zusätzlichen Kosten.

Wenn Sie mehr darüber erfahren möchten, wie Sie Ihre Rechnungen in den Griff bekommen und die Beziehungen zu Ihren Lieferanten verbessern können, kontaktieren Sie uns oder buchen Sie eine Demo.

Efficient invoice management is crucial for the smooth functioning of any enterprise. Despite the availability of sophisticated automation solutions, a surprising number of large enterprises continue to depend on manual processes for managing their invoices. Approximately 80% of companies still use manual invoice management. This blog post guides you through the transition from manual to automated invoice management, detailing the myriad benefits that accompany this switch.

But before we delve into the advantages of automation, let's define what we mean by 'invoice management.'

Simply put, it is the process through which companies receive, record, process, and archive invoices.

Why Manual Invoice Management is a Roadblock for Enterprise Efficiency

Manual invoice management in enterprises is a laborious multi-step journey. It begins when the supplier sends an invoice, then through validation, approval, and supplier onboarding, culminates in payment and ledger recording. The process doesn't only involve one or two departments; it loops in several, each revisiting the same data.

The standard procedure for the manual invoice management process consists of the following steps:

1. The supplier sends the invoice

2. Accounting or procurement validates whether the invoice is legitimate.

3. The invoice goes through the approval flow

4. Finance onboards the supplier

5. Payment of the supplier

6. Payment is recorded in the ledger

This not only saps time but also diverts manpower from other crucial tasks while increasing the risk of error.

The 5 biggest challenges of manual invoice management for enterprises are:

• Manual data entry and inefficient processes

• Invoice to payment matching

• Lost or missing invoice

• Duplicate invoices or payments

• Inconsistent AP process throughout the company

Manual invoice management can result in inaccuracies and compliance violations, preventing employees from focusing on their core responsibilities and reducing efficiency and job satisfaction. Moreover, additional costs can be incurred owing to paper, document storage and monitoring. This not only affects the organisations' cash flow, internal process and effective growth, but it also could have negative effects on supplier relationships with suppliers and disrupt the entire supply chain.

Let's face it. Enterprises have been craving a new solution for invoice management, where administrative tasks do not halt their growth.

How automated invoice management works

To overcome human error, we need to introduce automation and machine learning.

With automating your invoice management you can eliminate many bottlenecks from manual processes and improve your bottom line. The basis for automated invoice management are the technologies of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

Let's go through which steps can be automated from the invoice processing and how:

1. Pre-approval

2. Automated invoice upload

3. Invoice scanning and data upload

4. Supplier onboarding

5. Auditing and compliance checks

6. Paying the supplier

7. Uploading to accounting systems

1. Pre-approval: With automated approval flows, each invoice is already approved before the purchase. The flows are customisable, so only those are getting involved who need to be.

2. Automated invoice upload: A unique mailbox can be created for invoices. All invoices from here will be automatically imported into the system.

3. Invoice scanning and data upload: Data can be scanned with OCR technology and uploaded to the system, without the need to introduce it manually. Errors can be flagged automatically.

4. Supplier onboarding: A crucial point is uploading the suppliers to the ERP system, even when it is a so-called one-time supplier. The automated system includes several functions like sanction screening, supplier data validation, supplier registration and updating the data continuously.

5. Auditing and compliance checks: The automated system includes several features like sanction screening, supplier data validation and supplier registration. With the help of AI, we detect discrepancies and make sure that company policies are compliant.

6. Paying the supplier: Digital payments and the use of automation make it easier and more compliant to process invoices immediately or schedule them for the due date after receipt.

7. Uploading to the accounting system: Instead of extracting data manually, the information of thousands of invoices is automatically collected and integrated with your accounting systems.

The advantages of automated invoice management

Automated invoice management has several advantages for enterprises and their employees. The bar chart reflects some of these benefits.

1. Reduced cost per invoice

2. Reduced processing time

3. No human error and accurate data

4. Increased transparency

5. Improved supplier relationships

6. Opportunity for customization

7. Easy access to invoices

1. Reduced cost per invoice

Invoice management is associated with relatively high costs. There are often "hidden" costs, for example, for classification. In the worst case, if the invoice is lost or incorrectly assigned, processing this error can result in $200 per invoice. This makes it hard to be competitive. It is already proven that companies with automated invoice management reduce costs by up to 20 times.

2. Reduced processing time

The market is developing incredibly fast, and the competition never sleeps. Therefore, time, especially the effective use of available time, is more critical today than ever. Invoice management becomes more efficient and profitable by eliminating the hassle of paper invoices and establishing fluid and reliable approval processes across the enterprise. As a result, employees can devote their time to other valuable tasks.

3. No human error and accurate data

Integrating AI and ML offers several beneficial opportunities for your invoice management, e.g., regular sanction screening, continuous updating of supplier data, real-time monitoring, easy and automated data sharing and validation according to compliance rules. You can mitigate human error, duplicate or lost invoices, and incorrect payments with automated processes.

4. Increased transparency

A complete audit trail ensures that each invoice can be traced back until the request. This ensures accountability and compliance.

5. Improved supplier relationships

Automation makes payments to suppliers timely and accurate which at the same time improves and fosters long-lasting supplier relationships, creating trust and reliability.

6. Opportunity for customisation

Automated invoice management solutions can be adapted to meet your company's specific needs. For instance, approval processes can be tailored to your organisation's structure and business rules. For large companies, embracing new solutions can be challenging, but with a well-thought-out solution that prioritises ease of use and customisation, any company can easily reap the benefits.

7. Easy access to invoices

Since automation manages invoices digitally, they are all uploaded to the cloud which can be accessed easily by the authorised and from anywhere. This can be convenient if your business has global entities, and need access to invoices in real-time when needed.

A holistic solution beyond automated invoice management

Mazepay enables a global B2B ecosystem that supports buyers and suppliers. An ecosystem that removes all the unnecessary complexity in today's long-tail procurement and instead facilitates trade based on trust, compliance, and on-time payments.

We provide a platform for enterprises to control their spend by simplifying and automating processes and workflows for every layer of the organisation. With the help of Mazepay, invoices can live long, but without all the drawbacks and extra costs.

If you want to know more about how to get in control of your invoices and improve supplier relations, contact us or book a demo.