Category Archives: ERP

Payment Services for Microsoft Dynamics

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Accept debit and credit cards directly from Microsoft Dynamics AX, now Dynamics 365, and other payment types. An alternative to Microsoft Payment Services, which is end of life December 31, 2017, offers many new features and benefits, including more payment types.

Your customers don’t pay just with credit and debit cards, so why limit their options? The new alternative payment services for Microsoft Dynamics® ERP supports debit and credit cards, ACH and check, cash, wire, and Paypal, depending on the sales channel. With native integration into Dynamics AX 2012 R3, increase efficiencies without ever leaving your AX screen, while also minimizing PCI scope and burden.

FEATURES:

  • Process authorizations, payments and credits in Accounts Receivable:
    • Sales Pickup – Will call, partial order as well as full delivery
    • Journal Entry for Project
    • Free Text Invoices
    • Return Orders
    • Credits, partial credits
    • Sales Orders – Cash and carry
  • Authorize, capture, refund, reverse and more options for credit card payments with Visa, American Express, MasterCard, Discover, etc.
  • Universally compatible with your financial partners including First Data, Chase Paymentech, Moneris, Tsys, Global, and many others in USA and globally.
  • Point to Point Encryption (P2PE) all sales channels, including Virtual Encrypted Keypad for staff key-entered transactions.
  • Tokenization for ACH and credit card recurring transactions, including installment, variable installment, unscheduled stored on file and fixed recurring.
  • EMV chip and pin (yes, both!); certifications may vary by acquirer.
  • 3-D Secure Verified by Visa, MasterCard Secure Code and American Express Safekey; certifications may vary by acquirer.

BENEFITS:

  • Increase approvals and profits with 3-D Secure for card absent customer payments.
  • Increase approvals and profits with EMV for retail customer payments.
  • Increase cash flow and improve customer experience with Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment, including customer portal to view and pay invoices.
  • Tighter financial controls with all payment types and all sales channels supported in one integration, even third party shopping carts.
  • Reduced PCI Compliance burden with payments segregated from applications; Links for you to validate Level 1 PCI Compliance, QIR, Visa Global Registry etc.
  • Compliance automation, including with the plethora of new card acceptance rules related to authorization validity and stored card authorization acceptance.


Christine Speedy, CenPOS global sales and integrated solutions, 954-942-0483. CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement.
CenPOS automates complex payment processing, creating efficiencies through innovation.

Dynamics AX Online Payment Services Expiring – Replacement

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Dynamics users will need to make a major update soon. Effective January 1, 2018, Payments Services for Microsoft Dynamics ERP Payment Services, including any versions of Microsoft Dynamics AX, will be discontinued and users will be unable to process credit or debit transactions after December 31, 2017. CenPOS, an enterprise payment engine, offers an integrated alternative that works seamlessly with both AX and third party applications like Magento ecommerce.

Vendor selection for replacing Payments Services will directly impact profits, efficiency and customer experience. For example, how customers receive, retrieve, and pay invoices are all part of the payment processing ecosystem. Businesses will need an Integrated Service Vendor (ISV) with a PCI Compliant integrated payment gateway. Solution functions, and how they interact with Dynamics AX, varies widely by integration.

Payment processing is a specialized niche that ERP, ecommerce, and business consultants rarely have the in-depth knowledge to advise businesses of best options. In fact, significant new changes have been announced; for example, new requirements for recurring billing to include a unique reference to the initial authorization.

“The Payment processing knowledge gap has been exacerbated by an onslaught of new financial, card brand, and compliance rule changes that show no sign of letting up.” Christine Speedy, CenPOS

CenPOS, an enterprise payment gateway and merchant centric cloud processing platform, is an industry leader in payment processing globally. One of the first to market with both US EMV chip and pin, the CenPOS omnichannel solution maximizes cash flow and profits across all sales channels while improving the customer experience.

CenPOS Dynamics AX Fast Facts:

  • Accounts Receivable Flexibility: Process authorizations, payments and credits:
    • Sales Pickup – Will call, partial order as well as full delivery
    • Journal Entry for Project
    • Free Text Invoices
    • Return Orders
    • Credits, partial credits
    • Sales Orders – Cash and carry
  • Reconciliation Efficiency: automatic daily settlement, single deposit (dependent upon processor setup)
  • Payment types: Accept Check, ACH, credit card, wire, cash, Paypal (Varies by sales channel)
  • Sales Channels; Retail (US & Canada EMV), Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment (includes hosted customer invoice portal and automated collections), Ecommerce, Online Payments, other
  • Compatibility: Agnostic- works with most processors, including First Data, Chase Paymentech, Moneris, WorldPay and others.
  • B2B: Certified for level III processing all channels, including retail, a critical element in managing interchange rate qualification, the biggest cost of credit card processing.
  • Availability: Global

See CenPOS Dynamics AX integration in action here: video overview

CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. CenPOS’ secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting the merchant’s banking relationships.

CenPOS SALES CONTACT: Christine Speedy, cspeedy AT cenposreseller.com 954-942-0483. Dynamics consultants encouraged to contact us to learn more.

Link: Microsoft Official Notice

Dynamics AX ERP Customer Payment File Import

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To apply payments received from customers to matching invoices is easy with our Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 payment processing module, no customization required. Automating payment processing, including journal entries, is essential to maximizing efficiency and accuracy. Other solutions usually only address part of the payment acceptance cycle; now with one module, revenue from all sales channels are processed and matched to your invoices.

PAYMENT TYPES: Accept cash, credit card, wire, Paypal, ACH, Remote Deposit Capture.

SALES CHANNELS: Ecommerce, Retail (US and Canada EMV), Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP or EIPP), Lockbox and others.

While using a lockbox service is an option, is it necessary? With integrated EBPP, your clients can view and pay multiple invoices electronically with your preferred payment methods. A key to EBPP adoption is reducing friction, and with the capability for recurring customers to pay via text or email in just 2 clicks is powerful enough to drive high adoption and fast payments almost immediately. If you do receive payments in the mail, Remote Deposit Capture and batch upload capability are available.

Collections are automated on your schedule; many solutions are limited in this respect, increasing DSO due to “first of month” statement delivery or other limitations. For those customers that run into credit issues, users can set up an automated collections schedule- any amount, any dates.

Looking for Dynamics AX solutions to improve your accounts receivable and overall treasury management? Contact us today.

 

 

Increasing B2B Loyalty With Improved Customer Experience

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b2b einvoiceThe last mile in any business to business transaction, collecting payment, can be a point of friction or a seamless part of a great buying experience. Too often, its the former due to a multiple roadblocks including paper invoicing, and accounts receivable staff availability for time zone differences.

Established family businesses often have the same customers for generations and they’re fiercely loyal. Or are they? In a Bain & Company survey of 290 executives in B2B industries throughout 11 countries, 68% of respondents said customers are less loyal than they used to be. Technology can be a game changer for increasing loyalty.

Common business to business billing scenarios for distributors without ecommerce capabilities:

  • Distributor A sends invoices via text or email and lets their customer choose their experience and how they want to pay. Pay from the email/text or login to a portal? Store and tokenize ACH or credit card or manually enter each time? Send check in the mail?
  • Distributor B sends invoices via email and requires customer to login to a portal to make payments.
  • Distributor C has an online pay page customers can use to pay any amount.
  • Distributor D send invoices via email, and customers send checks in the mail.
  • Distributor E sends invoice and credit card authorization form via email, then gets a fax back, key enters into a virtual terminal.

Which billing strategy delivers the optimal customer experience? Customers want to interact with you in multiple ways, so if you’re still doing business the same way you have for decades, customers have likely shifted some of their business, or maybe all of it, to another vendor. Price is not the likely culprit. In a retail study about millennials, just 15% always purchase from the lowest price retailer, while 38% cited convenience as a reason to not purchase. 58% said they’d take advantage of self-checkout on their own mobile device.

What does this mean for B2B distribution companies? Think like your customers. Are you making it easy to do business? Are you increasing their efficiency? What’s the opportunity cost of not updating? I once sought a new distributor for a product an existing supplier discontinued. I found one, but didn’t place the first order. Why not? They required calling in with my credit card information citing it would be more secure. We were in different time zones and the phone was busy, or the person at lunch, and it was just plain inconvenient to keep trying.

A distributor recently advised me they don’t store anything – they require a credit card authorization form for every single purchase. Talk about driving customers away! Even a simple hosted pay page can alleviate the need for paper forms, immensely increase customer convenience, and increase cash flow to boot. While increasing a credit line is a possibility, some customers use them as a tool to self-manage credit, increasing purchasing without having to interact with anyone.

Invoicing and payment technology updates are critical to garnering customer loyalty, regardless of the payment type. The more flexible the solution, the more likely each customer can interact with your business via their preferred method. Today’s technology supports a myriad of payment types, including ACH, credit card, wire and others, and multiple ways to interact for making payments from email to text and beyond. Delighted customers are more loyal and more likely to refer new business.

Christine Speedy is an authorized reseller for CenPOS, a cloud-based, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. The secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting the merchant’s banking relationships. 954-942-0483

ERP and Payments: PCI Compliance Nightmare

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A PCI Compliant ERP solution doesn’t make a merchant PCI Compliant. The features of the payment integration drive customer decisions to use or not use the an ERP payment module. When payment vendor choices are restricted artificially by using technology to control merchant services options, merchants often enter ERP relationships with a level of dissatisfaction right from the start.

Severely restricted payment gateway options, especially for business to business, results in either the merchant using an alternative non-integrated payment solution, thus sacrificing efficiency, or using the integrated solution, and failing to meet PCI 3.0 requirements or other payment needs. How can I make this statement? B2B companies that accept credit cards  typically have a portion of their sales via the telephone. To mitigate risk of fraud, they use paper credit card authorization forms. However, the forms are inherently risky in many ways.

  • Sensitive authentication data, which includes the security code (CVV/CID), can never be stored.
  • Forms offer option to send via email. Unprotected data cannot be sent via messaging technologies such as e-mail, instant messaging, chat, etc. (PCI section 4.2). Even if the form doesn’t offer it, customers sometimes ignore instructions and send via email.

In the absence of a best practice, employees will revert to whatever is necessary to get their job done and reduce the risk of looking bad (fraud losses). If the ERP payment module doesn’t help merchants eliminate credit card authorization forms, the entire operation may be at risk of a potential data breach.

For retail, data breaches have become commonplace. Few ERP Point of Sale (POS) solutions are using Point to Point (P2P) encryption and other best practices to reduce data breach risk. They raced to bring mobile to market, and many now have neither EMV chip terminals nor P2P, both increasing financial risk to merchants.

Why does an ERP restrict options for merchant services? Because it’s part of their revenue stream. When competition is eliminated, there’s almost no chance of having the best solution in the marketplace. The proof is a long string of failures to meet business needs. Failure to offer electronic bill presentment and payment, which would increase cash flow and efficiency. Failure to offer US EMV chip card acceptance solution prior to liability shift. Failure to offer level 3 processing for all sales channels. Failures reduce cash flow, profits, and security as companies attempt to work with the ERP limitations, or find ways to work around them.

The argument that it’s to protect merchants from data breaches is only partially true. For any modern payment gateway integration, the payment activity is usually outside the ERP to reduce PCI scope. That won’t change from one gateway to another, so the risk doesn’t change, provided the third party gateway is level 1 PCI Compliant.

Examples of ERP’s that restrict payment gateway and merchant services choices are Netsuite and Sage. Additionally, consultants are often compensated for payment gateway recommendations. Consulting with an independent payment specialist, like blog author Christine Speedy, can expose pros and cons of different options.

ERP’s holding onto merchant services and gateway revenue streams are short sighted, as these business practices that anger customers. Can you imagine if an ERP wouldn’t communicate with any other software, for example, Magento? ERP’s focused on delivering the best business software for all facets of a business, and enabling the merchant to follow best practices for PCI Compliance must give users the flexibility needed to run their business with their own financial partners.

If an ERP relies so much on their revenue stream from merchant services revenue share that they won’t let you choose your own financial partners, I’d think seriously about whether it’s the best ERP for your business.