Businesses are constantly seeking innovative solutions to enhance liquidity management. The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) has brought about a paradigm shift in how organizations approach financial strategies. This blog explores the integration of AI and ML in liquidity management, with a spotlight on Exela's cutting-edge digital payments solution.

Understanding Liquidity Management

Liquidity management involves maintaining a balance between a company's assets and liabilities to ensure smooth day-to-day operations. Efficient liquidity management is crucial for businesses to meet short-term financial obligations, capitalize on opportunities, and mitigate risks.

Liquidity management, in simple terms, refers to the process of monitoring, controlling, and optimizing the availability of cash and other easily convertible assets within a business or organization. The goal is to ensure that there is enough liquid capital to meet short-term financial obligations, handle day-to-day operational expenses, and take advantage of opportunities while minimizing the risk of insolvency. Effective liquidity management is crucial for maintaining financial stability and supporting the smooth functioning of a business.

The Role of AI and ML in Liquidity Management

AI and ML technologies have emerged as game-changers in the financial industry. By analyzing vast datasets and identifying patterns, these technologies offer invaluable insights to optimize liquidity management strategies. Here are some key ways AI and ML contribute to effective liquidity management:

Predictive Analytics: AI algorithms can analyze historical data to predict future cash flow trends accurately. This enables businesses to anticipate liquidity needs and proactively plan for contingencies.

Risk Management: ML models can assess various risk factors and predict potential liquidity challenges. By identifying and mitigating risks in real-time, organizations can safeguard their financial stability.

Automation of Routine Tasks: AI-powered automation streamlines routine liquidity management tasks, reducing the margin for error and freeing up resources for more strategic initiatives.

Scenario Analysis: ML algorithms can simulate different financial scenarios, allowing businesses to assess the impact of various economic conditions on liquidity. This foresight enables proactive decision-making.

Exela's XBP Digital Payments Solution:

Seize control of your liquidity management with Exela's XBP digital payments solution. The platform establishes a unified hub where billers and payers seamlessly communicate and transact, facilitating real-time transactions with efficiency and precision. By leveraging direct messaging for billing and payment processes, the XBP solution not only expedites payments but also proactively addresses potential delinquencies, ensuring a seamless payment experience.

Furthermore, the system generates a transparent and auditable trail throughout the payment cycle, enhancing accountability and reducing the likelihood of errors. The innovative platform leverages AI and ML to revolutionize how businesses handle digital payments and optimize cash flow.

Key Features of XBP Digital Payments Solution

Real-Time Transaction Monitoring: XBP provides real-time monitoring of financial transactions, allowing businesses to have a clear and up-to-date view of their liquidity position.

Predictive Cash Flow Analysis: The solution incorporates advanced predictive analytics to forecast future cash flows, helping organizations plan ahead and make informed financial decisions.

Automated Payment Processing: With AI-driven automation, XBP simplifies and accelerates the payment processing cycle, reducing manual errors and improving overall efficiency.

Intelligent Risk Management: XBP's ML algorithms continuously assess risk factors, providing insights that enable organizations to proactively address potential liquidity challenges.

The Future of  AI and ML in Liquidity Management

Integrating AI and ML into liquidity management strategies is no longer a luxury but a necessity for businesses looking to thrive in today's competitive financial landscape. Exela's XBP Digital Payments Solution stands out as a frontrunner in this space, offering a comprehensive and advanced platform to optimize liquidity management. By harnessing the power of AI and ML, businesses can not only survive but thrive, ensuring a resilient and forward-thinking approach to financial management. 

In an era of unprecedented data availability, the call for treasury and finance departments to adopt AI and ML has never been more urgent. Transitioning away from manual processes not only simplifies the tasks of treasury professionals but also enhances accuracy, thereby benefiting the entire organization. 

Want to learn more about how you can improve your liquidity? Get in touch with us.

There are many complexities with the financial operations in businesses. With so many uncertainties in the market right now, business leaders are taking a closer look at their treasury operations to find better ways to optimize costs and increase savings.

The global economic crisis is expected to increase the demand for finance and accounting outsourcing. According to BusinessWire, the global finance and accounting outsourcing market is expected to reach $53.4 billion by the year 2026. Compared to the $37.9 billion for 2020, that is a CAGR of 5.9%.

Because the treasury function includes so many different processes, it's not uncommon for a business to have several different systems and services in place. However, there may be a way to better optimize financial operations, using one service for multiple processes rather than using many services for each process. By scaling services down into a simple unified structure, companies stand to gain more savings, increase efficiency and have optimized treasury operations.

The Importance of Liquidity and Cash Flow

During this economic uncertainty, businesses are taking a hard look at their finances, particularly liquidity and cash flow. These are two important factors that can help a company ride the waves during tumultuous economic times. 

Liquidity is the amount of cash a company readily has available, whether it's through an easy-to-sell investment or cash itself. The more liquidity a company has, the easier it is for the company to meet financial obligations. With high liquidity, companies are more protected from negative turns in the marketplace.

Cash flow, on the other hand, refers to the amount of money coming into a business. Cash needs to move in and out of the company at a healthy rate to continue growing at a steady pace. Cash flow will continually wax and wane and while liquidity can provide a cushion if a company experiences negative cash flow for a time, it's important to ensure that cash flow goes back to a healthy position.

The Many Systems Within the Operations

The treasury function is a major area to assess when considering liquidity and cash flow. As mentioned before, many companies have multiple systems and outsourced services in place for many treasury operations.  Here are a few examples of different services or systems companies may be using.

Bill Presentment

Whether using traditional or electronic presentment, it's common for a company to use a platform, service, or both. Companies may choose to outsource bill presentment or use an in-house team. Either way, bill presentment is an imperative part of the treasury function as it ensures the bill gets to the correct recipient with the correct information for a timely payment.

Payment Processing

Processing the payment often includes another system in place that can process checks, credit cards, ACH, and more. With the many different ways customers want to pay, companies need to ensure that they have the right system in place that accepts various types of payments. 

Communication

When the payer receives the bill, they may have questions regarding it. Billers will frequently use a completely different system or service for each type and method of bill presentment. This can create confusion as the payer usually needs to have the invoice number on hand or other information to identify themselves and the bill they're referring to. In certain urgent billing scenarios (e.g., shutoff notices in utility bills or loss of coverage notices for insurance), it is very useful to communicate with payers in real time, through a secure, verified delivery system to exchange specific and contextual information while discussing an invoice or an overdue payment.

Remittance/Lockbox Processing

At the end of the process, the money from the payer needs to be deposited into the biller’s bank account, which is typically a whole other service or system in place.

So as you can see, from bill presentment all the way to remittance, companies could be using four different services and systems. The more services and systems are in place, the more work there is for the treasury employees to navigate the systems, resulting in more confusion and higher spend.

Treasury as a Service Meets Financial Operation Needs

Exela’s Treasury-as-a-Service (TaaS) solution provides solutions for the entire spectrum of the processes listed above. This means companies can use a single provider to streamline their financial operations. Exela's end-to-end service integrates outbound bill presentment and payment processing while enabling a mobile solution, using our eXchange for Bills and Payments (XBP) platform. Exela takes the financial operations and streamlines them for a quicker, more optimized, and more accurate process. 

For traditional presentment, Exela employs nearly 1,000 print and mail professionals across a network of print and mail processing facilities strategically located throughout the United States to manage print production and distribution of your invoice and bills. 

For e-presentment, our advanced technology enables electronic delivery of payment data for a paperless trail, along with same-day deposits. Our XBP platform is a user-friendly and intuitive interface that serves as a way for billers and payers to communicate and transact in a seamless manner. 

As a leader in billing and payments services, we operate 14 payment processing centers located across North America, processing over seven million payments and depositing over one trillion dollars annually.  

It’s Time to Optimize Financial Operations

With so many Business Leaders looking for ways to reduce costs and optimize treasury functions, it's time to provide them with what they need. Our TaaS solution is a one-stop shop for your financial operations. Experience quicker payments and deposits, more accuracy, and an enhanced process that can improve cash flow. 

Learn more about our TaaS solution today.

E-billing and payment solutions enable the viewing and payment of bills digitally from anywhere. E-billing has helped businesses offer smarter and more accessible solutions to their customers while saving on costs and time.

E-billing and payment solutions also simplify and streamline the end-user experience. The viewing, paying, and querying bills - all in one go -   helps customers keep track of bills while allowing billers to simplify the bill payment process.

Traditional E-billing Platforms

Legacy e-bill, or electronic bill, platforms present bills as an electronic document in the form of a PDF file, on a website, or through a supplier portal.  E-billing gives customers quick, easy visibility into invoiced services and the opportunity to review bills before making any payments.  

Traditional E-billing offers benefits to both billers and customers. Some of the benefits include:

• - Saving on printing and paper costs
• - Controlling paper waste - environmentally friendly
• - Better and improved security than paper mail
• - Options for automatic payments and recurring billing 

While electronic billing is a necessary building block, traditional E-billing methods have some known challenges. Key issues such as time-consuming interactions (think about an agent on the phone with a consumer, or a customer trying to prevent a utility shutoff), network adoption and total cost of ownership (TCO) reduction persist.  

Next-Gen E-billing with Exela’s Exchange for Bills and Payments (XBP)

When it comes to billing and payments, managing customer expectations while keeping costs under control is a big win for any business. Exela’s XBP helps you cut costs and minimize the complexities of managing multiple systems. Exela’s XBP implements a standards-based, API-enabled billing and payments platform which augments traditional E-billing platforms. Billers can send bills to businesses and consumers electronically, offering transparency and simpler reconciliations. Payers can receive all their bills in one place with analytics, alerts, and more payment options.

Real-Time Behavior

XBP delivers an advanced, messaging standard-based platform to real-time billing, allowing customers to immediately receive bills, updates, and messages, enabling better communications and the direct reduction of DSO. It comes pre-integrated with tokenized payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, which can be rapidly implemented, or legacy methods including ACH, credit/debit cards, and more.

Interactivity, Messaging or Chat Options

Whereas traditional E-billing systems are only unidirectional (i.e., companies can present bills to consumers), Exela’s XBP is a secure messaging service allowing billers, consumers, and businesses to communicate and transact interactively.

Network Effect / Adoption

Traditional E-billing adoption has been a challenge for companies because each company needs to separately onboard customers. With Exela’s XBP, any consumer who is onboarded on our platform can immediately receive bills and pay all other companies registered on the platform (opt-in and opt-out applies and is consumer-specific).

Interactive User Experience

XBP can integrate with legacy E-billing and statement print platforms, offering consumers an additional real-time channel which they can quickly access using QR codes on the e-bill or billing statement. They can then directly ask questions regarding the bill rather than logging onto the website, clicking on a chat button, calling customer service, etc. By providing a seamless bill and payment experience, XBP breaks down the traditional barriers to biller and payer interactions, reducing the overall call volume while providing superior support.

Want to know more about how XBP can help you offer better service to your customers? Get in touch and our experts can answer your questions.

To most people, purchase transactions probably seem pretty straightforward. However, in many cases there is actually a lot more going on behind the scenes - particularly in the case of business-to-business transactions. Generally speaking, the process a business undertakes when making purchases from suppliers is often referred to as “Procure to Pay,” or P2P. The flip side of the coin, the process of receiving payment for goods or services rendered, is called “Order to Cash,” or O2C.

With years of experience and powerful proprietary technology, Exela has been helping businesses streamline both O2C and P2P processes for greater efficiency and cost savings. Leveraging that extensive background in O2C and P2P services, Exela is able to bridge the gap between the two processes and deliver a more efficient, convenient, and transparent process for all parties involved than ever before.

Order to Cash - O2C

Order-to-cash refers to the entirety of your company’s order processing system, starting when an order is placed by a customer or client. Anything prior to this point is considered marketing or sales. That’s not to say that marketing, branding, and sales functions end when the order is placed - trans-promotional communication can be a powerful tool - but it is at this point that O2C functions kick into gear. The process ends when the invoice is paid and settled.

It may seem like this process is short and simple - order placed, payment rendered - but there are actually a number of important additional steps that ensure accuracy, speed up remittance, and improve processes in the long-term. Businesses across all sectors are realizing that it’s more important than ever to maximize returns at every opportunity, including O2C. By collecting and analyzing data captured throughout the order-to-cash cycle, businesses can better identify trends, weaknesses, and opportunities to optimize processes and practices.

Thanks to advanced automation technology, these O2C processes are more efficient and accurate than ever. A quality O2C process can automate functions like deduplication, reconciliation and validation, and allows for forensic audit investigations, fraud detection, and error correction.

With an integrated O2C software solution like Exela’s O2C, you can significantly improve and streamline all of these functions, allowing you to improve customer satisfaction, minimize errors, and ensure accuracy.

Procure to Pay - P2P

Consumers may not often consider the costs of running a business, but every company, from large multinational conglomerates to tiny mom-and-pop storefronts need to source and pay for goods and services of some kind. The Procure to Pay process is essential to any organization that engages with external vendors or suppliers. The process begins whenever internal teams within an organization requisition a product or service necessary for the business, and continues with purchasing, receiving, and paying for the order - hence the name “Procure to Pay.

As with O2C, the P2P process appears simple at first, but actually contains many opportunities for optimization that can yield significant returns in time and cash savings. At a time when global supply chains are being tested as never before, leveraging effective P2P analytics tools to improve supply chain management is critical to business success.

Getting P2P right is among the most important factors to a company’s bottom line. Pay too much for necessary supplies, and you cut into your profits or other budgetary line items. Go with an unreliable supplier with no quick backup plan in place, and you could be faced with a serious and costly bottleneck slowing down production.

By creating a single, integrated environment where buyers and suppliers can easily communicate and collaborate, Exela’s P2P platform enables businesses to maintain greater visibility into the AP process, reduce administrative costs, improve cash flows, take advantage of dynamic discounting opportunities, and build stronger partner relationships.

XBP - Bridging the Transaction Gap

Between O2C and P2P comes the transaction itself, which requires communication between the buyer and supplier systems. This gap between systems can lead to costly miscommunications and potential security threats that require time to resolve, often slowing down processes for both parties.

Exela’s unique Exchange for Bills and Payment (XBP) platform creates a convenient ecosystem that reduces friction as billers and payers connect, communicate, and transact, all in one place.  This next-generation digital payments platform enables organizations to send bills and receive payments via direct messaging, accelerating payments and preempting delinquencies. Simply put, XBP makes the billing component of P2P and O2C electronic, with richer and more actionable data.

XBP introduces some flexibility into the payment transaction, too, allowing for direct communication and direct communication between payers and billers right in the app. For payers, this makes it easier to secure ad hoc financing and handle short-term trading. For billers, it means better liquidity and cash management options and easier collections techniques.

Users can track and pay all their bills via XBP’s centralized experience, creating an easily auditable trail for the entire payment cycle. With XBP, payers and payees can avoid the need for data matching, reconciliation, and exception processing. XBP provides secure return information about the transaction that is completely auditable.

Exela’s robust digital solution set covers the entire step of the process for end-to-end optimization that benefits all parties involved. With our extensive experience and deep industry knowledge, we’re building digital roads to enable a more connected world. Learn more about how Exela can improve your critical financial processes through our Liquidity Solutions and Payment Technologies and Services.