At a time where every cent and every daily percentage point matters and cash-flow is king, savvy CFOs are finding new and creative ways to maximize their company’s cash flow. A new partnership serves as the next step in a category seeing increased competition and innovation, corporate cards, business and supplier payments.
This week Plastiq, an ‘intelligent’ payment solutions provider for businesses, and Tipalti, a global payables automation platform, announced a formal partnership and integration to enable clients of the companies to use their corporate credit cards to pay suppliers, even if the suppliers don’t accept credit cards. This new partnership, geared towards the mid-market, will enable clients to increase their payment power and cash flow while also providing added convenience and greater access to card rewards and rebates.
“The Tipalti partnership opens up a unique market for us for high-velocity businesses,” says Eliot Buchanan, CEO, and co-founder of Plastiq. “More businesses will be able to use their corporate cards as a funding source while both recouping their rebates and reducing risks associated with accounts payable processes while still automating workload.”
Using Plastiq, Tipalti customers can free up to 30-45 days of cash flow by paying invoices with their credit cards, allowing them to allocate their cash reserves to the areas where they need it the most. All businesses need to do is sign up for Plastiq and use their existing cards to fund supplier payments. This partnership will also enable Tipalti’s clients to extend payment terms and earn card rewards on any business expense, from inventory and equipment to rent and advertising.
“Providing Tipalti customers with a flexible, cost-effective way to fund their payables transactions with Plastiq frees up funds to reinvest back into the growth of their business,” says Chen Amit, co-founder, and CEO of Tipalti.
Tipalti’s solution incorporates every step in the payables process—including self-service supplier management, tax compliance, fraud and regulatory controls, invoice processing and approvals, global payments execution, and payment reconciliation. Because it’s fully self-contained and backed with integrated artificial intelligence and machine learning, organizations can easily streamline their payables efforts. Its customers typically wipe out 80% of their payables workload, enabling them to focus on mission-critical initiatives while doing more with less. Tipalti helps strengthen compliance and financial controls, realize efficiencies in accounts payable staffing, and accelerate the financial close by 25%.
Since launch Plastiq has built a customer base of over 1.5 million customers, its solution is designed to help clients optimize working capital by enabling them to pay or accept payment for anything with a credit card, even where credit cards are not typically accepted. The company powers more than $2 billion in transactions, and has formed strategic partnerships with Visa, Mastercard, and created unique offers for companies that bank with US Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank, and others.
With this new solution, Plastiq and Tipalti are entering what has recently become a highly competitive category, despite being stagnant for several years and somewhat ignored by fintech innovation. However, in recent years, new companies have come onto the scene with massive raises and valuations. The group includes Plastiq (valued at $570m, raised $144m) Brex (valued at $2.75bn, raised $466m) and Melio (valued at $700m, raised $143m). These companies have stood out as the first of a new set of challenges to American Express, Concur, and others. With high valuations and massive investments, they have ignitined a trend that is certain to continue in 2021 and beyond.
