Many personal finance books such as Robert Kiyosaki’s classic, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, state that cash is king. It’s true — having ample cash reserves is a key part of having strong finances, both personal and business.

Point of sale (POS) systems are an excellent tool for taking and managing payments in your business. Payment features, however, are just the basics of a POS system.

Buy now pay later (BNPL) services have quickly become commonplace for consumers. Company reports for ASX-listed BNPL providers outline that the value of BNPL transactions grew by 55 per cent in 2019-20, and in the last two financial years, BNPL transactions have tripled.

Manually sending invoices or purchase orders between your business, suppliers and customers causes inefficiencies. From data-entry errors to documents simply getting “lost” in someone’s inbox or during postage, relying on manual processes to share business information is cumbersome and costly. Electronic Data Interchanges or EDI solves this problem by automatically transferring information between trading partners.

eInvoicing has transformed how businesses send and receive invoices. It automates the exchange of invoice information directly between a supplier’s and a customer’s accounting software.

For businesses built in the cloud, pivoting, scaling and expanding to new countries can be achieved at a very low cost. These companies also implement some of the latest systems and processes in payments technology — think instant payments, secure payment networks and the ability for customers to choose from a range of options in how and when they pay.

Late payments aren’t new to Australian businesses. For many businesses, having almost $40,000 in outstanding invoices is the reality of operating, but it doesn’t have to be the case.

Business automation has been a growing trend in recent years as companies seek to realise efficiencies and make improvements across a range of systems and processes.

As technology develops, the innovations in B2B payments also continue to evolve. Access to alternative finance channels is giving businesses the cash flow they need to grow and operate with ease, and new B2B finance options are paving the way to help boost cash flow across the supply chain.

As businesses weathered what was hopefully the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, economic policy was relatively accomodating with central banks expanding their balance sheets rapidly.

One of the main changes businesses have adopted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic is a faster move to contactless and cashless payments.

Late payments are an ongoing problem for Australian businesses. If you’re a business owner, you’ve probably seen the statistics and felt the effects of these in your own business.