Supplier acceptance of purchasing cards grows

Enhancing #supplier #acceptance of card payments continues to be an important lever for growth and expansion of distributed plastic #purchasing #cards (“P-Cards”) and virtual card programs (“ePayables”). New findings from the recent NAPCP and Accenture Supplier Acceptance of P-Card and ePayables Payments Survey highlight industry progress in this area since our 2013 and 2009 survey findings.

In summary, supplier acceptance continues to show signs of improvement:  

  • Supplier acceptance of P-Cards across most supplier spend categories has increased (Figure 1)
  • ePayables acceptance by suppliers has crossed the 50 percent milestone
  • Card acceptance has become more integral to supplier selection by corporate buyers
  • Suppliers are increasingly recognizing the benefits of faster payment/cash flow
  • Maximum allowable P-Card transaction sizes have risen
  • Educating suppliers continues to correlate with better program performance
 Figure 1:  Supplier Acceptance of P-Cards by Spend Category

Source: NAPCP and Accenture

Suppliers have many reasons to take cards and are increasingly handling card acceptance in a more automated manner. Figure 2 documents several key reasons why suppliers accept cards for B2B payments.

Figure 2:  Reasons Suppliers Take Card Payments, According to End-Users

Source: NAPCP and Accenture

Looking forward, corporates and their P-Card and ePayables providers should continue working more closely with their suppliers to increase their knowledge of lower acceptance costs available through passing Level 3 line item detail transaction data. Qualifying for larger transaction size rates and assisting suppliers in automating the receipt and reconciliation of payment instructions and remittance data is also necessary.

I invite you to read the full report to find out more about the link between acceptance and payments growth.

For more information on the NAPCP, visit http://www.napcp.org.

 

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