By Craig Barclay, Vice President, Commercial at American Express
Businesses know how important providing an optimised and streamlined payments experience is to success and long-term growth. Many have automated some elements of their payments processes, but new American Express research shows that some are holding back from fully adopting this technology because of misconceptions about the cost and time investment required.
The Amex Trendex: B2B Payments edition, which surveyed senior financial decision makers in 500 UK businesses, demonstrates a recognition of how powerful optimising payments processes can be. The majority (94%) agreed that easy, streamlined, and secure payments create happy customers, and 89% said it drives growth.
However, many businesses have yet to fully embrace automation. Only one in seven of those surveyed have fully automated their payments process (14%). And the same proportion have not automated payments at all.
The benefits of automation
There are significant gains to be won through automation, with our research highlighting faster payments (49%), reduced errors (34%) and time savings (25%) as the principal benefits. But when it comes to perceived barriers, the main concerns from those who have yet to fully automate payments expressed concerns were cost, security, and the time required.
While it can feel like a daunting task to make changes to payment processes, in reality, the time and cost to automate can be less than what is expected – especially when working with the right partners and focusing on the right areas. The investment required to adopt an automated payments process is most often outweighed by both the long and short-term benefits to the business.
What’s more, the advantages expand far beyond speed, accuracy and time saving. Optimising payments process can also result in stronger commercial relationships, a reduced admin burden, and business growth – as shown by the data.
Strengthening commercial relationships
If payments are late, slow, or prone to errors, it can directly affect the reputation and commercial relationships that businesses have spent precious time and energy building with buyers and suppliers – and impact growth in the long run.
The survey found that almost a third (30%) of respondents cite late or slow payments as a common reason they stopped working with a business – and four in five say that a single fraud incident relating to payments could significantly impact their trust in both buyers (79%) and suppliers (80%).
Improving efficiencies and peace of mind
Secure and seamless payment processes evidently have a critical role to play in building thriving commercial relationships – giving everyone the confidence they need in their business partners. And, thanks to the improved efficiencies, automation also has the potential to improve the peace of mind and productivity of those that manage payments day to day.
Over a quarter (27%) of respondents admitted they are spending too much time managing payments, and about one fifth (22%) saying they usually have to work after hours to process and reconcile payments. Over a quarter (28%) admitted they would sleep better at night without the worry of their payments being on time and accurate. By adopting automation and reducing the need for manual input, business leaders can reduce errors and free up time and resources of those managing payments, enabling them to focus on other value-adding activity – and potentially improve their work-life balance.
2025 is proving to be another year where businesses need to demonstrate agility. It’s encouraging to see recognition of how optimised payments is a lever they can pull to support in that goal. Our research found that almost four-fifths (78%) are planning to improve their payments processes in the year ahead, and two-fifths (39%) of those are doing so as part of a concerted, strategic effort to drive growth.
American Express offers a range of automated solutions to help businesses save time and money, reduce errors, along with improving efficiency and cash flow.
