The platform allows buyers to deploy quickly, issue payments more efficiently, and enjoy broad adoption by suppliers.
Nexus, the leader in AP automation for real estate, has launched an enhanced payments platform, allowing buyers to deploy automated, electronic payments in a month or less – and significantly lighten the workload of cutting manual paper checks.
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The new NexusPayments software, which uses leading-edge technology and incorporates numerous security features, automates connections between buyers and their network of suppliers, enabling both groups to quickly say “yes” to electronic payments and track them online from a secure, easy-to-use portal, NexusConnect.
“Companies are looking to automate their payments processes as fast as possible and eliminate trips into the office. Our new payments platform does just that, while offering connected and validated suppliers an easy way to sign up for, receive, track, and reconcile their electronic payments,” said Jennifer Coolidge, president of Nexus.
NexusPayments is part of the Nexus procure-to-pay software system, which integrates seamlessly with the top general ledgers in real estate. Users simply generate a file of invoices that need to be paid from their GL, and then send the file to NexusConnect, which will, in turn, pay suppliers on their behalf.
Buyers can select virtual cards, ACH, and/or checks to pay their suppliers. They can view and manage their transactions slated for payment (including the associated invoices and their approval history), within NexusConnect, approve or decline those transactions within preconfigured approval thresholds, and see when the funds are debited from their bank accounts – in near real-time.
With just a few clicks, buyers can add and manage the bank accounts that NexusPayments uses to pay their suppliers. Before any payments are made, bank accounts are automatically and quickly validated to ensure smooth payment transactions.
Suppliers, meanwhile, are verified with real-time security and identity checks when enrolling to receive e-payments from Nexus. They can also connect to multiple real-estate buyers in seconds and opt to receive electronic payments from all of their buyers using Nexus, saving them the hassle of having to sign up one-by-one.
This rapid deployment capability has proved useful during the COVID-19 pandemic, as suppliers have avoided handling paper checks, which are subject to mail delays. In fact, Nexus data shows that supplier acceptance of electronic payment methods – particularly Nexus virtual cards – increased by an average of 42% a month for March, April and May 2020, compared to the same months in 2019.
“While COVID-19 definitely served as the initial inspiration for suppliers to switch from paper checks to electronic payment methods, our new payment platform gives them many other reasons to do so,” Coolidge noted. “They receive comprehensive remittance details with every ACH and virtual card payment. Reconciling electronic payments is easy and fast, and they can do it from anywhere.”
The platform connects with several strategic APIs to provide both buyers and suppliers unprecedented visibility into the statuses of all their payments, across all payment rails. This shared view of data, available in NexusConnect, ensures buyers and suppliers are on the same page.
“Buyers have had nothing but praise for the enhanced platform, because it provides 24/7 visibility and continuously maximizes the number of suppliers they can pay electronically with Nexus,” Coolidge said. “That’s important because it reduces their need to cut expensive manual checks, making NexusPayments efficient, cost-effective, and frictionless.”
The platform is built on AWS and Kubernetes, the foundational technology in Nexus’s Cloud-Native Architecture. It features a Microservices application architecture to allow different teams to work on different parts of the system concurrently without affecting one another, allowing Nexus’s systems to evolve in lock step with business growth.
“We built the new platform to be highly scalable, functional, and flexible” said Julio Palacio, Nexus CPTO. “Electronic payments are evolving fast, and we want to continue providing our real estate buyers and their suppliers with a range of options to manage their cash flow and work from anywhere.”
