Most of the conversation around card payments in the nonprofit sphere tends to be about the best ways to process electronic donations. This focus is, of course, highly understandable: No 21st century nonprofit can thrive without empowering donors with an easy means of supporting the organization. But what about the flip-side of the payment coin? Nonprofits have to pay their suppliers, too, and some ways are smarter and more beneficial to charitable organizations than others. 

For instance, when nonprofits implement virtual card solutions for their automated accounts payable, the accrued benefits can be exceptional - revolutionizing not just the accounts payable process, but organizational funding strategies, as well. A not-for-profit organization that implements virtual card payments for a significant portion of its AP spend can expect to reap a host of perks, including cost-savings; time-savings; heightened payment security and control; and most compellingly, an alternative source of revenue to help fund its mission. 

Summer vacation season may still be in full swing, but many of us are already looking ahead to the fall and our end of year financial goals. Did you know your accounts payable - historically a cost center - can actually drive your organization's cost savings? By shifting from resource-intensive approaches to more efficient, effective and secure payments, your AP can move from cost center to cost saver. Here are the top five ways your accounts payable process can help reduce costs all year 'round:

One of our most frequently asked questions about card-based virtual payments is, "Is this too good to be true?" I've found that potential virtual card users have a healthy amount of skepticism about a technology that offers better payments and increased revenue, with no investment by the buyer. In fact, "is this too good to be true?" is one of six key questions it's important to ask of your prospective virtual card provider before you sign a contract. Here they are:

As a university accounts payable professional, you know that supplier enablement - or electronically connecting your vendors to your supply chain - in higher education is incredibly important. You need to keep things organized and in good standing with your suppliers so that you can keep their services flowing. Here's an overview of three simple strategies to optimize your supplier enablement for more efficient AP.

Is your payment process as simple as it ought to be? With so many different ways to pay suppliers, B2B payments can get complicated quickly. Some suppliers accept card payments, such as virtual cards. Other suppliers prefer ACH or wire payments. And yes, of course, some suppliers still require payment by check. So what’s the best way to manage all of these different payments? Increasingly, Accounts Payable departments are turning to one file payments to address the challenge of multiple payment types and bring unprecedented ease to the AP process.

If you're like most professionals who are responsible for making payments for a corporate or nonprofit organization, you're continually seeking to maximize efficiency and minimize the cost of doing business. Virtual card technology does both, offering the opportunity to turn a manually intensive operating expense into an automated process that actually generates revenue for your organization.

It's the first day of February; do you know where your 1099 forms are? If your organization is on top of things, your 1099s were issued to your service vendors and filed with the IRS long before the January 31 deadline. But if they weren't, or you're still recovering from the painful experience of tracking down all your applicable vendor payments, take heart: Next year, virtual card payments could eliminate your 1099 hassle.

We don't know about you, but after the excesses of the holiday season, those gym membership promotions that are everywhere right now start looking really appealing.

The problem with those introductory gym membership rates, of course - aside from any lack of willpower on the part of the new member - is that they're meant to lure you in, get you hooked on their classes/saunas/smoothies, and then charge you a considerably higher rate once you've decided you can't live without them. Wouldn't it be great if instead of raising the price once you were in, your gym rewarded you for your commitment to physical fitness by paying YOU? 

Thanksgiving marks the middle of a season of abundance: Halloween to New Year's Day sees abundant good food, abundant good company, and abundant good cheer. It's a wonderful time. Of course, with this abundance comes abundant costs, and our January bank statements can be a bit of a shock. Many of us find ways to make that post-holiday shock a bit less painful - shopping throughout the year for holiday gifts, chasing sales, making gifts, and clipping coupons. But are you doing the same to maximize your organization's cost-savings? Here are five ways your accounts payable process can help reduce costs all year 'round:

MasterCard is talking about smarter, digitally inclusive cities. Visa just issued a challenge to cities to go "cashless." Whatever you call them (cashless, digital, virtual, mobile, touchless), payments that don't require a physical form of payment are on track to dominate the consumer market in the coming decade, especially in urban areas. In the U.S., this is an arena where the B2B sphere, which has often lagged in innovation, is actually a leader and can share the lessons it has learned on going virtual with those in the B2C community who want to do the same.