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(November 1st, 2000) -The electronic age offers a grab
bag of valuable holiday presents for harried business owners
straining to meet customer demands and prepare for the new
year.
You can already pay your bills
electronically and organize your back-office accounting with
off-the-shelf software. Also routine is online processing
of credit card payments from customers who purchase through
your Web page.
Using software more recently
available, you can now finance your receivables on the Internet
to speed cash flow. In the coming months you will also find:
- New Internet
auctions and exchanges to speed the acquisition
of supplies and the disposition of inventories
- Web-based electronic invoicing and bill-presentment
services
- Web-based software to automate the management
of your human-resources,
customer-relations and sales- force
operations.
Some of these products duplicate
others already on the market and others refine existing ideas.
All in all, they promise to streamline the inner workings
of small and mid-size businesses, offering many of the same
efficiencies the big guys use to cut costs and speed cash
flow.
The receivables financing comes
from Long Island, N.Y.-based MyReceivables.com,
a unit of CDS Group, an accounts-receivable financing and
management company. Launched in the spring, MyReceivables.com
serves as an online credit intermediary for businesses, offering
credit terms to their online customers, said Leonard Leff,
president and chief executive.
Working in the background,
MyReceivables.com advances money to online sellers in much
the same way that banks advance money to brick-and-mortar
merchants accepting credit card purchases. Fees run from 2.5%
to 5% per purchase. That's generally more than the fees banks
charge for credit card purchases via MasterCard and Visa but
less than American Express, Leff said.
Having advanced cash against
such purchases, MyReceivables.com bills the customer using
the seller's invoice, thus remaining invisible to the buyer.
On the procurement end of things,
Bank of America Corp. is testing a program called Banc of
America Marketplace in several mid-Atlantic states. The Web-based
business-to-business program seeks to deliver streamlined
procurement to the bank's small and mid-size business clients.
Developed jointly with Ariba Inc., a premier provider of procurement
services to big businesses, the program focuses on linking
business buyers and sellers of routine supplies.
American Express Co., meanwhile,
offers a request-for-quote service via a new suite of online
tools targeting small and mid-size businesses through the
American
Express Web site. The suite authorizes and processes online
payments automatically with all major credit cards. It also
allows do-it-yourselfers to build and manage Web sites with
simple-to-use templates.
Web-based back-office accounting
is available from NetLedger
Inc., of San Mateo, which added payroll and customized
report functions to its package in the summer. The payroll
function automatically generates accounting entries from payroll
data, eliminating the need for double entries and thus reducing
the opportunities for clerical errors.
Similar services are on the
drawing boards of many banks and a number of other e-commerce
companies targeting small and mid-size business.
* * *
Next: How a West Los Angeles
company used a sophisticated computerized cash-management
system to add $250,000 to its bottom line.
* * *
Recent Finacing and Insurance
columns are available http://www.latimes.com/finin.
Juan Hovey can be reached at (805) 492-7909 or at jhovey@gte.net.
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