Card payments have become a common method for B2B supplier transactions, but the “pay now by card” feature often creates more friction than convenience. In this blog, we explore why this seemingly simple option often fails in practice, how it burdens both procurement and finance teams, and why teams need a new approach. By integrating spend control cards directly into cloud accounting platforms, businesses can streamline supplier payments, reduce manual processes, and gain real-time oversight, without adding to their tech stack. Read on to discover how embedded finance is enabling this shift and what it means for the future of procurement.
Card payments are an integral part of supplier payments today. We’re all used to b-commerce procurement carried out with cards and checkouts rather than bank transfers. And we’re also used to digital invoices arriving with a “pay now by card” button attached to them.
But when you think about it, does that “pay now by card” button really work as advertised?
In theory, yes – you press the button and it takes you to a payment portal. But in practice, the procurement manager who gets the invoice isn’t necessarily going to be the person who can solve this payment.
Instead, they have to speak to someone in the finance department, send them a copy of the invoice and ask them to make the payment on the procurement team’s behalf.
But what if it was possible for the finance team to get ahead of the invoice by giving the procurement manager a card they can use to pay approved supplier bills the moment they are due? Not a generic company card they have to share around, but a digital card that draws from the procurement budget, locks to a single transaction, and gives finance real-time oversight on the spending.
And what if it was the firm’s cloud accounting platform that generated that card for them – meaning they could not only make the payment easily but also see their budget and the invoice status automatically update for them?
“Pay now by card” – a small break in the chain that covers a major problem
Taken one case at a time, this multi-step “pay now” process might not seem like a huge deal.
But when you think about it happening every day, for every supplier payment a company has to make, it’s clear why things need to change.
It doesn’t lead to a slightly frustrated procurement manager. It leads to a procurement manager who doesn’t have the power to actually do the task they’re supposed to do, who feels more like a middle agent pushing emails around between suppliers and financial keyholders.
This means finance teams, hired for their expertise, spend too much of their time doing payment busywork, wishing there was a secure way to delegate out payment powers to the people who actually have the commercial context for the invoices coming in.
And if the finance manager is late paying the supplier because of all the other tasks on their plate, it means the procurement manager is one who gets harried about it despite being unable to do anything beyond forwarding the payment reminders.
There are solutions out there – but nowhere near what’s needed
If we’re going to close this break in the chain, then we need to finally deliver the convenience that the “pay now by card” option promises.
That means putting payment power into the hands of procurement and supply chain managers, while making sure finance teams still have all the oversight to know exactly what payments are going where and why in real time.
The answer to that is spend control cards – generated and supervised by financial controllers, but used by non-financial people in a business to make payments.
This is so much in demand that a lot of businesses are using workarounds. For example, they’re using employee expenses systems or setting up whole new card issuance apps that add to the SaaS sprawl and don’t speak directly to the firm’s accounting system for payment statuses, balances, and reconciliation.
But if we look beyond business, there are examples of how this can be done. Take a look at the neobank world, for example, where customers can have cards generated for individual subscriptions, or a separate card for their child to use that still draws from the parent’s account. There’s no need to set up a second account and keep sending money across to it, and if anything is amiss these cards can be frozen without freezing your main bank card too.
Procurement managers and finance teams are already seeing what’s possible in the consumer world, and the more they see of it, the more they’ll wonder why they can’t get that convenience in their work payments too.
A new procurement vision, driven by cloud accounting
This is where cloud accounting can step in. Accounting systems are supposed to give finance teams the power to enact control of spending and cash, but they can’t fully do that if the actual spending mechanism is always taking place in separate software. They can get close, but there is always going to be inefficiencies when working across multiple disjointed systems.
Bringing payment powers and spend control cards into cloud accounting doesn’t just make supplier payments more convenient. It also delivers on the other magic word: consolidation.
There’s no need for companies to pay for an extra procurement app that only does one function, and no need for finance teams to adopt an entirely new system just to manage cards. Instead, their cloud accounting app now has a procurement zone within it – everything is joined up with the same UX they know and love, and connecting the payment and accounting data is a breeze.
When an invoice arrives, all a procurement manager – not a financial controller – has to do is:
- Select the right supplier and bill
- Press “pay now”.
The risk of paying the wrong supplier by mistake or accidentally sending the wrong amount is significantly reduced, because the payment and invoicing is tied up in the same system. Nor does anyone stop to consider what embedded finance is doing behind the scenes to make this possible, because they’ve already moved on to their next task.
All the while, the cloud accounting apps themselves can upsell their new procurement zone to existing customers as part of a one stop shop for seeing and controlling spend.
And each time a supplier payment is made with spend control cards, the accounting platform can earn revenue from them – turning higher turnover companies into far more profitable customers than they would be on subscription fees alone.
Embedded finance isn’t a future trend — it’s a current opportunity.
If you’re building or scaling a SaaS platform, now’s the time to explore how embedded spend control can boost customer retention and open new revenue streams.
👉 Talk to our team about embedded finance in procurement
👉 Read the guide: How embedded finance boosts revenue for SaaS platforms
