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The waste management industry is ripe for disruption. By transitioning away from using a collection of older, fragmented software to manage mission-critical payments and cash reconciliation to adopting digital-first solutions, waste management leaders have the potential to save valuable time, money and resources. One seemingly small but hugely important way for the industry to leapfrog into digital solutions is in payments.

The challenge of antiquated payments systems

Reconciling payments is often an industrywide challenge for waste management companies and haulers, from the initial customer sale to the final deposit into their bank account. Payment reconciliation is a process that verifies account balances to ensure all sets of records and reports are accurate, consistent and updated, and businesses can reconcile their accounts daily, weekly or monthly. Businesses also reconcile payments to detect and avoid balance sheet errors, identify fraud, follow up with failed payments and chase overdue invoices. The timing of payments, deposits and transactions can affect cash availability and the bottom line.

Often the result of fragmented and antiquated systems, reconciling sales, payments and cash can be tedious and time-consuming. What most businesses fail to recognize is the numerous moving parts that go into a payment transaction, including dealing with multiple vendors and matching payments with the right deposits. Not only is the process time-consuming, but it also requires management of multiple vendors and intermediaries, slowing the process down even further. For example, when a hauler accepts a single credit card payment online, it is passed back and forth between hands to analyze, review and complete just this one transaction. With the many moving parts of the process, it’s nearly impossible to track the entire payment life cycle, and no one person can see the entire process from beginning to end. To add further complexity, a payment taken in person, for example, will have a different set of third-party vendors and another merchant account. Therefore, from the initial credit card purchase and payment confirmation to ensuring the revenue appears on the general ledger, most waste professionals fail to realize there is an easier way than pen and paper and Excel tracking.

An integrated payment processing system

An integrated payments system combines the payment gateway (a system that authorizes credit card or bank-to-bank payments processing for e-commerce, online retailers or any other noncard transaction) with the payment processor (an intermediary that facilitates transactions between a card holder’s bank and a merchant account) in one cohesive platform. This new system of payments can optimize back-end business operations and connect the critical payment processing function with other vital business systems and software and wouldn’t require manually entering transactions into multiple different platforms to reconcile payments. Instead, an integrated payments processing system places all transactions in one location, making it easier for a business to receive payments and reconcile important data.

Integrated payments systems support a seamless and efficient way to track credit card and bank-to-bank payments, significantly reducing the time to streamline daily operations. Moreover, integrated payment systems allow for fewer third-party vendors and fewer reports to analyze, review and match as typically required with traditional multistep systems.

For waste management companies, it can be particularly challenging to track where money is being spent and where payments are in the transaction process. Waste managers are having to keep up with different demands, including analyzing and tracking multiple payments at a time with many intermediaries in the mix. This only makes the payment process longer than it needs to be. Through an integrated payment processing system, waste managers won’t have to devote as much manual time to the payment processing system while still knowing exactly where their money is.

Another advantage of an integrated payments system is the elimination of multiple merchant accounts, supporting seamless communication across sales channels. A single merchant account removes the need to analyze individual reports and instead generates one report for all payments and revenue.

Saving time, money and resources with an integrated payments system

Switching to an integrated payments processing system is mission-critical for 21^st century businesses. Businesses that are using outdated processing systems are leaving money on the table, and updated payment technology is fundamental to maximizing resource management and capabilities. Through an integrated payments platform, companies can use fewer third-party vendors, which reduces the time needed for reconciling reports and allows more time for activities that can further grow their businesses.

Penny Townsend serves as chief product officer at Qualpay, a company that she co-founded in 2014. With over 20 years of executive experience in the payments industry, she leads Qualpay’s business, marketing, product and operations strategies. A frequent speaker at industry events, Townsend is passionate about empowering women and minorities, particularly in the payments industry and product management roles. She holds an MBA in e-commerce and telecommunications from the University of San Francisco.