Electronic Payment Adoption is becoming more of an initiative across all industries but specifically in Construction. The Construction industry as a whole has been driving towards a larger initiative to increase Electronic Payment Adoption to lower DSO, drive improved efficiencies, and increase financial transparency.
Some of the main hurdles that discourage construction companies from implementing Electronic Payment practices are:
- Old Customer Behaviors or Resistance to Change:
Construction traditionally has relied on paper based processing with checks as well as notice and payment rights management.
- Complex Payment Processes:
Majority of projects have complex payment processes with multiple stakeholders including, suppliers, contractors, subcontractors, and owners. There is also an extra level of complexity with cross divisional material distribution.
- Integration with Existing Systems:
Many companies have well established accounting and project management systems in place, integrating with these systems can be a complex and time consuming process.
- Payment Delays:
There are often payment delays due to change order, disputes, and potentially damaged materials. Electronic payment systems are rarely flexible enough to handle all of the industry specific disputes while providing transparency to internal stakeholders and their customers.
Despite these challenges the Construction industry is receiving pressure from their customers to quickly adopt and implement better electronic payment measures despite the struggle to find a non out of the box solution or partner that is equipped to handle the complex nature of their business.
The Handle.com Approach
At Handle.com we play a pivotal role by offering tailored solutions, educational resources, and a consultative approach to support the industry in overcoming the hurdles mentioned above.
Education and Training
- Handle offers resource, training, and educational materials to help suppliers, equipment dealers, and their customers understand the benefits of electronic payment adoption.
Customized Solutions
- Handle provides electronic payment and waiver solutions tailored specifically to the construction supplier and equipment industry. Giving suppliers the tools they need to manage the most complex payment structures, stakeholder engagement and involvement, and payment milestones throughout the project cycle.
Seamless Integration
- Handle provides seamless integration options with existing account and project management solutions commonly used in the construction industry. Integration tools like api’s and ERP integrations allow for simple adoption and reduce disruptions to existing workflows.
Flexible and Transparent Systems
- Handle is designed to support electronic payment processing with flexibility to accommodate industry-specific issues like change orders, voided payments, invoice disputes, and waiver when a payment is made.
Robust Security Measures
- Given the financial transactions involved and the added complexity of state specific deadlines and lien waiver management, Handle prioritizes robust security measures and tools to ensure the safety of electronic payments and go a step further to track deadlines and state specific requirements to protect payment rights on projects.
(Handle is fully compliant in all 50 states + Canada)
Intuitive Platform
- Handle offers an intuitive and user friendly platform making the payment process more accessible and streamlined for all users and stakeholders. We offer this in the form of easy navigation, transparent dashboards and documentation, secured and compliant payment processing, and full integration into our notice management and payment compliance platform.
Conclusion
At Handle we play an essential role with material suppliers and equipment dealers by not only providing specialized services we are built of a team of industry experts that understand the intricacies of construction payments, cross divisional accounting processes, and the importance of protecting payment rights through notice and lien management tracking and automation.
Outside of our vast internal industry knowledge we strive and are proud to be a trusted partner that collaborates with our customers and other experts in the construction industry to continuously learn about the specialized market we support to continue to adapt, improve, and build innovative solutions that empower material suppliers and equipment dealers increase efficiencies in their day to day operations.
Click here to learn more about our payment and waiver products.