If you do not already have a way for your customers to pay online, I would bet you have at least looked into offering your customers an AR portal. But what route should you take? Build it in house? Hire a third party? Accept CC’s and ACH’s? Does this all connect into your ERP system? We’ve written this simple 5 question check-list to help you sort through the thought process of implementing a customer portal. 1. Where do you host it? When you have on online portal for your customers it must reside on a server somewhere. If a core competency of your company is web hosting it might make sense to host it internally, however for most firms having a third party host it is the best bet. A solution like Fidesic AR will be hosted by Fidesic. This means you don’t have to worry about creating and maintaining a site. Aside from the convenience of having someone else host the site, hosting internally opens you up to liability and many compliance requirements for storing customer data. A site like Fidesic Maintains SSAE Type 16 compliance for it’s servers, and supports Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance for storage of customer CC and Bank Account Data. If you’re only familiar with hosting marking sites, jumping through these extra hoops may be more than your IT department is able to do. 2. How does it connect to your ERP system? This is an often overlooked aspect of installing a customer portal. If it doesn’t properly integrate with your Dynamics GP you may end up creating more work than you are saving (as any person tasked with connecting two systems can attest to.) Fidesic AR is designed around Dynamics GP and has a module for a direct integration. You won’t need to configure a third party product to pass data and you won’t need your IT to spend weeks on a project simply making the two systems talk to one another. 3. How do you want to accept payments? One of the greatest benefits of an AR Customer portal is allowing your customers to pay their invoices online. To do so, you have to decide what payments you would like to accept, and how to integrate them into your customer portal. If you’re already accepting CCs in some form then you already have a relationship with a merchant processor. Fidesic AR is very familiar with working in the Merchant Processor space and can help you add your current merchant into the customer portal. If you don’t have a relationship yet, we can help you find one. 4. Who will support it? Another often overlooked aspect of hosting a customer portal is support. End users are notoriously needy (even for a well-designed site) and more often than not it does not make financial sense to dedicate staff into helping them. This leads to low adoption and low usage from your customers. With Fidesic AR, support is included in every plan. We’ll make sure all your customers are using the portal to its fullest. 5. How will you handle returns/credits/payments outside of the system? A customer portal is only useful if the data contained within it is accurate. Many AR solutions offer invoice and payment support, but fall short when it comes to other types of AR transactions. Fidesic AR’s tight integration with GP means it works with credits, returns, out of the system payments, and any other type of AR transaction. This keeps your customers’ portal information up to date and keeps them from calling your AR department with questions about the current status of their account. While there is much to think about before implementing an AR Customer Portal, picking the right software vendor will allow you to peace of mind on many of these items. Fidesic AR is designed with these common issues in mind, and will work to make your implementation process as smooth as possible. For more information about the Fidesic AR Customer portal head to www.FidesicARforGP.com or send an email to sales@enlivensoftware.com About Enliven Software Enliven Software is a leading Lansing, MI Microsoft Dynamics ISV delivering AP and AR business solutions across industries to local businesses for over 15 years. Enliven provides cloud based solutions that help automate Accounts Payable processes, and provide a dynamic Customer portal designed to work specifically with Dynamics GP. The post 5 Things to Consider Before Implementing a Customer Portal appeared first on goERPcloud .
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