Update Accounts payable (AP) is no longer stopping at digitizing paper checks. Finance teams shouldn’t stop there either.
“What has changed is where the payments appear.” Ryan TaylorSenior Vice President of Product Management for Mobility, Payments and Risk at Weekshe said during a PYMNTS discussion with WEX Susan HolbrookVice President of US Sales Drive Operations and Supplier Enablement, and Laurie TownsendVice President of Accounting at Smart Auto Care.
As financial institutions face increasing exposure to fraud, operational complexity, and pressure to automate workflows, payments are increasingly treated as strategic infrastructure capable of generating efficiencies, improving controls, and contributing revenue back to the organization.
“Payment is done as part of the workflow within processes or within products,” Taylor said.
For many businesses, the economy is changing along with technology.
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“It was just a cost center,” Smart AutoCare’s Townsend said. “Now my AP department actually contributes to the work.”
Virtual cards turn a stalled AP engine into a revenue engine
Virtual cards It emerges as one of the clearest solutions for unleashing growth through payments because it combines automation, security controls, and payment data into a single programmable workflow. Most importantly, it allows finance teams to control spending conditions before issuing a payment.
WEX’s Taylor described virtual cards as “digital payment credentials” that are generated for a specific transaction without the need for a physical card.
“You set spending limits, timing, resource and other controls at build time,” he said. “This dynamically reduces exposure to fraud compared to checks or traditional payment methods.”
The technology also simplifies the reconciliation process and reduces manual intervention across AP operations. At Smart AutoCare, for example, WEX built a custom API integration to directly connect payment workflows between systems. Repair facilities now receive pre-approved, single-use virtual cards linked to the exact value of the repair transaction.
“Not a penny more, not a penny less,” Townsend said. “This accuracy alone eliminated a significant source of manual oversight and error on our part.”
The impact extends beyond operational efficiency. Virtual cards also change AP economics. Under many virtual card programs, buyers receive a percentage of supplier payment volume through rebate structures tied to card spending. This changes how finance leaders evaluate the role of the AP.
“These are the payments you’re actually going to make,” Taylor said. “We are simply improving the current operational flow and spend that already occurs within organizations.”
“Accounts payable stops being a liability on the balance sheet and starts serving as a strategic asset,” WEX’s Holbrook said. “Virtual cards completely flip that.”
The hidden costs of manual AP
Many organizations still underestimate the operational burden of legacy payment systems because inefficiencies are spread across departments and processes. The true cost of paper checks extends beyond printing and mailing. Manual approvals, invoice routing, reconciliation work, exception handling, and supplier follow-up create operational drag that multiplies at scale.
“What surprises organizations the most is all of this hidden manual work that exists within their operations,” Holbrook said. “Many organizations don’t fully realize how much time their teams spend managing payment disputes until these workflows become automated and centralized.”
It becomes difficult to ignore economic factors as transaction volume increases.
“The cost of processing one paper check can range from $4 to $20, depending on the workflow,” Holbrook said. “In practice, they create a lot of friction.”
For Smart AutoCare, these inefficiencies became unsustainable as payment volume increased. Before the payments update, the company was processing more than 8,000 claims per month and roughly $10.4 million in payments.
“Originally, we would call each repair facility individually, provide them with the card information over the phone, or tell them we would send them a paper check,” Townsend said. “With over 450 claim payments per day, this process was not sustainable.”
Operational pressures have also created increased security concerns.
“Sharing card information over the phone, and putting a check in the mail, both come with real risks,” Townsend said. “We get very little visibility or control once that payment is sent out.”
Checks remain one of the most vulnerable payment methods businesses still use today, Holbrook said.
“Checks can be easily intercepted, altered, copied (or) redirected compared to digital payment methods with built-in controls,” she said.
Payments have become a built-in infrastructure
Modernizing payments is also reshaping the relationship between finance and technology teams. As application programming interfaces (APIs) become central to enterprise architecture, companies increasingly want payments to be integrated directly into operational software rather than managed separately across separate systems.
“Technology teams are more concerned with how payments fit into the broader system architecture,” Taylor said. “They evaluate things like scalability, implementation effort, and flexibility.”
Inline payments Allow transactions to occur locally within an existing workflow. Taylor described the example of a property management platform that automatically creates a secure virtual ticket the moment an owner approves a maintenance fix.
“Payment becomes part of the workflow,” he said. “Save time, improve security, automate settlement, and create a better customer experience.”
The emergence of AI-driven workflows is further accelerating this trend.
“When you ask someone to switch between systems or manually re-enter data that already exists elsewhere, you create opportunities for delay, error and frustration,” Taylor said. “With AI coming into products, that’s also missing context.”
For financial leaders, the result is a broader strategic shift in how payments are viewed within an organization.
“The whole conversation is shifting from operational savings to strategic value,” Holbrook said. “That’s when organizations start to see payments very differently.”
Watch the full interview here: Payments that pay you back
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