The technological wave of the last decade has changed and is still completely changing many of the key sectors of the world economy, starting with finance. We hear more and more often about digitization and innovation also in relation to financial management, payments and corporate liquidity: this marked the era of Digital Finance. In a market heavily affected by the pandemic and profoundly changed in the methods of use and customer expectations, readjusting and renewing business models is essential to keep up with the times and offer a service capable of making the difference compared to an ever-changing competition more varied and challenging. For this reason TeamSystem has created the “Guide to the Digital Management of Payments and Corporate Liquidity” edited by the engineer Paolo Catti, which contains all the fundamental elements to know on this issue to improve the competitiveness of companies and professionals.
TeamSystem is the Italian group that offers latest generation solutions and services for the digitization of companies, professionals (accountants, labor consultants, lawyers, condominium administrators, freelancers) and associations.
What is Digital Finance? And why is it important for companies and professionals?
Digital Finance is the set of services which, thanks to new technologies and new regulations, has an agile and accessible impact on the financial structure and liquidity of those who request these services. In particular, the Digital Finance services allow loans and/or financing (equity or debt), transfer of trade credit to finance working capital (from the advance on invoices, to Factoring, to the most innovative forms of these services), the analysis availability and movements even on several corporate current accounts at the same time, both consumer and business payments directly from the management software and without resorting to external tools, access to the securities markets to enable forms of trading, insurance products and, lastly, they reach the world of cryptocurrencies.
Once you understand what we are talking about, it is easy to understand how these services can be a strategic lever for companies and professionals. Real enablers that allow you to optimize business processes, having a positive impact on the productivity and growth of one's business (think of digital payment and collection systems or credit assignment services or even monitoring the company's health) and, for accountants and labor consultants, l expansion of its offer towards consultancy services also in the financial sector, thus helping its customers to avoid potential crisis situations, to find liquidity and to adopt new collection and payment instruments, fully exploiting the potential of digital.
What is the new European directive on digital payments?
An important stimulus to the growth of Digital Finance services is represented by PSD2 European directive (Payment Services Directive 2). This is a provision strongly desired by the EU to lay the legal foundations for a single market for payments in Europe and establish a level playing field for payment service providers and transaction security and consumer protection. The most interesting changes introduced by the European legislation are essentially two:
– Opening up to new services (Account Information, Payment Initiation and Card Issuing) and the relative identification of new players (AISP, PISP and CISP) who will be able to communicate and interact directly with the current accounts of European citizens (Open API);
– The redefinition of legitimate authentication methods for carrying out financial transactions (Strong Customer Authentication).
It is thanks to PSD2 that the so-called "Open Banking“, or that phenomenon whereby information historically the exclusive prerogative of Banks is also made accessible to new players, who are given the opportunity to enable innovative digital financial services: Payment Institutions or Electronic Money Institutions, authorized by the Bank of Italy.
TeamSystem Digital Finance: software for business financial management
One of the main advantages associated with the diffusion of digital payments is the easier management of collections, a delicate issue in a period in which payment delays have lengthened further, threatening the survival of micro-enterprises and freelancers. But thanks to technology it is possible to make use of advanced management software that provides collection services e pagamento digital able to make these procedures more fluid, totally managed automatically and within the same environment.
Digitizing receipts means offering your customers an electronic payment method that is convenient and traceable by the person who issued the invoice. With digital collection, a set of information or even a link to activate a payment request can be introduced into the electronic invoices issued.
The TeamSystem Group has specialized its own division to support companies and professionals through digital products that facilitate access to credit (thanks to the TeamSystem Incassa Subito service), digital payments and collections (with TeamSystem Pay - a service provided by TeamSystem Payments) with the goal of simplifying and speeding up processes of a financial nature.
Digital Finance services allow you to combine and simplify some activities such as the accounting environment and that of banking systems. This is a function that allows you to import data from bank statements (previously downloaded from banks) into the management system and, subsequently, to obtain reconciliation proposals for three invoices and receipts and invoices and payments: checking them one by one it is then possible close open positions.
Furthermore, in more advanced management environments, such as those of TeamSystem, which also integrate current account consultation services (AIS) e payment processing services (PIS), the reconciliation activities are natively integrated in the same procedures that activate the bank movements: the reconciliations between invoices and balances are therefore completely automated.
One of the fundamental elements for having a healthy company is knowing how to promptly grasp the early signs of crisis and learning to read one's company and its business also with the eyes of others: banks, financial institutions, suppliers, customers. By adopting the same tools used by the main financial institutions, for example, it is possible to know the creditworthiness assessment (or rating) that these institutions give to one's company and thus verify the real possibilities of accessing credit.
Il enterprise health monitoring (thanks to Check up Impresa by TeamSystem) allows the Entrepreneur to carry out the correct diagnosis on the state of health of his company; to the professional, accountant or consultant in general, to offer his client-entrepreneur effective indications together with timely and objective measurements calculated on constantly updated data.
