| PAYMENT SYSTEMS
Platform integration
Annual Showcase 2020 | Intertraffic World
185
Ensuring internal payment processes are secure and streamlined
is crucial to businesses keen to keep their ecosystem reliable
Words | Steve Fitton, Suzo Happ, UK
Below: Suzo Happ’s
CashComplete
Connect software
platform automates
the entire payment
process, from
initial payment
to reconciliation
Right: The
CashComplete
RCS-700 reduces
working capital,
increases speed
and accuracy in
processing cash,
and increases
security both for
employees and
the cash itself
Consider the journey
a note takes from the
hand of a customer to an
organization’s bank account.
What if an operator could track that
note throughout its entire journey
in real time?
Within every organization lies a
unique internal payment ecosystem,
a complex, interconnected network of
hardware, software and back-office
systems. When that ecosystem is
fully functioning, it enables an
organization to understand its
payment positions in real time,
protect payments from shrinkage
and maintain accurate records
of transactions. In other words, a
fully functioning ecosystem allows
operators to track each payment in
real time as it travels through the
payment management process.
Unfortunately for most
organizations, the payment
ecosystem is not fully functioning,
resulting in narrow gaps of cash
exposure. These gaps allow the
organization to lose track of the
payments travelling through it. At
best, these lost payments are simply
misclassified on paper and result in
the misallocation of resources or the
missed opportunity for robust and
accurate data collection. At worst,
these payments disappear forever
through error or shrinkage.
Gaps can exist for many
reasons. For some operators – despite
attempts to automate the payment
management process as much as
possible – there is still a significant
amount of pencil and paper manual
entry and reconciliation. Manual
processes are ripe with error and
at high risk of shrinkage through
process gaps that allow physical
exposure of the payment medium.
For other operators, automation
has been achieved but in a piecemeal
fashion built up over time where
various pieces of the ecosystem –
from hardware to software to backoffice
systems – have been integrated
one by one, often from different
manufacturers. While better than
manual processes, the different
pieces of the ecosystem do not
communicate well with one another.
Bridge programs can be created to
aid in communication within the
ecosystem, but they can be laborintensive,
costly to create and
subject to error.
Intelligent connectivity
When hardware, software and backoffice
systems begin to speak to each
other, the gaps in an organization’s
payment ecosystem begin to close.
One step in the process knows what
to expect from the previous step.
Validation, reconciliation and
accuracy are assured and no
payment is left untracked.
Intelligent connectivity is
precisely what Suzo Happ had
in mind when creating the vision
for its CashComplete Connect
software platform.
This software automates the
entire payment process, from initial
payment to reconciliation. Hardware,
software and back-office systems are
integrated to give users complete,
real-time visibility of their payment
management operations. Armed
with access to reliable, timely
and actionable payment data,
transportation providers can
optimize on-site, route and corporatelevel
productivity and service, reduce
working capital and improve cash
shrink due to errors and theft.
Consider using this type of
technology with intelligent cash
boxes, for example. These boxes can
store both the payment machine’s
identity and the cash box contents,
which are then transferred
automatically via RFID to a backoffice
bulk-processing system that
processes and consolidates cash
ready for banking. The automatic