Each supplier is its own economic organism, with its own cost of capital, cash flow dynamics, and appetite for liquidity. Some are multinationals in their own right, flush with cheap capital. Others are mid-sized manufacturers, squeezed by rising interest rates and unpredictable demand. Many are small businesses, living invoice to invoice, teetering on the edge of insolvency. A specific business’s needs—especially when it comes to how quickly they get paid—are anything but standard. Yet the system treats them as though they are.
Approvals and payments, even in today’s digitised world, remain surprisingly manual. Just getting an invoice approved can be an ordeal—riddled with inconsistencies, reliant on human memory, and often requiring relentless chasing across departments. Even when approved, layers of bureaucracy stand in the way of a cleared payment.
Changing any of this is harder than it should be. One month, the Treasurer may decree that cash must be preserved, triggering a company-wide effort to delay payments and stretch terms. The next, Procurement might shift focus to improving supplier relationships and securing better prices—requiring faster payments and more goodwill. But the corporate tangle of misaligned incentives, outdated systems, and manual workarounds makes turning strategy into execution more like steering a supertanker with a teaspoon. Policy shifts get lost in the operational gloop, and the resulting inertia makes change slow, expensive, and deeply frustrating for everyone involved. The downstream effect is a system suppliers can’t rely on—where cash flow becomes unpredictable, relationships are strained, and the very businesses that keep the wheels turning are left guessing when, or even if, they’ll be paid.
When early payment is offered, it’s often done in a blunt, transactional manner: a fixed discount, a single offer, take it or leave it. There is no nuance and no sensitivity to a supplier’s particular situation. The result? A system that pleases no one. Corporates fail to capture the financial upside of tailored working capital strategies. Suppliers, large and small, find the process opaque and inequitable. In theory, there’s money on the table for everyone. In practice, it’s left there, untouched.
It is a problem born not of bad intent but of an industrial logic that has outlived its usefulness—an analogue solution in a digital age, crying out for reinvention.
There’s nothing wrong with the intent behind B2B payment practices. Businesses want to pay suppliers fairly, protect their cash, and support long-term relationships. But somewhere between intention and execution, things fell apart.
SmartOptimise and SmartAccept are two AI-powered solutions from Previse that are designed to close that gap—by understanding the data behind supplier and customer relationships, and transforming it into insight that makes better decisions not only possible, but automatic.
SmartOptimize begins where the real complexity lives—in the messy, inconsistent AP and AR data scattered across systems, regions, and business units. It brings structure to that chaos, harmonising fragmented data into a single, reliable foundation. Then it does something most systems never attempt: it makes sense of it.
It builds detailed, living profiles of every supplier and customer—capturing not just who they are, but how they behave. Are they quick to accept early payments? Do they struggle with cash flow? Are they reliable payers, or showing signs of strain?
Once this intelligence is in place, SmartOptimise allows treasury, procurement, and finance teams to simulate real-world scenarios. Want to see the impact of changing payment terms for one supplier group but not another? Curious where extending credit might drive more sales? Need to preserve cash this quarter without risking supplier relationships? You don’t have to guess. The system shows you.
And when you’re ready to act, SmartAccept generates everything needed for execution—across regions, categories, or individual supplier/customer groups. A strategy that once took months of coordination and still didn’t land cleanly can now be tested, tuned, and deployed in a matter of days.
Connecting your supplier and customer-facing teams with the right information, at the right moment, with the right offer.
It’s not just faster. It’s fairer. Because in a world where businesses are navigating wildly different realities, treating them the same isn’t equality—it’s indifference.
The cost of inaction isn’t just inefficiency—it’s lost opportunity. Increased sales. Missed discounts. Strained supplier relationships. And ultimately, a system that delivers less value to your business.
As pressure builds for companies to improve cash management, support supplier ecosystems, and comply with more transparent payment practices, now is the time to challenge how things have always been done.
Because in a world where every decision counts, outdated systems aren’t just holding you back—they’re costing you hard won cash.
