Benzinga | May 11, 2021 09:05AM EDT

Bottomline, Autobooks Announce Partnership

Bottomline (NASDAQ:EPAY), a leading provider of financial technology that makes business payments simple, smart and secure, and Autobooks, an embedded invoicing, payments and accounting platform for small businesses, today announced a partnership to deliver innovative and essential digital solutions designed to help small businesses thrive. Autobooks' invoicing, receivables and accounting tools will be combined with Bottomline's Digital Banking IQ platform, enabling financial institutions to deliver a unified digital experience and a comprehensive suite of integrated payments and cash lifecycle solutions, purpose-built for small businesses.



The partnership will leverage Bottomline's market-leading digital banking platform and Autobooks' innovative approach to helping financial institutions attract and retain small businesses, by providing essential backoffice services and becoming their system of record. The collaborative effort will offer banks and credit unions a highly differentiated solution to deepen engagement and grow small business relationships. It reflects Bottomline's commitment to working with fintech collaborators, like Autobooks, that are partnering with financial institutions to accelerate innovation and deepen customer relationships.

The more than 30 million US small businesses represent a $370 billion1 opportunity for financial institutions. Yet failure to serve the unique needs of over-stretched small businesses leaves banks exposed to disintermediation from an evolving landscape of tech-led solutions. According to Aite Group2 less than 10% of financial institutions deliver digital services tailored to small business needs including invoicing, receivables, accounting and cash flow management. The addition of Autobooks enables Bottomline's current and future banking customers to further expand their offerings and comprehensively address the needs of this underserved segment.

Even the most proficient banks and credit unions are challenged to find new and innovative ways to engage small businesses with agile, practical approaches that meet market expectations for speed and simplicity. Integrating the Autobooks solution within an existing technology stack requires minimal lift from the financial institution and offers a highly efficient means of expanding revenue opportunities and deepening relationships. For small businesses, Autobooks enrollment is entirely online and takes only minutes to complete.

"Addressing the fragmentation, friction, and excessive complexity in financial management for small businesses is an enormous opportunity for any financial institution," said Norm DeLuca, Managing Director, Banking Solutions, Bottomline. "Collaborating with Autobooks, we're helping banks address this opportunity and differentiate themselves digitally, with a seamless, end-to-end experience, from account opening and onboarding through banking and payments, and extending more deeply into the everyday financial management operations of small businesses."

Steve Robert, CEO Autobooks, added, "The battle for small business primacy is taking place online. Autobooks makes it simple for a small business to enroll, send invoices, and quickly accept online payments - directly from the financial institution's existing digital banking channels. Together with Bottomline, we are helping small businesses improve cashflow and enabling financial institutions to better compete for the next generation of digital customers."

"Small businesses spend more than $500 billion each year on accounting/bookkeeping, invoicing, bill payment and payment acceptances services from third-party providers, and many of them would consider obtaining these services from a bank," said Ron Shevlin, Managing Director of Fintech Research, Cornerstone Advisors. According to Shevlin, "In order to better compete with megabanks and the Big Tech firms who increasingly provide banking and lending services to small businesses, financial institutions must embed their services into small businesses' value chains. The collaboration between Bottomline and Autobooks is a great example of fintechs coming together to better serve small businesses."