INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT: Paymerang Sees Exponential Growth in Higher Education Industry

Over the past five years, Paymerang has become a prominent Accounts Payable (AP) Automation provider for the higher education industry—rapidly increasing its market share in public, private, and community colleges and universities across the U.S., including Loyola Marymount University, High Point University, Randolph-Macon College, Drake University, and Austin Peay State University.

Paymerang has seen exponential growth in the higher education sector, enjoying a 406% increase in the last six years, and has processed billions of dollars in supplier payments to institution vendors. Most recently, one of the oldest colleges in the United States outsourced Paymerang to provide a fully integrated payment solution for their institution–enabling them to serve their vendors better through more payment options and enhanced vendor support.

Partnering with higher education associations has bolstered Paymerang’s standing in the industry. The company is a member of 6 higher education associations, including Community College Business Officers, Kansas Independent College Association, South Caroline Independent Colleges and Universities, Georgia Independent College Association, the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, and Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas. Paymerang is proudly endorsed by 4 partner associations including the Coalition for College Cost Savings, the Association of Business Administrators of Christian Colleges, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

“Business offices play a significant role in the future of education, and it’s our responsibility to empower higher ed AP departments with technology that helps them work efficiently and effectively,” said Paymerang CEO Nasser Chanda. “Together, we can overcome some of education’s biggest challenges—faculty staffing, student enrollment, and academic performance—so that students can thrive.”

One of the major challenges hindering business offices, especially in higher education, is manual, paper-based accounting processes. Around 84% of the typical AP practitioner’s day is spent on manual tasks1, which are time-consuming and highly inefficient. Paymerang’s holistic AP Automation solution streamlines the Accounts Payable process. It saves teams thousands of hours annually, allowing accounting teams to focus on more student-facing activities and projects while exploring new ways to run their schools more strategically and profitably.

Like other businesses, colleges and universities are huge targets for payments fraud. One of the key challenges facing higher education institutions is securing their staff and students from email threats like phishing attacks and business email compromise2. Paymerang provides increased security benefits for higher education users through encrypted account data and multi-factor authentication. Internally, Paymerang uses security measures to help stop hundreds of fraud attacks against clients and has saved organizations millions of dollars. Lastly, partnering with Paymerang provides access to Positive Pay, an automated cash-management service used to deter check fraud, which can protect checks for tuition, refunds, and more.

Paymerang also helped higher education finance teams navigate tremendous disruption at the start of the pandemic by launching Paymerang CARES in April 2020. After Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Paymerang was able to help our higher education clients quickly disburse CARES Act payments digitally to students with zero disruption to their existing process. Through this program, over 29,000 students across the U.S. received their funds more quickly and more securely, and 88% of all payments were distributed electronically.

During this time, Paymerang’s advanced platform created business continuity for AP teams. With AP Automation in place, finance teams effectively worked remotely, ensuring that vendors, students, and faculty members remained top priorities.

Another major challenge for higher education finance teams is interoffice communication, especially at larger institutions. It’s very difficult to obtain timely invoice approvals, resulting in late payments and a greater risk of fraud. Paymerang’s Invoice Automation, which was created with our education clients in mind, uses artificial intelligence to capture, read and route invoices, giving your team a fail-safe electronic paper trail. Also, Paymerang’s Invoice Automation saves departments 80% more time on invoice processing.

As an AP Automation provider, Paymerang understands that higher education AP practitioners are busier than ever and need more time to focus on student needs. Implementing Paymerang’s AP Automation solutions take less than 10 hours and works with various ERPs, including Banner, Colleague, Jenzabar, Great Plains, Workday, Oracle, and Blackbaud.

Along with that, Paymerang provides white-glove customer service, unlike similar AP automation providers. More than 100 U.S.-based customer representatives can answer inquiries from vendors and AP teams, typically within 2 hours or less, guaranteeing that your organization’s AP staff doesn’t take the brunt of obligations slowing them down.

Paymerang values its higher education clients and is excited about the rapid growth within this vertical. Business offices play a critical role in education and are the building blocks of student success and an enhanced student experience.


Sources:

1IOFM: How End-to-End AP Automation Drives Efficiency and Business Growth

2Expert Insights: Email Security for Higher Education: How Can Colleges and Universities and Colleges Protect Staff and Students from Threats?

Brian Cook

Brian Cook

As Vice President at Paymerang, Brian Cook brings over 19 years of experience working with various educational procurement and consortia programs designed to lower the cost of delivering high quality education, provide efficiency gain, and protect institutions against the proliferation of fraud. He leads the partnerships with several associations and coalition procurement programs for Paymerang and will identify as well as sharing best practices on reducing exposure to common compliance and fraud problems that plague institutions today.