Goodway Group

BACKGROUND

As a digital media provider and managed services programmatic partner, Goodway Group can designate and target an exact audience, timeframe, and media outlet to reach a very specific demographic in a specific local market. The use of advertising algorithms provides an even deeper level of targeted ad delivery as well as fraud detection. It allows them to hold a leading programmatic provider position in an industry that has shown exponential growth in the last decade.

Goodway fully manages media programs for their clients and serves as a partner to advertising agencies and advertisers. As a company offering this kind of advanced digital media savvy, the use of paper checks to pay vendors seemed contrary to their progressive business model. Nevertheless, many of the companies they worked with were still rooted in older business models associated with old-school print advertising. As such, they were used to receiving a paper check in the mail.

Additionally, with over 400 employees – most of which work remotely across over 40 states – they needed a payments solution that didn’t require signatures from the owner, yet still provided a solution to the different tax payments that can’t be accounted for through ACH or virtual cards.

Goodway knew they needed a way to do it all. They needed to move to a payments world where a “payment run” could be done from anywhere. They saw it was time to get away from transactional accounting and move to analysis, where they could add value. And they needed help building excitement and moving their vendors to electronic payments.

SOLUTION

The Edenred Pay Payment Automation Platform includes virtual cards, ghost cards, the Edenred Pay Network, ACH, and checks. With the variety of payment methods, Goodway was able to meet the needs of vendors, employees, and internal AP teams.

Rather than working with other payment providers that added on the services they needed as an afterthought, Edenred Pay came in as an expert in the space. They were able to implement a full-service platform that offered painless integration and quickly changed the landscape of account reconciliations.

Aside from the standard payment options provided through Edenred Pay, Goodway requested a couple  enhancements to address their specific needs. They needed the ability to insert documents into checks for tax payments. They also needed the ability to easily FedEx checks in order to meet unexpected deadlines.

“Implementation was painless and Edenred Pay has been able to easily accommodate all of our requests. From initial file upload through reconciliations, they have been right there to guide us seamlessly through every process.” – Kristy Jorgenson, Goodway Group Controller

RESULTS

Time Savings – The immediate benefit was not printing checks. Prior to using Edenred Pay’s Payment Automation Platform, Goodway had a designated AP employee who spent 15-20% of their time per week printing checks and doing manual reconciliations. Now, it takes less than an hour to process payment runs, allowing them to focus that employee’s time on more valuable projects. Reconciliations are almost completely automated, especially with the ghost card program. Vendors are getting information in advance which enhances communication surrounding payments and makes the entire tracking process easier. “Ghost card controls can be tailored to unique account uses with all receipts automatically reconciled. This feature has been amazing.”

Cost Savings – By not processing checks or facing stop payment issues, Goodway was able to significantly reduce bank fees. The increased revenue from virtual card rebates was also significant. “The rebate pays for the whole program. There is no way to find a downside to it.”

Another metric that Goodway tracks each month is the percentage of dollars paid through electronic methods. The first month they tracked just under 10% of dollars in electronic payments compared to the most recent month which was reported at 70% including virtual cards and ACH. Edenred Pay is also working to integrate a tailored API so eventually there will be zero manual processes, saving AP personnel an additional 2-3 hours per day.