Accounts Payable Professionals: Cambridge Mercantile Group

I spoke with Christopher Morris, Regional Director at Cambridge Mercantile Group at IOFM's Accounts Payable Conference in Las Vegas in October. Cambridge Mercantile Group offers Global Payments services and they promise that they can convert your outgoing paper check payments into electronic payments 75 percent in 90 days.

Christopher, what sets Cambridge Mercantile Group apart from other A/P services?

Christopher Morris

Our view of the scope of AP Automation is that it’s an end-to-end process with the front-end focused on invoice intake processes and the back-end on payment fulfillment and reconciliation processes. While we have partnerships with front-end invoice automation companies, Cambridge truly focuses on the back-end; essentially payments automation and the enablement of vendors to receive electronic payments.

What sets us apart from other AP Automation services is our guarantee to convert 75% percent of an organizations’ paper-based payables to virtual card or ACH payments in 90 days. Our “Vendorin” portal serves as a supplier network and contains over 10 million active supplier profiles that include the most up-to-date company/contact information, banking details, preferred method of electronic payment and their remittance format and delivery preference. The network is dynamic in that suppliers actively change their profiles as their business information and banking relationships change.

Is Cambridge Mercantile Group an American company?

Cambridge Mercantile Group is a global company with our world headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Our US headquarters are on 1359 Broadway, New York, NY as well as 7 regional US office locations. In all, the company has 20 office locations around the world including the UK and Australia.

How many clients do you have in North America? and Abroad?

Approaching 15,000 clients worldwide

How long has Cambridge Mercantile Group been in business?

Cambridge has been in business 20 years.

Is there a particular ERP system that works best with your product?

We have clients using most of the major ERP systems (Oracle, SAP, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft) as well as many of the industry specific ERP systems. They all work well with our product. We also have many clients using “odd ball” financial systems and even major ERP systems that have been highly customized which sometimes makes it difficult for them to implement payment solutions from banks which are often less flexible than our platform. Our product is also a very good fit for these situations.

Do you offer outsourcing/offshoring services of any kind?

Our focus is on the conversion of B2B AP checks to electronic payments (card and ACH) and the handling of the subsequent payment and remittance files. So, the outsourcing we offer is related to the initial outreach and conversion of AP vendors from receiving checks to receiving card and/or ACH payments then the ongoing interaction with vendors to ensure that they keep their electronic payment information up-to-date over time as well as delivering remittance information to each vendor in their preferred format and through their preferred delivery channel. All of our outsourcing services related to vendor outreach and conversion to electronic payments as well as vendor management and remittance delivery is performed on-shore.

Is access to a "supplier network" part of your services?

Yes, access to the Vendorin Supplier Network is a key component of our service offering.

For more information on Cambridge Mercantile Group, please visit their website: http://www.cambridgefx.com/