Discover our latest AI-powered innovations around faster payments, smarter workflows, and real-time visibility.Learn more →
An invoicing API allows companies to create, send, manage, and reconcile invoices, as well as track related payments end to end. In lieu of handling invoices across different software tools, companies managing a high volume of invoices can automate these workflows with a dedicated API.
For example, suppose you run Total Shipping, a growing transportation company with services across the US. Your finance and operations teams often struggle to create and send invoices, as well as track payments, because they currently manage the process across multiple systems. Ultimately, in order to continue scaling, these teams need the ability to track every invoice-related payment from bank statement to reconciled invoice in a single place. An invoicing API can help Total Shipping keep up with their growing invoice count.
Fortune 1000 companies—and other larger businesses that send and receive a high volume of invoices from other businesses—would benefit from an invoicing API. Online marketplaces, as well as industries like transportation, supply chain, and logistics, as well as service providers and large scale retail/ecommerce require a programmatic way to manage invoices and corresponding payments.
How does an Invoicing API work?
An invoicing API should serve an organization comprehensively, meaning coverage for both accounts receivable (sending invoices and getting paid), and accounts payable (managing incoming invoices and paying out).
Companies like Total Shipping require the following abilities:
For Accounts Receivable (AR)
- To generate invoices
- To match payments received against existing invoices
- Generate reporting
For Accounts Payable
- To manage incoming invoices
- To match outgoing payments to existing invoices
- Generate reporting
This documentation provides an example of how a company leveraging an invoicing API might create a counterparty, draft an invoice, and share an invoice with the counterparty.
Try Modern Treasury
See how smooth payment operations can be.
Learn
Explore the fundamentals behind back office finance processes and the accounting principles underlying them.
BAI2 files are a cash management reporting standard. They are widely accepted by banks across the United States for exchanging data regarding balances and transactions.
Bank reconciliation is the process of verifying the completeness of a transaction through matching a company’s balance sheet to their bank statement.
A banking API is software that facilitates a digital connection between a company and a bank.
The term "cash position" pertains to the quantity of cash or assets that can be readily converted to cash, held by an individual, company, or financial institution at any given moment.
Continuous accounting is the ongoing process of updating a business’s general ledger with reconciled bank statement transactions as soon as they become available.
The Flow of Funds is the movement of money in and out of bank accounts.
ISO 20022 files are a collection of XML-based schemas which standardize any type of financial message.
An invoicing API allows companies to create, send, manage, and reconcile invoices, as well as track related payments end to end.
An MT940 (Message Type 940) file is a detailed SWIFT statement that provides information about account transactions.
Month-end close is a critical process where the accounting team reviews and records financial transactions to close out the month.
The National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) is responsible for overseeing the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network, which is used to send money electronically between banks throughout the United States.
NACHA files are the standardized file format that banks use to initiate and manage batches of ACH payments. These files help banks execute large volumes of ACH payments through The Clearing House (TCH) and Federal Reserve.
Payment operations is an umbrella term that refers to the entire lifecycle of money movement for a company.
While both are essential for managing online transactions, there are several differences between payment processors vs. payments gateways.
Recoupment refers to the recovery of spent or lost funds, especially in business operations.
Revenue recognition is a key accounting principle in which a company records its revenue as it earns it, not necessarily when paid for.
Two options for financial transaction settlement—differing in both speed and style—here, we’ll look at how both Net Settlement and Gross Settlement work in action.
Treasury Management Systems (TMS) are software applications that serve to help businesses simplify their payment operations by automatically tracking things like cash flow, assets, investments, and more.
Incoming payment details are notifications that a company is going to receive a payment it didn’t originate—meaning the receiving funds were not initially requested.
Payment controls help accounts payable (AP) departments avoid losing money due to fraud, late payment fees, and other errors. They are a necessary part of a company’s overall payment operations to keep payments secure, accurate, and authorized.
Account-to-Account (A2A) banking, sometimes also called Me-to-Me banking, is the transfer of funds from one account to another account.
Asset risk management is essentially a fusion of asset management and risk management.
Batch processing is a method of processing various types of transactions. As the name suggests, transactions are processed in a group or “batch.”
In business terms, float refers to the time delay between the movement of funds from one account to another.
Cash forecasting is a way for companies to look at “cash in” vs. “cash out” for a business over a window of time.
Cash management is the monitoring and maintaining of cash flow to ensure that a business has enough funds to function.
Cash pooling is a centralized cash management tool that companies with multiple subsidiaries sometimes use to optimize the cash balances of all legal entities.
IBAN, or an International Bank Account Number, makes it easier and faster for banks to process cross-border financial transactions.
Liquidity management provides visibility into cash positions over past, present, and future dates and provides an overview of the financial health of a business.
Treasury management is the act of managing a company’s daily cash flows and larger-scale decisions when it comes to finances.
Popular in the banking and finance world, penny tests are a simple way to verify the validity of a bank account or bank integration, prior to a large finance transaction taking place.
Identity Verification APIs allow businesses to streamline the process of checking the identities of new users by automatically, and in some cases instantly, verifying their provided identifying information.