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The State of Payment Operations 2023

Our third annual report explores the persistent gap between what new payments technology enables and how real companies manage money movement day-to-day.

A new era of payments is here but many B2B companies are struggling to catch up.

Clear needs, complex barriers

While most financial decision makers understand the need for modern payment operations, their companies are being held back, primarily by legacy infrastructure and operational inefficiencies.

Illustration of how legacy infrastructure and operational inefficiencies limit progress

Insights from 500+ financial leaders

To create this report, Modern Treasury drew upon our unique viewpoint into payment operations along with new data from an online survey conducted by The Harris Poll.

529 respondents

500-4999 employees

30 questions

Payment operations is an umbrella term for the entire lifecycle of a company’s money movement.

Initiating payments

Setting up approval processes

Tracking and attributing sent and received funds

Resolving payment failures and returns

Reconciling transactions to bank statements

Booking payments to the general ledger

Regulation compliance at each step

Key Takeaways

Old-school payment operations are a pain point, especially bloated tech stacks and manual reconciliation.

6+ systems

Respondents use an average of 6.6 systems (e.g., bank portals, spread-sheets, treasury management tools, ERP and accounting solutions, communication tools, etc.) to manage payment operations.

67%

of respondents agree that it is hard to get a complete financial view of money movement across multiple bank accounts.

Operational lag is costing organizations time and money.

70%

of decision makers said managing payments takes too long from start to finish.

64%

of decision makers agree their finance team wastes a lot of time on payment operations.

An investment in modern payment operations is a priority with clear returns for businesses.

92%

of respondents said improving payment operations was a priority of their company.

50% High-level priority, 42% Mid-level priority

Watch our discussion of this year's report

Join leaders from Modern Treasury as they dig into key findings from the 2023 data.

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