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Visa (NYSE:V) will launch a pilot for its new solution, called Visa AR Manager, that’s designed to make the virtual card acceptance process simpler for commercial merchants, the payments giant said on Monday.
AR Manager, which will be available for limited pilot in November, aims to address merchants’ pain-points directly as it relates to virtual card acceptance.
In doing so, the feature essentially will automate the virtual card transaction process by retrieving card account details, initiating the authorization and clearing steps on the supplier’s behalf, and then providing meaningful and timely reconciliation data to close out invoices in the supplier’s Enterprise Resource Planning system.
The move comes as more businesses have turned to virtual cards as the preferred method for processing accounts payable. Indeed, some 84% of commercial merchants cited getting paid more quickly as a key reason for utilizing virtual cards as a preferred acceptance mechanism, Visa said, citing a recent study from the Institute of Commercial Payments.
Availability to AR Manager will expand more broadly into 2024.