Stopping the Leakage: How Catch! Keeps Bill Payments Online and Secure for Hiveage Customers

In the world of small business invoicing, efficiency and speed are critical. However, despite the rise of digital payment methods, many small businesses still find themselves dealing with the hassle and delays associated with getting paid by paper checks - even when they think they're paying their bills online. This leakage of online customer payments turning into offline checks can strain cash flow, increase manual workloads, and pose security risks. Our recent partnership with Hiveage, a digital invoicing application, leverages our innovative Catch! electronic lockbox solution and aims to address these issues head-on, providing a seamless and secure digital payment option for small businesses.

The Challenge: Leakage into Offline Checks

Despite the convenience of online invoicing platforms, a significant number of payments initiated through these systems start out as electronic and end up as paper checks. This happens because many online bank bill pay services convert digital payment requests into physical checks. For small businesses using Hiveage, this meant dealing with unexpected delays, manual reconciliation, and the inherent risks of paper checks, such as fraud and insufficient funds. Not anymore!

“Market data shows that billions of paper checks are still being sent each year in the U.S. This persistence of paper checks creates cash flow challenges and operational friction for small businesses, who must divert valuable time and resources to process these payments manually. For Hiveage’s 50,000 entrepreneur customers in the U.S., more than half of their invoices are paid offline, often involving physical checks. This slows down the payment process and also impacts cash flow management.” - Shai Stern, co-chairman and CEO of CheckAlt

The Solution: Catch! Electronic Lockbox

Our Catch! electronic lockbox solution offers a powerful remedy to this problem. By integrating with Hiveage’s invoicing platform, Catch! keeps payments online, leveraging Mastercard’s account-to-account Remote Payment and Presentment Service (RPPS) network. This integration allows small businesses to offer their customers the option to pay invoices through a single, trusted digital interface—either via their bank’s bill pay portal or another provider—eliminating the need for paper checks.

Key Benefits of Catch! for Hiveage Users:

Faster Payments: By reducing reliance on paper checks, Catch! enables small businesses to receive payments much quicker. Our recent analysis indicates that businesses can get paid up to 70% faster than they would with paper checks. (In fact, one recent test resulted in a piece of mail taking 43 days to travel from Miami to Dallas.)

Improved Cash Flow: Faster payments mean better cash flow management. Small businesses can access their funds more quickly, allowing for more effective financial planning and operations.

Reduced Manual Workload: Keeping payments online minimizes the need for manual reconciliation of paper checks, freeing up time for small business owners to focus on other critical aspects of their business.

Enhanced Security: Digital payments are more secure than paper checks. By keeping transactions within secure digital channels, Catch! reduces the risk of fraud and errors associated with paper checks.

The Partnership Impact

Hiveage’s integration with our Catch! electronic lockbox solution, powered by Mastercard RPPS, is a game-changer for small businesses. This partnership simplifies the payment process, accelerates cash flow, and brings a host of advantages that directly address the pain points associated with paper checks.

Prabhath Sirisena, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Hiveage, emphasizes the significance of this collaboration: “We’re thrilled to collaborate with CheckAlt to enable our SMB customers to get paid faster and avoid the hassle of paper checks. A key problem our SMBs face is the significant ‘leakage’ of their customers’ payments into offline checks. Adding online banking’s bill pay as a payment option on Hiveage invoices will help our SMBs avoid unwanted checks while gaining the speed available through digital payments.”

Joseph Zeltzer, SVP of Product Management at Mastercard North America, highlights the broader implications of this integration: “Getting paid quickly and securely continues to be a critical need for SMBs. Mastercard RPPS enables SMBs to get paid digitally through bank bill pay, reducing paper checks as a means of payments and improving visibility into cash flow. Together with CheckAlt and Hiveage, we’re helping bring more SMBs into the digital economy.”

Real-World Benefits

The benefits of this partnership are already affecting Hiveage users. Small businesses that previously struggled with delayed payments and the administrative burden of processing paper checks, now enjoy a more streamlined and efficient invoicing process. The ability to keep payments online speeds up the payment cycle and enhances overall business security and reliability.

For example, a Hiveage customer who once spent hours reconciling paper checks, can now handle payments more efficiently through the Catch! solution. This transition has resulted in faster access to funds, reduced operational costs, and greater peace of mind knowing that their transactions are secure and less prone to fraud.

Stop the Leakage

Our partnership with Hiveage represents a significant step forward in stopping the leakage of customer bill payments into offline checks. By keeping bill pay online, small businesses can reduce delays, enhance security, and improve cash flow. As the digital economy continues to grow, solutions like Catch! are essential for helping small businesses thrive in an increasingly competitive landscape. With CheckAlt and Hiveage, small businesses have a powerful ally in their quest for faster, more secure, and more efficient payment processing.

If you’re looking to keep online bill payments online, contact us or learn more about Catch! today.