Payment Processing Update

Spring 2026

It’s Springtime!
See what is blooming this “Payments Season?”

Key business drivers are affecting our evolving payment environment where checks and electronic payments continue to coexist. Advances in lockbox/remittance automation produce more value for the bank and your treasury clients.

In the payment ecosystem, it’s the focus on the growth of three key business drivers:

  • Choice

  • Speed

  • Data

Let’s dig into these drivers and see what emerges that will help you grow your payments/treasury portfolio and strengthen important banking/business relationships.

CHOICE

B2B companies have dozens of options for making payments from global payment platforms to industry specific portals to traditional ACH and checks. The result is the continued coexistence of paper and electronic payment channels. The challenge is how to navigate this multiple choice landscape to add value to your treasury payment products.

SPEED

Two factors affect speed in payment processing:
(1) Velocity of money  – how quickly can money  movement occur for deposit credit;
(2) Velocity of Data – how quickly can remittance information post to A/R systems.
Both factors help B2B companies manage cash flow and liquidity – key treasury benchmarks.

DATA

Specifically, the three elements required to complete the Order-to-Post cycle for receivables processing: (1) Who Paid; (2) How much was paid; (3) What was the payment for.

Lockbox and its companion integrated receivables intersect with all three key business drivers and is the perfect “data bridge” between check and electronic payment sources. The expertise and strengths that lockbox brings to efficient payment processing are significant. A short list includes:

  • Best practices/controls

  • Managing payment Exceptions

  • A/R System Interfaces

  • Data delivery & connectivity

Note: None are specific to a check payment; All focus on the value of a robust B2B payment processing solution resulting in a “Payment Data Hub and delivery platform”.

Now, let’s take a look at how lockbox can turn a common payment option for B2B businesses into a greatly improved payment process and A/R posting experience.

BILL PAY CONVERSION

A good example of lockbox’s “data bridge” value is the BillPay ecosystem. Today, BillPay transactions straddle both paper and electronic payment rails. The fact is neither method is an efficient data delivery source. There are two primary reasons: (1) The printed check version provides little if any “remittance data” needed to post to an A/R system. And worse, they are notorious for inaccurate/bad data if included at all; (2) The option of converting the check to an electronic payment transaction has challenges too as each BillPay provider (CheckFree, RPPS, I-Pay, others) each have proprietary data formats that need to be translated to be useful. And the electronic transaction carries the same “bad/inaccurate data”. It just arrives quicker!

TMR CITATION™ i-Remit has added a comprehensive integrated BillPay Check Conversion solution to complement existing electronic payment data consolidation and delivery features (ACH, merchants, 3rd party payment portals, other). The result is a powerful payment and A/R tool for improving straight-through processing efficiency and greatly reducing exception handling activities in the receivables processing cycle.

The TMR Process includes collaboration between the bank, your client and the BillPay provider network. The basic workflow includes:

  • TMR contacts the BillPay provider(s) on behalf of the bank/client to “turn off” the printing and sending of paper checks and convert them to an electronic transaction.

  • The electronic transactions are imported to the TMR CITATION™ i-Remit platform and presented for review and “assignment”. This step allows the bank/client to clean up any missing or inaccurate data needed for auto posting to A/R.

  • he assignment process replaces the inaccurate data with accurate data and is stored for future transactions which are then automatically assigned without operator intervention (usually after the first billing cycle after conversion).

  • Assigned transactions are automatically passed through to the daily payment database and consolidated (checks, ACH, other) for data delivery and auto posting. In addition, the payment data is available for online viewing and archive.

  • The deposit for the converted transactions is a lump-sum ACH credit the following business day.

The automated BillPay Conversion module is just one component of CITATION™ i-Remit’s focus on consolidated payment data delivery adding to the value of a “payment hub”, shown in the diagram above.

TMR has been helping financial institutions of all size navigate and thrive in an evolving payment environment. Especially community banks. Today this includes over 120 TMR customers from de Novo to $50 billion in assets. Use the navigation at the top of the page to learn more about TMR’s CITATION™ i-Remit lockbox/integrated receivables solution. Whether your focus is on healthcare, HOA/Property Management, Public Sector, general C & I or other, TMR has 30 plus years of experience in remittance automation across most every industry segment.

We couple this long-time experience with our unique Business Builder™ Service providing sales, marketing and consulting resources (at no cost) to support your Treasury selling efforts. And a “partnering” culture to help grow deposits and top-line revenue.

Let’s start a conversation about how lockbox will add value to your institution’s business plans and goals. Contact me anytime at 407-830-2432 or mreynolds@tmrsolutions.com.

Mike is a senior sales/management professional. His in-depth knowledge of payment processing markets, lockbox operations, e-payment solutions and integrated receivables reporting is highly regarded in the banking industry.