Dynamics Corner

Episode 351: In the Dynamics Corner Chair: Thankful for Business Central Payment Solutions!

• Wade and Kate • Season 3 • Episode 351

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🦃 We have a lot to be thankful for, especially payment solutions for Business Central, like UST Pay, which make our lives a whole lot easier!
 
Join Kris and Brad in their enlightening conversation with Wade Tetsuka, CPA, and Kate Coffey-Bacon as they engage in a lively discussion on personal experiences, community networking, and the ins and outs of payment processing with U.S. Transaction Corp. 🌐
 
👂🏽Keep an ear out for these highlights:
 
💳ACH vs. Credit Cards: Discover why ACH payments are the better option in payment solutions, offering lower fees and greater efficiency. 
 
💰Business Central Integration: Learn how UST Pay's seamless integration with Business Central can save time and reduce errors. 
 
👨🏽‍🏫Specialized Teams: Understand the power of having a team that knows the Microsoft Dynamics platform inside out.
 
🫂Client Engagement: Learn about the importance of direct client interaction and the flexibility of supporting multiple payment gateways. 
 
🏩Community & Entrepreneurship: Wade shares his passion for community engagement and fostering entrepreneurship, emphasizing the value of workforce development. 
 
Join the conversation here and tell us what you think!

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#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCorner

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Dynamics Corner. I want to get paid, don't you? I'm your co-host, chris.

Speaker 2:

And this is Brad. This episode was recorded on November 27th 2024. Chris, chris, chris. Who doesn't like to get paid?

Speaker 1:

Paid on time.

Speaker 2:

And paid on time. Who doesn't want to make it easy for people to pay them? If you have a business right, it's a good way to get paid. And with us today. I'm hungry after this episode. You know what I'm craving. I'm craving some coffee bacon like bacon flavored coffee, a coffee flavored bacon. With us today. We had the opportunity to talk with Wade and Kate from USTPay to learn all about payment processing within Business Central welcome to another episode ready two, three, one. Look at my.

Speaker 4:

Jack Nicklaus hat guys oh, yes, yes we gotta talk about that.

Speaker 1:

That must have been an amazing experience on many levels. Yes, yes, you got to talk about that. I don't know if you saw my LinkedIn post it must have been an amazing experience.

Speaker 2:

It was amazing On many levels.

Speaker 1:

How did that work out Like, how did that all happen to have you know someone as a guest?

Speaker 4:

How did that come about? Yeah, so a good friend of mine, he made a pretty sizable donation to the Nicholas Foundation, which they support like child health care. So the Miami Children's Hospital is named after Nicholas. So it's called Nicholas Children's Center in Miami or Children's Hospital. But a friend of mine, he made a pretty sizable donation. I don't know how much, but I guess you know we can all guess how much it might be.

Speaker 4:

But that was yeah. So he got an invite to bring like seven guests of his. So there were eight of us and we were at Jack Nicholas's house and his wife, barbara, was there, of course, and so it was the two of them, jack and Barbara, and eight of us. So it happened to be eight guys because we're all golfers and all avid golfers. In fact, I told my wife about a month before. I said you know, by the way, I'm going to Jack Nicholas's house for dinner and she goes, I can be your assistant, I mean, I can carry your bags. I'd love to go with you. You know, I'm thinking. My wife doesn't even golf. Why does she want to go to dinner with Jack Nicklaus? And I go. You know it's Jack Nicklaus, the PGA golfer. You know the very famous PGA golfer. She said oh, I thought you were talking about Jack Nicholson.

Speaker 1:

She says okay, that's right, you go ahead. So she was suddenly not interested, but that's how it happened.

Speaker 2:

I saw the photos that you had shared and I do have to ask I was impressed by the private jet that it looked like you took. That must have been an experience.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that wasn't provided by Jack. That was actually the guy that is a friend of ours who made the big donation. He's also like on, has kind of a NetJets type of thing, okay, type of subscription, so so that's so. We hopped on his quote-unquote uh net jets plane.

Speaker 2:

you know his oh, that must have been an experience on its own, I mean I, I'm not a golfer.

Speaker 2:

I've doing what you know, working in consulting and implementations for 20 plus years. I early on and not so much recently, because I think everybody knows I had always been offered the opportunity for foursomes, for events and, you know, tournaments, and I've always had to climb because I never went golfing. But wait, I think maybe you should come visit and you could teach me how to golf OK On a Saturday, real quick, you should come visit and you could teach me how to golf Okay.

Speaker 3:

On a Saturday real quick. I mean is it something that? How much time do you?

Speaker 2:

have. Well, I mean, there are plenty of golf courses around me, so I think you would have a lot of fun and I could just tag along with you and learn.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So, what's yours.

Speaker 4:

What is your like? Sport what is your?

Speaker 2:

Right now I don't do anything. It's exercise. I used to hike. I like to run, I don't. You know. I'm thinking I want to play pickleball. Many people who golf told me at this point that I probably shouldn't pick it up because I may not have the patience for it and it takes a lot of time.

Speaker 1:

So I don't know, I'm not a golfer but yeah, your hiking opportunity went away since you moved to a state that's mostly flat.

Speaker 2:

That is why some of my activities had recently changed, because the environment had also changed, which is why I think it'd be perfect for Wade to come spend some time and and help me with my golfing game. Sounds like a plan.

Speaker 1:

Maybe in the next time we all see each other we'll tag along Wade no.

Speaker 2:

I often volunteer to drive the golf cart, Like I'll just drive the golf cart to get out there and enjoy what it's like and see what it's like Then.

Speaker 1:

I provide the drinks. Brad, you drive the cart and then I'll serve the drinks. Oh, ok, so you'll be the drink man.

Speaker 4:

Yes, well, speaking about that, a lot of people say golf is not even a sport and I would always dispute that about that. People, a lot of people say golf is not even a sport and I would always dispute that. But then somebody once said to me very recently said well, golf is the only activity where you can actually where you can drink and you know, participate in it. So that makes it not a sport. That was a tough one to argue, that is a tough one to argue.

Speaker 2:

I mean what?

Speaker 1:

what is?

Speaker 2:

this. What is a sport? I mean darts. Is darts a sport? People drink and they play darts.

Speaker 4:

That's true that there you go all right, so I'm back on again competition.

Speaker 2:

I'm trying to think fishing people who drink while they go fishing and fishing is considered a sport. So I think you have a clean way to argue this a little bit deeper that golf is a sport. There is some walking and you do have to swing the club, so it does require some physical ability to you know, swing the club at varying amounts of pressure to send the ball the distance that it needs to go. So I'm with you on it being a sport by the way.

Speaker 4:

Well, thank you for that argument that helps.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to use that in the future, excellent, excellent.

Speaker 4:

But I asked Kate if she had some pictures of all of us together, since we've had many conferences together and stuff like that, and she said, yeah, she's got some pictures. I don't know, maybe if you could ever show it as part of the part of the podcast, but Excellent, I think we will, kate.

Speaker 2:

If you'd send those over, we can put them in the video recording as well as on the episode page.

Speaker 3:

There's a drink in our hands in almost every one of them.

Speaker 1:

Just heads up. Nobody knows what's in it.

Speaker 2:

It could just be water just because there's a drink in your hand doesn't mean that the contents is poor, because I am on this mocktail kick and I will tell you some of these mocktails that I've been drinking are they taste better than a drink with alcohol in them, and I don't have the same effect with my sleep, because that's my latest craze is monitoring and sleep management with it.

Speaker 2:

So those drinks in my hand most likely will be a mocktail. But if you share those with us, maybe Chris can add them to the drinks too, right there?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, maybe Chris can post it up right there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we'll just blur it out now.

Speaker 3:

It's pretty good. I've got a couple of them that are that are pretty good.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. Please share them with us and we will share those as part of the episode as well.

Speaker 2:

But with that, wade, kate, thank you for taking the time to speak with us again. It's always a pleasure speaking with and seeing you. As Wade mentioned, we do get the opportunity to see each other quite a bit at various conference and, you know, even user group sessions, and we've all been there. So it's great to speak with you again and hear from you. But before we get into the conversation, I had many questions about UST and both of you. Before we get into that, do you mind telling us a little bit about?

Speaker 3:

yourselves Kate Sure. I will start Since I was on the podcast before I have gotten married with a last name change. So I am Kate Coffey-Bacon, vp of Marketing and Events at U transactions corporation. So I, um am at as many events, uh, conferences, meetups in the community as much as I can possibly be, building relationships, um, meeting new people, um. So that's probably where you know me.

Speaker 2:

Excellent Uh. Congratulations on the wedding and congratulations on a great marketing name because coffee bacon sounds like such an amazing drink. I mean people put baking and everything. I mean there's even bacon festivals, so coffee bacon sounds like a drink, or even coffee flavored bacon or bacon flavored coffee it's the best way to start your day. I think so too, and you have both bacon and coffee to start your day.

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

Wade.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, thanks. So, president and founder of US Transactions Corp. Started the company in 2009, and we are Microsoft ISV. We've built a solution on the app source called USTPay and it's like the only credit card ACH processing solution that gives you the freedom to choose from 120 different payment gateways and processes. I'm sure you're going to have some questions for me later about that.

Speaker 4:

So we've actually been in the Microsoft space ever since the very beginning, just never really publicized like be in corporate America and you know, like kind of go up that corporate ladder. That that was kind of my ambition from after I graduated college. And you know, I don't know, somewhere along the lines somebody slaps you across the face, right, some some type of reality sets in or whatever, and you realize maybe that's not the right thing and so, yeah, it eventually led me down the path of starting my own company, which is where we are today, and it's great to be where we are and to have this opportunity and to be in the Microsoft space. And kudos to you, brad and Chris, for doing what you do, really helping the whole Microsoft community to be the best in the ERP CRM space of any other solution. I mean.

Speaker 2:

I think that's what we're out to be is create a community of where we can all win no, it is and and thank you for that and it's strange, it is a great community in this space. It's a large community but it feels so small because it feels like everyone's connected and I like your point, that we all can be successful. So everybody working together and helping everybody is important because no one will always be all things to everyone, but everybody can be part of things to everyone and that can make up a whole. So I'm thankful for the community that we have and for products and companies such as yourself to help fill in where the feature-rich product of Business Central may have a need that isn't met, and to have the flexibility to have individuals or companies such as yours to be able to do that is great. But with that, you mentioned US Transaction Corp, payment processing.

Speaker 2:

What is US Transaction Corp and what is payment processing? I hear payment processing a lot. I hear of different apps and products, but sometimes I think a lot of people may hear the word or hear the term and not really fully understand what that means. But from the sense of a Business Central user or if you have other offerings that you support, what does that mean? What does that mean to someone? What does it give them?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, good question. So a Business Central user, let's say they need to collect payments from the customer, right, and a lot of times collecting the payment is done outside of Business Central. Somebody sends a check and it's deposited in the bank. Well, all that, that whole transaction process is done outside of business central. So I don't I guess I don't need to go through the details of what you have to do when you get a paper check in the mail, but you understand it's very manual and then at some point in the process somebody's got to enter the information into business central manually.

Speaker 4:

Um, but there's and same thing with like an ACH payment. It's like a payment that comes in, maybe into your bank, and you see it come in, but there's not much data about the transaction. So somebody has to do research about, well, what was this payment for? It may not exactly equal what the amount of the invoice, outstanding invoice was, and sometimes the ACH payment comes in from some like descriptor or some payer that is a little bit different in name or much different in name from what the name of your customer is in your Business Central accounts receivable or on the invoice. So I'm sure you guys can relate to this, since you guys have worked with a lot of business central clients.

Speaker 4:

But so all of this is like? So all of this is payments outside of business central and outside of the ERP. So I'm glad you asked the question about payments in the context of business central. So what we're trying to do, and what the other payment companies are trying to do also, is make all of that automated and seamless so that when the payment does come in, it is automatically posting against the outstanding receivable of the customer, without somebody, without a BC user, having to actually manually go into BC and go and record that somebody made the payment. No, it's automatically going to record that the payment was made, it's going to make the journal entry on the cash receipts journal, it's going to post it to the general ledger, to the right general ledger account, and all of this is done automatically. So that's one piece of it.

Speaker 4:

And the second piece of it, brad, is that when people talk about payments on the receivable side because that's the part we're on customer receivables a lot of times they think about just the credit card processing piece, the credit card processing piece.

Speaker 4:

But our solution we look at not just we look at it more holistically we want to look at not just the credit card processing but make the ACH or the direct bank transfer just as much an integral part of the solution as just credit card. So many of the payment providers they're not going to publicize or really promote like an ACH type of solution that's built into Business Central because there's not as much compensation involved with ACH payment Because, as you know, credit card processing the fees are like a lot higher. Right, you're talking about two and a half 3% and ACH payments it's a much, much smaller fraction of what that would be. But we hear the complaints a lot from customers, from Business Central users, that the cost of credit card payments is very high. And so you know we have no problem helping them to find other alternatives, like putting an ACH solution in there. That is part of our solution as well. That would eliminate the credit card processing fees entirely.

Speaker 1:

That's a good call out that the credit card fees are, you know, crazy high, you know, especially when you do a lot of high volume of credit cards. So the goal is really to shift to more ACH if possible right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we actually read a statistic I don't know what six, eight months ago that said that it was 80% of transactions in a company are non-credit card transactions, and so there's a lot of transaction opportunity that's being left, and we'd like to have a solution that is an answer to all of your payment needs, and that's a need.

Speaker 2:

That is interesting because go back to your point.

Speaker 2:

Wade With payment processing. Often that's what I thought of and what others think of as credit card processing, and then add that to your point that 80% of the payment processing is not credit cards. That's 20% of collections is done for credit card and then that other 80%. So if you're trying to automate a solution and if you're missing 80% of it, that's a big portion of it where, if you can pick up ACH because ACH is becoming more and more popular I have a lot of individuals that I talk with that that's what they prefer now is ACH. I'm thankful because I still don't even understand why in the United States we work with checks. But it's a strange piece, it's real. Say that again.

Speaker 1:

It's real, it is. I get a check once a month.

Speaker 3:

I'm like, wow, this is weird and you're also talking about manual processes that have a lot of room for error. You're talking about time. You know just time intensive processes. You know, like Wade mentioned going back and forth to your bank account, to Business Central. If it's integrated and all in the same place, it takes out a lot of that manual process. It eliminates the error, the opportunity for error there. So that's a solution that we're offering.

Speaker 2:

So your UST payment processing supports credit card payments from customers. It supports ACH payments from customers. Does it also support wire transfers, if someone wanted to pay by wire?

Speaker 4:

It does not support wire. We find that wire transfers tend to be a little less applicable to the higher volume, like day-to-day transactions, just because wire transfer fees go to their bank to initiate the wire, so it's very time consuming for them too. It's very rare that we see that.

Speaker 2:

I mean so just on day-to-day transactions, B2B there generally wouldn't be a need for a wire transfer, so that would stay in one of those edge cases where, as you had mentioned, I mean, I am asking just for clarification on which services are offered.

Speaker 2:

I know the cases that I've had to deal with a wire. There were edge cases where it's a one-off and, like you said, you had to run out in there, costly as it is. So maybe having to do that manual process is, you know, acceptable in that case. But I'm still stuck on this 80% outside.

Speaker 4:

Well, here's a good example, Brad and Christopher. So one of our clients recently, you know we recently implemented they have 600 checks a week that they're taking in. So just imagine like the manual nature of receiving 600 checks a week. So we said, look, let's try to get a portion of these or a large percent of these checks converted into ACH okay, where you can send out.

Speaker 4:

When you issue the invoice from Business Central, you're also sending out an email to the customer with a link, a secure link, to pay, where they'll receive the email from you with the invoice and it's being pushed out through Business Central through our USTPay app, with our USTPay app.

Speaker 4:

But the customer then receives the email, they can click on the link and then they can enter their banking information directly and securely. So it's not like it's not like even the banking information is coming directly into Business Central. It's going through our middleware, which is PCI compliant, and they'll just they'll capture the banking information and encrypt it before it gets put into Business Central, encrypted, before it gets put into Business Central. But what happens is now the customer is doing is now it becomes all electronic, now it becomes all automated, because the customer is making the payment. Once the payment is made, they've entered the credit, the banking information and Business Central is going to recognize oh okay, this payment came in and it was a bank payment and they're going to post it against the outstanding invoice, mark it as paid and then post it against the outstanding receivable in the cash receipts journal and then post it to the general ledger account.

Speaker 3:

And it's done.

Speaker 4:

No intervention from anybody in the accounting department. Nobody has to go to the bank to pick up or, I'm sorry, to the mailbox or to the office to pick up the checks and then take it to the bank to make a deposit or to start figuring out who is this check from. I mean, imagine the time that it takes to sometimes figure out who is this check even from and what is it for.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's even to go back and deposit it.

Speaker 2:

You know, first you have the check, you have to find the application, you post the application, then you have to take it and deposit it, whether it either be mobile deposit or if you go to the bank and you have to do the deposit in person. So there is an additional step. So the ACH I could see where it's a time saving as well as the cost savings you. So the ACH I could see where it's a time saving as well as the cost savings. You had mentioned the process of this. So within Business Central you have an extension that needs to be installed to connect to an external service that's yours. So all of the payment processing of the financial information is done in that PCI compliant connection that you have. Correct, that's correct. Is that my understanding? Yes, so that way that anybody who has a Business Central implementation, if they have security concerns about storing credit card or payment information, none of that is in Business Central, if I understand you correctly.

Speaker 4:

Right, that's right. None of that is in Business Central. So somebody pays with a credit card. They're going to enter their credit card information through that link. Microsoft Business Central doesn't even know what that full credit card date is. It doesn't even see it because it goes directly through our PCI-compliant middleware and it's called Spreedly actually, and that's what will vault the credit card data or the bank information and it will send back a token to be stored in Business Central and the token, if it gets stolen, nobody can do anything with the token, because the token is just a random 16-digit substitute number for the actual credit card or bank account number.

Speaker 2:

Excellent, excellent. When working through the implementations, we were talking about Business Central. Which versions of Business Central do you support? Do you support online Business Central? Online would be the latest. Do you support Business Central on-premises? If so, how far back to? Which version do you support? And even for those few that are still on Microsoft Dynamics Nav, do you have support for that as well? I know that's out of support and it's quite old, but there still are a few kicking around with that.

Speaker 4:

Yes, there's a few that are out there, so we go as far back as NAV 2017. 2017. And with Business Central, we do have customer situations where they're on-prem or cloud Mainly it's cloud only but we do have government contractors where, because of the work that they're doing, they have to have their systems on like basically private cloud or like on-prem, and so those would be like what you're referring to as on-prem version of a Business Central.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Okay, as far as going through implementation and setup of this application within Business Central to support payment processing and collections you know I'll summarize as collections because to me that's the word I'll use what is the typical lifecycle of an implementation and what?

Speaker 4:

have you found to be the best approach for going through an implementation? So okay, so the implementation, what we would do. And actually this is where we I think we have a big advantage and where our focus is very important. We are focused on the Microsoft Dynamics ERP as a specialization. So other payment processors or solution providers, they would try to get their solution into multiple ERP solutions Acumatica, sage, intac, oracle, sap, netsuite or any other combination of those.

Speaker 4:

But what ultimately happens when you spread yourself out thin like that, you don't really understand the underlying ERP solution.

Speaker 4:

You understand payments really well, but the underlying ERP solution you don't understand really well.

Speaker 4:

We focus only on the Microsoft Dynamics platform, really well, we focus only on the Microsoft Dynamics platform.

Speaker 4:

So our software engineers are only in the Microsoft Business Central.

Speaker 4:

More specifically, so when we are doing implementations with a client everything from when somebody is a prospect to us and we're doing a demo, going through the requirements, going through the testing and implementation I mean we understand Business Central as well as the partner does. So we understand the whole order to cash process within Business Central. And so when we're going through the requirements discussion, when we're going through the demos, when we're going through the demos, when we're going through the actual training of all the different use cases of credit card or ACH collections in Business Central. We are doing this all in Business Central and we're walking folks through this in Business Central and when we do this, the partner sees, as well as the end customer sees, that we know Business Central as well as anybody else Like me personally it's not me personally, but like our software engineers on the Business Central side. You know some of them Adil, robbie, I mean they are there on the calls and they're working with the partners and the customers and giving a full-on training.

Speaker 2:

That is a big advantage to have with an organization, because I've been part of implementations of products where they have a great product but they really don't understand the application that's consuming the product or using the data from the product. Again, you're connecting to a service that you have and it does create some challenges because even just terminology alone sometimes becomes challenging and frustrating because they're not used to the nomenclature of what we call things in business central. So it is nice to see that it's built in within that.

Speaker 2:

So as they go through the process or the onboarding process or the use process. They work with your group, your team or a partner. Is it something that they work directly with you, or is it through partners as well, or a combination of both?

Speaker 4:

No, brad, they work directly with us. Okay, they work directly with us. So our team.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's the experience that they would expect. If we have a client that's interested and they see your product, it's a good fit From a partner's perspective. You'd be working with the client directly to get it all set up.

Speaker 4:

Yes, we would be working directly with the client. I mean, many times the partner is on the call as well. And just a couple of weeks ago we had a call like it was a training call actually was going through the we're still in the testing phase. So we were, but we were also training them in the business central test environment for the different use cases of how to accept credit cards. So Adil, our chief engineer, business central engineer, so he was leading the call and the client had.

Speaker 4:

There was one person from the partner it happened to be Liberty Grove and seven people from the client side and the person from Liberty Grove really didn't have to do much. She didn't have to do anything, honestly, because Adil knows Business Central so well. So about halfway through the conversation the client says like, oh, wow, this is not your first rodeo in Business Central, is it? And I'm like you know well, adil's been our chief engineer, he's been in Business Central for 30 years, so so yeah. Or well, the predecessor division, right, not as yeah, so that was the biggest compliment honestly. Like where she said oh, this is not your first rodeo, is it? I mean so, but whatever, what a relief to the partner. Uh, guys. What a relief to the partner that they, like, know that when we're on the call, they're not going to have to worry about stepping in to figure out oh how does this work? Because you have to know a lot of stuff. You have to know a lot of stuff. I just can't imagine how you can cover it.

Speaker 1:

I think the focus with Business Central is a good strategy because there's a lot of opportunities in the space to have a payment or collection solution within Business Central and it sounds like your solution is easy to implement and clients get to work with you directly and, at the same time, still collaborate with partners as well.

Speaker 4:

Yes, and we love to work with the partners. I mean, as Kate will tell you, you know we spend a lot of time.

Speaker 2:

It's different working with the partners. See, to me that's an advantage because now the partners aren't reliant to have to know the whole application. They have to understand what it does and how to set it up. But with you working within Business Central, it takes some pressure off a partner from having to manage the implementation and support the implementation, where in some other products they may have to take it all on and then forward it over to the application, the ISV or whichever term you may use. Application, the ISV or whichever term you may use and also, from a customer's point of view, working directly with you, who also understands the application, gives them the comfort that you know both the payment processing portion as well as how it's applied.

Speaker 2:

With a specific function in Business Central which I hear individuals talk about. Well, the partner wants to implement it or support it or do whatever. But to me, with all of the applications that are available, with all the depth of the business central implementations, to not have to worry about that piece, in the sense that you know someone will make sure that the customer is successful with the implementation of. This is important With that, with the implementations. And speaking of successful, kate, you mentioned something interesting to me, I'm still going to get hung up on this 80%.

Speaker 1:

We love stats.

Speaker 2:

Statistics, yes. What type of process improvement have you seen or witnessed or heard from a partner that excuse me, from a customer that went from not using the UST payment processing service to using it? You know the before and after metrics of some growth or some performance gains that they may have had?

Speaker 3:

Well, brad, I'm going to have to turn that question over to Wade, because he is the one that's walking through the implementation and the process with the customer, so he can give you a better before and after story than I can.

Speaker 4:

The improvement gains are mainly I don't know if there's a statistic I can give you specifically, but the improvement gains, brad and Christopher, are really around what you kind of already touched on. I mean, when the customer has a question, the BC user, I mean they're calling us and it's not like they're calling a 1-800 number or that they're calling or they have to put in a ticket and then they have to put in like a ticket and then wait two weeks for a response to come back from the ticket. You know what I mean. I mean they, they have, uh, the direct contact information of our uh customer support director or what uh or somebody else in customer support. So, mikaela johnson, they have my direct contact. They have adil's direct contact, if he was the one that uh was working on it.

Speaker 4:

Rick Ricker, who is our payments expert on integrations and security. He is involved in most of our client relations, so he's going to be a direct point of contact. So any of our clients have a direct point of contact with each, each one of us and any of us. So, um, so we're going to get back to right away. We know who's reaching out to us. If it's from the client side, we're not going to like um, say like, can you give me the last four digits of your social security number? And like the zip code of your company and then I can answer your questions. No, I know it is, we know who it is and we know what your business is, the customer and how we treat the partner, because now the partner doesn't have to worry that the the client is going to be complaining about, you know, not getting what they need.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm sure you have a lot of stories to share on other clients. Kate, you know someone in in Marketing at UST. I'm sure they'll give you some feedback. Is there any additional feedback or stories that you could share as well?

Speaker 3:

with the partners and with different consultants that we're working with on our process, and I get stories from them, I get feedback from them, and the feedback that I hear from our partners over and over again is that working with UST, with our team, gives them a sigh of relief. So if we're talking about the customers, wade is better suited to answer that, but if we're talking about the relationship that we have with our partners and the way that we work with them, again the thing that I hear over and over again is that the UST pay team is we foresee problems before they come up. We have a solution because, again, adil is a BC developer. He knows Business Central through and through. So if something is, if there's an issue, he can foresee it, solve the problem.

Speaker 3:

We have a payment solution for just about every problem that can come up, because we have 120 different payment gateways. So there is a solution to even those toughest credit card problems. We have a solution and built in into one of those gateways somewhere. So, again, over and over again from partners, I just feel what they're saying is there's a confidence that comes in working with us, that they know that we're going to take care of them, we're going to make them look good because they're going to look good in the eyes of their clients and we're going to take care of the clients. So at the end of the day, everyone is happy and we're making sure that our client and our partner satisfaction is 100%.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I'm glad, kate. Sorry, I was just going to add you know, I'm glad Kate brought that up again the 120 payment gateways and how we give people the freedom of choice, because the the other, like the traditional payment solution in an ERP, is like a monoline solution. It's one gateway, one processor, and then they say you have to use us as the processor. So this goes kind of back to what you were saying, brad. What's the difference that the partner or customer is telling us when they go from using somebody else to using us is that before they had only one choice and they had to use that one processor and they were more or less forced to use them. And if that, as long as that solution did everything that they needed it to, that's great. But then, as soon as your business, like, let's say, grows, you may have another division, and you have a division in Canada, you have a division in U. In fact, this was the situation that we worked on, where the client had operations in Canada, they had operations in the US. They needed, they wanted to use the payment processor that they already had, and that's fine. You know, as long as it's one of the 120 gateway options that we can support, then that's no problem. We don't have to be your processor, we just connect you in through our USTPay to the right gateway and to your processor and it's done.

Speaker 4:

This speeds up implementation for the partner. So it improves the professional services like profitability for the partner. So it improves the professional services like profitability for the partner, because you're not wasting time on things that are going to slow things down, like setting up a new account, setting up a new credit card processing account. You know, with a new processor that takes time. It takes like one to two weeks at least, and then you've got to test that account to make sure it's going to work okay and all this stuff. And so and usually it takes more than two weeks because you have to collect signatures from the client and it's not easy to get all this all the signatures from the CFO and know your customer requirements, all these FinCEN requirements that are out there now that are much more stringent than they were before. So I know your customer requirements, all these FinCEN requirements that are out there now that are much more stringent than they were before. So I know I'm kind of rambling on and on, so you're not forcing to choose a processor that you only offer, right?

Speaker 1:

That's what I wanted to ask.

Speaker 2:

So you're saying 120 gateways, payment gateways you support with the UST pay yes. So I look at it from this two points of view. If I am new to Business Central and I don't have any payment processing now, but I would like to, you know, either I'm new or existing and I've never signed up to receive ACH or credit card payments I may not know what a payment gateway is those that are using payment processing either within Business Central with another option or even another ERP software. Moving to Business Central, what is a payment gateway?

Speaker 2:

What does the payment gateway do as part of this process, and why is it significant that you support 120 of them?

Speaker 4:

yeah, okay, thanks, that's. That's a good point. I never. I just talk about it, but I never explain what it is. So payment gateway, just to throw some names out there. So payment gateway is basically a software app it's, it's the it's.

Speaker 4:

So let me start by giving some names that you would know, like authorizednet, uh, payflow pro, which is owned by PayPal, is a payment gateway. Card Connect, bluepay, cybersource, paytrace, priority Payments, nmi, cybersource. Oh, stripe. Okay, stripe is a well-known payment gateway, right. So all of these are basically the user interface or their responsibility is to collect the credit card information directly, so that it's not going through Business Central, okay, and they're responsible for vaulting the credit card and tokenizing it as well. But they're responsible for vaulting the credit card and tokenizing it as well, but they're responsible for vaulting the credit card. So this is the purpose of the PCI gateway, pci compliant gateway and then they pass it on to a clearinghouse. There's six major clearinghouses in the US, like First Data, t-sys, global Payments, elevon and then it goes to Visa, mastercard and then goes to your merchant service provider who makes the deposit into your bank account. So it's kind of like a real, like you would think it would just be one step and it's done. Unfortunately, it's not.

Speaker 4:

But the payment gateway is really that first step in getting the credit card transaction into the, into the, into the um, into the banking system, um, and so that that's why that gateway is so important and your ability to choose what you want. Because if you're already using something let's say you're coming from great plains and you were using a certain gateway like nuve or something like that, or authorizednet, and you still want to use gateway like Nuve or something like that, or authorizednet, and you still want to use it when you come into Business Central. Well, with us, no problem. In the case that I was talking about, where we worked with Tegunia, the customer wanted to use Card Connect because that's what they had. Hey, you know what? No problem, that's one of the 120 choices. So if that already exists, all we need is the API user ID and password and you know. You enter it in and then it's going to connect. Ustp will connect into Card Connect for you.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. So if somebody has an existing payment processor or gateway? I hear the words. I'm going to assume they can be interchangeable, correct? So if I have an existing payment processor, either within Business Central through another application and I want to move to your solution, or, as you had mentioned, I'm coming from one ERP software or some other platform and I have a payment gateway, chances are, with you accepting a 120, we'll be able to use that existing payment processor. If I'm somebody new, it sounds like I would need to set up a payment gateway or payment processor. How is that relationship handled with your application? Could I have you and your service choose the payment gateway or use the payment gateway, or would I have to go out and find a payment gateway on my own then come to you and say, okay, I have this payment gateway and this is what I want to use? How does that work for the new implementations?

Speaker 4:

Okay, yeah, these are. These are good detailed questions, my goodness, okay, so, so, so here's. So, right off the bat, the bat, here's. Here's another big advantage of having 120 gateways and processors. So we can, we can help you get like some competing quotes from two or three payment processors, because we have so many choices that are built in there. Because of our expertise, there's going to be we can make a recommendation for you like which, like like pay trace or priority or card connect or whatever. You know, one of these are going to be probably the best for you because of this reason or that reason.

Speaker 4:

But I'm not saying that that's hard and fast, that that's going to be the best solution. It depends on the customer situation. How are they taking credit card payments, you know? Is it card present versus card not present? What types of customers are paying them? Is it government or is it Fortune 500 companies that are your customers, or is it? You know small customers that are buying $25 t-shirts. You know thousands of them a day.

Speaker 4:

So it depends on the situation, which is going to determine what solution is better for you, because part of why there's so many options is because they grew out of different business requirements or needs. So that's how we're going to be able to help you. But because there are so many options, we can essentially give you like three different quotations, because ACH and credit card processing is a competitive bid process, so you can easily get three quotes. Now, if you take another solution out of the box that is the more traditional solution well, you're only going to get one quote and you only have one option. That's it. So there's no real being able to shop around or having a choice. I mean, the only way you have choice is you've got to look for another software app that handles another payment gateway and processor and then you got to ask them for a quote.

Speaker 1:

So, um, so you're doing the legwork for for a customer that may not know what to go which one to go and then you're doing the legwork and presenting the proposed solution.

Speaker 3:

Yes, In addition, what Wade is saying too, there's a great opportunity for UST Pay to partner with a client, with a company, in their scalability, so as their business grows and they have different needs that arise, we have a solution that's built in. If we need to switch their gateway, we have an option. That's another value that we're bringing, in addition to knowing these gateways, knowing the. You know if you want to call it a matrix like we know the strengths and the solution that these different gateways are bringing, and we can we're little matchmakers. We can put the right client with the right gateway.

Speaker 2:

So that is even an added service. I was coming from the question of a new implementation or new user to payment processing how they could take advantage of your services, but it sounds like to me, even if I was an existing payment processing customer from elsewhere, it sounds like you could also help somebody find and validate that they're working with the proper payment processor for their situation, where you talked about different scenarios based upon transactions, volumes, types of payments. So not only is it the ability to automatically apply cash or payments in Business Central, which I have a few questions on, you can also help someone validate and find the right payment gateway or payment processor for their business as part of the service. See, that's deep.

Speaker 2:

Going back to the payment application, one thing with payment application so obviously a customer may have one invoice, the invoice will go out, the customer will pay, the invoice will go out, the customer will pay the invoice with a credit card and will come back in and you can apply it to that payment and close out the invoice. How do you handle the cash application where there may be multiple invoices to pay? So one of the the scenarios that you come across is you have multiple invoices that may go out and a customer may pay. Do they pay individual invoices? Can they pay a fixed dollar amount, set dollar amount? And how does that cash I use the word loosely cash how does that cash get applied to the open AR for a customer?

Speaker 4:

So there's a couple of ways. One is the accounting back office or customer service. They can go into Business Central. We created a new tab called Card Cash Receipts Journal, I think it is where then you can or Card Cash Receipts I can't remember what it's called exactly card cash receipts I can't remember what it's called exactly.

Speaker 4:

But you can then go into the customer and see, like, all of their open invoices, and so you can select which invoice is going to be paid and then mark the invoice that are going to be paid and any one of those invoices. If it's going to be a partial payment, you can indicate what the partial payment is and then just tag it to the appropriate credit card number that's in the wallet. So the BC user would see the last four digits of the credit card number to know which card on file is going to be the one used where, let's say, in customer service, they're going to handle doing the payment for the customer, because the customer sends an email and says, yeah, go ahead and just pay these invoices with my card on file. The second scenario is we would have an invoice portal where the customer can see what their outstanding invoices are, and they can do more of a self-service Manually select which of the invoices they are going to pay, and then they would either enter their credit card number or they would choose the card on file.

Speaker 2:

Okay, excellent, I know that's one thing is how to determine how to pay for the cash and the applications. What would you say would be the average time to implement this solution? Is there an average time? Are there any factors that would contribute to either delaying or speeding up that time?

Speaker 4:

So the time to implementation I would say is realistically like two to four weeks.

Speaker 4:

And this is assuming you already have NAV set up. So if we're going to be implemented as part of the larger Business Central implementation or migration, then obviously we're tagging along with whatever the migration or whatever the implementation is for the entire Business Central. But if they already have Business Central set up and they're adding UST pay two to four weeks the shorter end of it is, let's say, they already have their merchant account, so we're just going to connect into their merchant account, but we're going to do some testing beforehand in their BC environment, test environment. We're going to do some test transactions in Sandbox, and then that'll take a week or two just to and then do a little bit of training internally and then when everybody agrees, hey, this looks great, then we go into production. The longer end of that four weeks that's if we're going to have to set up a new merchant account for them. So we have to go through the underwriting process with them to get a new account set up and everything. So you got to factor in another couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:

So that's why it's, you know, like you said, onboarding for a merchant sometimes credit checks or other types of financial information need to be sorted out, and it could take some time.

Speaker 2:

So I know that's a factor that I've seen, that some implementations may have been delayed. Kate, what would you say was the best BC experience that you've heard of or had in implementation? This input geez, I can't even speak. It's that time. We're coming up close to the holiday. We're recording this prior to the Thanksgiving break. My mind is already getting on all of the food that I'm going to eat and I'm going to wear stretch pants this year.

Speaker 1:

Of course, because there's no other way.

Speaker 2:

I'm planning on. That's the trick. A lot of people don't realize that they wear all these nice Thanksgiving clothes you get together with family and an oversized sweater.

Speaker 3:

That's what I'll be wearing Leggings.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if I'm going to. Maybe I should try to wear leggings. I don't know if I could get any in time. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll wear leggings and an oversized shirt Sweatshirt this year. Actually, now I can use a sweatshirt because I am in the colder part of the United States, so sweatshirts are going to be mandatory. But I think maybe I'll wear leggings and I'll include that in the picture of us for this podcast episode, so we'll have a picture of all of us together and then we'll have a picture of me at Thanksgiving with my leggings and my oversized sweatshirt. There you go.

Speaker 3:

Chewing on a turkey leg please.

Speaker 2:

I can do that for you. I will. You have to remind me.

Speaker 3:

I actually have a. Really I have a good answer to to your question. I think if, if you know me, you know how deeply relational I am. I I pour a lot of who I am in in my work world into the relationships that that we have built, and my best experience I have two. My best experience with an implementation came with bringing in several of our relationships to give a client a product that they could depend on that will grow with them as their business grows.

Speaker 3:

It was emotional for me. It was like we all worked together to make this happen and I was hearing the story actually at Community Summit a couple of months ago. And you know, community Summit is always a little bit emotional for me because when we went, many people have heard the story before, but when we went to Community Summit just over two years ago, we knew maybe five people there. Just over two years ago we knew maybe five people there and the amount of time that Wade and I have spent in the community and getting to know people and spending time with people and traveling and lots of one-on-one time to walk into community Community Summit is like one of those benchmark things. You know.

Speaker 3:

It's like a. It's like we're looking at where we were, where we are now and where we're going, and so that's always emotional for me, and this year it was, because it just our, our community is, is so large and it's getting bigger and, brad, you said it, it's a big community but it's small at the same time, like we all know each other and we trust each other, and that's unique. That is unique to this community. So those are kind of my two and one stories of working with several of our partners to achieve a result that was profitable and dependable for a client.

Speaker 2:

That's great and it's inspirational from the partner excuse me, from the community point of view because, like you said, you bring the relationships together and it's like everybody has those strong relationships and bonds. And two years I just must be getting old because I could have sworn it was longer than two years. I am only in pencil still, which we're going to have to talk about and address because we're going to have to.

Speaker 3:

We've already talked about it.

Speaker 2:

We'll have to meet the, the rubber will have to meet the road sooner or later, because I may request that the pencil gets erased if it doesn't turn into pen shortly, but we'll talk about that Well pen and sharpie to me are the same, so similar to payment gateways and payment processing may be the same, pen and sharpie are the same and I'm not pencil for any planet.

Speaker 4:

So after the.

Speaker 2:

Thanksgiving holiday break out the Sharpie.

Speaker 3:

Got it.

Speaker 4:

I was going to say, because Kate is on the marketing side, she sees more of the partner interactions than she does the the individual client situations. But I mean we've, we have so many like interesting clients. I mean like, uh, um, yeah, probably kate is referring to the. We have a client that does sells their products on, you know, the tv shopping networks. You know they make a lot of sales on those tv shopping commercials yes, could.

Speaker 4:

They are how many sales they make how much, how much time they can spend just describing one like shirt to you, right or a?

Speaker 4:

scarf yes, but anyway, they're not. They're selling more precious metals, but anyway, four of us was the partner. The community was there. They're like okay, it's so great to have somebody that is working side by side with us and really handling the customer situation from soup to nuts so that, as you mentioned earlier, brad, that they don't have to understand all of the details in credit card processing because you guys have to. You're implementing the entire solution. You have to understand the whole thing. How can you understand so much detail in payments as we would? And that's what our job is and that's the heavy lift that we do it makes it so much easier.

Speaker 1:

We just put it off to somebody that just implements it and knows the industry anyway. Because I remember in the early days implementing payment solution. I mean you have to own it. I mean you'd still own it, but at least you don't have to do the actual work and you just depend on your partner, in your case the ISV UST to do that for us.

Speaker 4:

It's super helpful.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we have a lot of government contractors. They sell products to the federal government, whether it's medical equipment, office supplies, a big company that runs a base store, military base store, and they're taking a bunch of government purchasing cards. So Xtivia, one of the Microsoft partners, govcon 365, and ArcherPoint we worked with them, together with InsightWorks, to get their solution put in place for credit card processing, which was card present transactions. Because it's all of these, here you go, like all of these anomalies of our customers, battleships and aircraft carriers that are coming into Norfolk Naval Base and they're going into the store to buy all the materials and products that they need for whatever the three, four-month cruise that they're going on, and so this is the operation that our client has. So a lot of different. Obviously, food and beverage and food manufacturing wholesale is a big vertical for Business Central, but there's a lot of other interesting businesses that run on Business Central.

Speaker 2:

There is, I've been fascinated to see and learn about the businesses that use Business Central. It's amazing how some of these businesses operate, because you don't even think about it when you're purchasing products or you see products and you never put any thought behind, or I used to not put thought behind in some cases. Wow, there's a lot that's involved in creating this. Whatever this may be this widget right to keep it simple, but it does sound like you have a great solution and it's great that those that use Business Central have a way to incorporate payment processing to help make their organization become a bit more efficient when processing payments, or maybe even a lot more efficient, depending upon the nature of their business.

Speaker 2:

Uh, but uh, wade and Kate, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us this afternoon this pre Thanksgiving. I'm getting hungry now and I have to go see if I can run out and get a pair of stretch pants before the stores close. Uh, for the evening, because, uh, now I'm I'm committed to it. But if anyone would like to learn more about the solution that you have for Business Central, what is the best way to learn about it or get in contact with you?

Speaker 3:

I'm on LinkedIn. I'm very, very active on LinkedIn. You can email me Kate at USTransCorpcom or Kate Coffee Bacon, the fastest way to get a hold of me and probably, frankly, the most memorable Kate Coffee Bacon, the fastest way to get ahold of me and probably, frankly, the most memorable Kate Coffee Bacon on LinkedIn. Reach out, I'd be happy to connect. Schedule a demo. Wade Tetsuka at USTransCorpcom. Wade is also on LinkedIn. That's a great way to get both of us. We'd be happy to talk about our solution and our offerings and see if there's something that we can do to help you or your client. Brad, I do want to say you mentioned at the at the beginning that we get, uh, an opportunity to see each other, um, quite a bit in the community, um, at meetups and um and things going on. What, uh, brad and Chris, where are you headed to next? When? When am I going to see you again?

Speaker 1:

I will be hunkering down, but uh, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I will be staying uh still well, not really staying still, but I'll stick with my routine uh, for the rest of the year. But in January I will be in Tampa at the Doug meetup. That's at the beginning of January, february I think. There's another summit roadshow, also going to Tampa in February. Then I'll be at directions in April, dynamicscon in May summit next year, and then there's a few other conferences I'm trying to schedule in as well. But if Wade comes down for golfing, you should tag along and maybe he could show us both how to golf if you don't know how to golf.

Speaker 3:

I'm not allowed to golf. Wade's told me that before I just work on relationships, I'll drive the golf cart. How about that?

Speaker 2:

There you go. I hear a trip coming Wade.

Speaker 4:

Because you're a partner, Brad, I'd probably like I'd have the patience to take you out there. Excellent, Excellent we're setting that up.

Speaker 2:

The weather's beautiful now down south, so and the great golf courses in my area, I think I don't know. Someone told me they said there's 28 golf courses in my area, so you could come and spend a whole week golfing.

Speaker 1:

Just within your area.

Speaker 2:

Just within my like, just within the city.

Speaker 1:

So that's. That's quite a bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I haven't validated that. I think I will look that up to validate that and I'll have to get back to Wade, but Wade before we go, can I just tell a short story? Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

I know, Brad and Christopher, you guys probably also do some community outreach or some other thing, aside from what you do for work. I mean, you obviously do. So that's part of it. I'm on the Northern Virginia Community College Foundation Board and Nova Community College is actually the second largest community college in the United States and they were actually written up in this book written by Harvard Education Press. The book was called America's Hidden Economic Engines and it's about how community colleges are preparing the workforce preparing this workforce for future jobs, the jobs of the future. Obviously IT fits into that and things like data centers and stuff like that. Future jobs, the jobs of the future Okay, Obviously IT fits into that, and things like data centers and stuff like that. So, but the story is this I recently and I'll send you the picture and you can maybe share it as part of the podcast so recently I went to one of the campuses of Northern Virginia Community College where one afternoon they were just having an industry student networking session and there were 30 students from their IET division.

Speaker 4:

So this is Information and Engineering Technology IET. So these are students that are planning to get into the IT field or cybersecurity whatever, and they had. So 30 students and they had 10 industry executives there. I was one of them and the industry executives sat at different tables and then the students could go around each table and just have a discussion with the industry executives, ask whatever questions they want, whatever. So I happen to be sitting at the table with the head of AWS, Amazon, who oversees their whole data center operations. So over the course of the afternoon we spoke to about probably 12 students, but the contrast was pretty extreme. Like you got AW, the guy that oversees all of the data centers, okay, for AWS, you can imagine that.

Speaker 4:

And there's me. You know US Transactions Corp, a small entrepreneurial company. But it's what I found.

Speaker 4:

Well, two things. Number one, that people are very interested in hearing from an entrepreneur. You guys are entrepreneurs yourselves, and probably about 20% of these students are themselves going to become entrepreneurs. They're going to work for a company, but they are eventually going to start their own company. So it's very important for them to hear what the life is and the journey of an entrepreneur.

Speaker 4:

But the second thing is I talked about how exciting it is to work in the Microsoft space, and I just wanted to say that it really is exciting to work in the Microsoft space, and that was one of the messages I communicated to these kids and they were really and actually they're not all kids, because some of them are reskilled, so some of them are 30-year-olds that are in different fields and they're going back for some certification program, maybe to the community college, and now they're going to go back into the workforce in information or engineering technologies in a much higher paid position where there's a shortage, where there's a need, so that we are all not competing against each other for the same hiring resources away from each other, Right.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that is a great that's awesome that you're doing that.

Speaker 2:

That is great on many levels. One, the microsoft community, I found has been amazing, as we've talked about. Two, I'm thankful that you mentioned the reskill, because I know there's a reskill program even within business central because as time changes or as businesses evolve, some positions need to or some individuals need to, you know, maybe change and and it's nice to see that this option's available to give them the opportunity to learn a new skill to be able to work and compete with others in in the industry or in a in industry. You know it's the same. I talked to so many people struggling, looking for a position. They always want someone who has experience, but yet nobody wants to give someone that experience so that they have to have the experience and where they start. So that whole rescaling program I think is amazing and it's a great opportunity to help everyone because none of us know where we will be right in a few years with with positions, the way the world is changing and the job force. So it's great to see that the community, the community, I quote everything's in a cult. I say that over and over again when I say the community, but thank you for sharing in that way.

Speaker 2:

That to me, is a powerful story for many levels, not only from the entrepreneurship but just giving back and sharing your experience and sharing your knowledge with others so that they can also become successful in the workforce, and also those that may have had some, you know, changes in their life to be able to learn a new skill, to be able to still continue to perform and provide and have pleasure working. But again, thank you both for taking the time to speak with us this afternoon. I appreciate it and I hope that you both have a pleasant holiday. This will probably be this guaranteed will be released before the holiday, because the holiday is in just a few short hours. So thank you again for your time. We appreciate it, ok.

Speaker 4:

All right, thanks, all right, take care, thank you. All right, you guys are the best.

Speaker 2:

Take care, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, chris, for your time for another episode of In the Dynamics Corner Chair and thank you to our guests for participating. Thank you, brad, for your time. It is a wonderful episode of Dynamics Corner Chair. I would also like to thank our guests for joining us. Thank you for all of our listeners tuning in as well. You can find Brad at developerlifecom, that is D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E dot com, and you can interact with them via Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E. You can also find me at matalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-o dot i-o, and my twitter handle is matalino16 and you can see those links down below in the show notes. Again, thank you everyone. Thank you and take care.

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