A Look Back at 2017; Growth, Partnerships & Setting the Standard for Integrated Receivables

2017 was another successful year for our team here at FTNI, with record sales growth fueling the expansion of both our sales and marketing teams, as well as our development and customer service teams. The rewards of this exciting growth has come in several different varieties, including the addition of a record number of new customers added to our ETran Integrated Receivables platform, exciting new partnerships, and enhancements to multiple ETran modules and supporting features across the platform. 

In this post, we'll take just a few minutes to highlight some of our most popular and noteworthy announcements, enhancements and content from 2017. 

Solution Enhancements in 2017

We're continuously working to deliver our customers and partners the features and functionality needed to accelerate receivables operations on a single platform and move business forward. To that end, we rolled out three major enhancements across the ETran platform in 2017. This functionality is already in live production for many of our customers.

Here's a quick look back at three featured enhancements we released in 2017: 

• Mobile Payments | The latest updates to our ETran Mobile payment app include new remittance data capture capabilities and expanded mobile invoice presentment and payment capabilities.
• AutoPay | New enhancements to ETran's AutoPay functionality include configurable payment parameters on a customer-by-customer basis, as well as the ability to send proactive payment reminders detailing invoices to be paid and upcoming payment draft dates.
• APIs & SDKs | Every company has it's own unique set of business needs and requirements surrounding accounts receivables (AR) operations. One request growing in popularity is the ability to seamlessly integrate payment processing capabilities into existing software solutions and interfaces. In order to support this requirement, a truly integrated receivables platform needs to offer flexible APIs & SDKs that allow clients to embed secure and fully-compliant payment processing functionality and services within their own software and interfaces. This makes it easy for companies to add new payment channels or methods within their receivables mix, all while maintaining complete control over the user experience within your own UI's.

Customer Growth

We continued to gain momentum across multiple industries in 2017, adding new customers within each of the numerous industries we serve. In fact, within each of the industries we serve (Insurance, Banking, Distribution, Nonprofit, Property Management, Securities, and more) FTNI boasts one or more Top 10 customers within the space. An especially exciting story line in 2017 was our fast-expanding footprint within the distribution industry, bringing on 15 new foodservice and beverage distributors. This list includes numerous top 25 and top 50 U.S. distributors.

Additionally, we formed new partnerships with Golbon and UniPro to add to our growing network of partnerships and integrated capabilities to deliver additional value for our distribution partners and customers. Combined, our partners represent nearly 1,000 distribution companies across the U.S. and Canada. In fact in 2017, FTNI’s ETran platform hit a new benchmark and supports the AR operations of distributors serving customers across every state in the U.S., and has even extended into Canada since the end of 2017.

Top Announcements in 2017

2017 brought a good mix of customer, partnership and technology enhancement news for our PR department. Here's a quick look at some of our top announcements from 2017:

• Lincoln Investment Selects FTNI’s ETran Integrated Receivables Platform for Advanced RDC and Electronic Payment Solutions
• Tankersley Foodservice Selects FTNI’s Integrated Receivables Platform, ETran, to Streamline AR Operations Across Online, Mobile and More
• Presidio Bank and FTNI Partner to Add Truly Integrated Receivables to Presidio’s Growing Portfolio of Cash Management Solutions
• FTNI’s ETran Lite Achieves New Growth Milestones; Delivers Leading RDC and Mobile RDC Solutions to the Financial Services Industry
• Horicon Bank and FTNI Announce Partnership to Deliver Truly Integrated Receivables Solutions to Streamline AR Operations for Corporate Banking Customers
• FTNI Launches Partnership with MatrixCare to Deliver MatrixCare Customers with Seamlessly Integrated ACH Processing Solutions

 For a complete listing of all our announcements, take a look through our News page.

Most Popular Content of 2017

Since the integrated receivables conversation first started back around 2014, FTNI has been at the forefront of creating content aimed at educating the marketplace on not only the value that integrated receivables delivers, but what 'really' qualifies as a truly integrated receivables platform. 2017 proved to be no different for our Marketing team. 

Here's a look at some of our most popular content from 2017:

Insurance Industry eBook | Making True Integrated Receivables a Reality 

This popular new ebook provides insight for how insurance providers of virtually any size can replace outdated, inefficient, and costly AR systems and processes on a single, consolidated integrated receivables platform. 

Most Popular Blog Posts of 2017

Sharing helpful insight and commentary on industry events is always top-of-mind over at the FTNI blog. Below we recap five of our top blog posts from 2017.

True Integrated Receivables—Defined. How to Separate Truly Integrated Solutions from Dashboards.

We’re delighted to see that the topic of integrated receivables is receiving more attention from the industry these days, and as an early “preacher” of the benefits truly integrated platforms can deliver, we’re excited more companies are taking notice. But as the conversation continues to intensify surrounding these solutions, we can’t help but notice that there is a growing number of technology providers happy to say that they can provide integrated receivables solutions. But talking the talk is much different than actually walking the walk. [Read More]

Transforming Insurance AR Operations with Truly Integrated Receivables Solutions

If you’re an insurance company, your customers probably want to do everything online, from making claims to paying bills. Like the banking and healthcare industries, today’s insurance providers find themselves providing their customers with a bevy of different payment methods and channels—everything from ACH and pay by phone to online and mobile solutions. [Read More]

Recent Fintech Investments Signal Ongoing Evolution Among Banks; Still Fall Short of Delivering Holistic Receivables Processing Solutions

Lately, banks have been taking some noteworthy strides to innovate in the AR space by investing in new fintech technology. It’s exciting to see, and we hope it’s a sign of things to come—but although this is a positive sign for future collaboration between banks and fintechs, these recent investments and partnerships still don’t go far enough. [Read More]

12 Gifts of True Integrated Receivables (Part 1)

Christmas carols are a love/hate relationship, there is no middle ground. You either absolutely love this time of year, or you can’t stand the constant cheer. “The 12 Days of Christmas” has been labeled as the “holiday’s most annoying carol” by Vox, therefore FTNI felt it was necessary to revitalize this classic with an integrated receivables spin, quite possibly the only way to save this dying carol. [Read More]

12 Gifts of True Integrated Receivables (Part 2)

It’s nearing Christmas Eve, and while many good little boys and girls will have to wait to open their presents just a bit longer, we’re giving you a head start. Below, you’ll find six more gifts for you, wrapped and ready to go in our second and final installment of our holiday-themed “12 Gifts of TrueIntegrated Receivables,” blog series. [Read More]

On-demand Integrated Receivables Demo

Got five minutes? If so, you're only 300 seconds (give or take a few) from discovering how a truly integrated receivables platform can help consolidate, automate and streamline your AR operations on a single, secure and compliant (PCI, SSAE 16, HIPAA, and more), SaaS platform.

What's Next In 2018?

2017 was a very successful year for FTNI and our customers, and we have no plans of slowing down in 2018. We have more great new content lined up for 2018, and you will be able to find our Sales and Marketing teams at more that 12 different industry events and trade shows throughout the year. In fact, if you plan to attend the 2018 Windy City Summit, May 22-24 in Chicago, be sure to catch our session entitled, "Integrated Receivables: A Win-Win-Win for Banks, FinTechs and Corporates". We will be joined by a very special guest, Bob Van Kirk, Vice President—Treasury Management at Horicon Bank. Together, we will discuss how leading community and regional banks can deliver truly integrated receivables solutions to their corporate banking customers. Bob will even share real-world integrated receivables success stories and tips for banking practitioners during the session.

Ongoing technological advancement is always a critical area of focus for us, and 2018 will be no different. Watch for future announcements as we continue to expand our capabilities and maintain our commitment and focus to delivering our customers and partners with the the most advanced, truly integrated receivables platform available in the market today.

As you and your AR department look at your objectives for 2018 and we quickly approach the middle of Q1, is it time to put true integrated receivables on your road map? We believe so. There has never been a better time to invest in eliminating the manual, time-consuming and error-prone processes that cost you time and money. The best place to start is by knocking down the legacy, siloed, AR systems that have held you back for too long, and discovering the game-changing oversight and control a truly integrated receivables platform can bring to your business. 

Onward!

Originally Published on January 31, 2018.