Columbus, OH — May 16, 2003 — Sterling Commerce, a provider of business integration solutions, this week rolled out new electronic payments and data warehousing functionality in its Web Forms application.
Web Forms is a Web-based application designed to let large enterprises extend trading relationships to customers and suppliers. The new features are intended to extend traditional electronic commerce processes to reduce the paperwork associated with the collection process and increase overall order accuracy.
The application uses Sterling's ePayment Gateway to facilitate the electronic exchange of payment information. An electronic payment order document is sent from Web Forms to the ePayment Gateway, where it is converted into a lower-cost automated clearinghouse (ACH) payment instruction that is sent to the appropriate financial institution to execute funds transfer. The supplier may receive an optional remittance advice generated from the original payment order.
"Many enterprises have implemented trading relationships with business partners to automate purchase order and invoice processes, realizing significant efficiencies and cost savings," said Sam Starr, president and CEO of Sterling Commerce. "Payments are required to complete the business transaction but are often still processed with costly and time-consuming manual processes."
The data warehousing capabilities within Web Forms is designed to let customers store and update information that may be used to populate electronic documents. Examples include maintaining correct products and prices for ordering, or housing a list of updated store numbers and addresses for shipping products.
"Our customers require more than electronic documents," said Starr. "Our customers require accurate electronic documents, and Sterling Web Forms is one of the first Web solutions on the market that can increase document accuracy."
"Now, corporations can reach their smallest, most unsophisticated buyers and suppliers in a way that streamlines the buy-sell-ship-pay supply chain that was traditionally available only at the enterprise level," said Starr.
