American Express expands virtual card footprint with Coupa Pay integration
American Express and Coupa have announced the availability of the American Express virtual card as a payment option within Coupa’s business spend management (BSM) platform. The payment integration with Coupa Pay, a set of payment and financial solutions within the Coupa BSM platform, is expected to first be available to American Express Corporate customers in the UK and Australia in late 2019 and the US in mid-2020. The partnership is designed to give businesses the ability to better manage supplier payments.
Businesses will be able to use American Express virtual cards to pay suppliers for spend that goes through the Coupa platform. Once the business’ eligible American Express account is tied to Coupa Pay, virtual Cards can automatically be sent to authorised suppliers.
Coupa says that the integration will provide customers with visibility into the full payment process, automated invoice matching and reconciliation, and tracking to help manage cash flow. American Express customers will also receive servicing and supplier onboarding support from both Coupa and American Express. Suppliers also benefit from visibility into their payment details when paid by an American Express virtual card.
In the past week, Coupa has also announced additional features for its BSM platform. Among these is Source Together, a tool to connect businesses with similar buying needs that allows them to leverage collective buying power to create savings. Another feature, Supplier Insights, uses Coupa’s aggregated and anonymous spend data to tag suppliers that meet diversity requirements.
Building on its acquisition of contract lifecycle management solution Exari earlier this year, Coupa Contract Lifecycle Management Advanced has also been added to BSM. The tool allows businesses to operationalise contracts against spend transactions at scale. In addition, Coupa Pay for Expense Payments allows companies to reimburse employees directly from within the BSM platform.
