What are Mass Payments?
Mass payments are a payout process that involves making a large number of payments to multiple payees. Making mass payouts often involves using either an application programming interface (API) or a file with fields for payment amount, unique identifier, payment ID, and currency. Some platforms also allow for mass payments to be made with multiple payment methods from the same file.
Why Mass Payments?
When you want to save time with affiliate payments, the easiest way is through a service that offers mass payments. It lets you pay all of your affiliates in a single click. Many businesses opt for PayPal because it is a well-known company that’s generally respected for payment processes. However, the requirements can make it tedious to start an account.
Using PayPal for Mass Payments
If you are going to be making mass payments via PayPal, your PayPal account needs to be registered as a Premier or Business type. These accounts start out at a very basic level at no cost, but there are add-on features available if you are willing to pay a little extra. For example, you may choose to pay a higher monthly fee to incorporate PayPal into your website.
PayPal Account Requirements and Restrictions
Once your PayPal account type is set up, it must be in good standing. You can have no holds or restrictions on the account for any reason. One common restriction is an account limit, which means PayPal will allow only a certain amount of funds to be transferred on a monthly basis. This limit must be lifted.
Setting Up PayPal MassPay
To set up the mass payments feature on your account, the account holder must contact PayPal during certain hours. There is no setup fee; however, the account holder will be charged up to 2 percent on each individual payment that is sent out.
Instead of going through the multiple steps to make a mass payment with PayPal, you can use mass payments system such as iFrame that automates the process so all you have to do is click a button to send a payment.
Three Ways a Mass Payments System Saves You Time
While making mass payments to your suppliers may mark the end of a work cycle for you, managing the payment process can be very time-consuming — especially if you pay hundreds or thousands of suppliers, vendors, and partners. The less time you spend figuring out how to successfully make payments, the more time you can dedicate to growing your business.
By utilizing an enterprise-class mass payment solution such as Tipalti, you can shave hours or days from your pay-out process every month. Here’s how:
- Use one system to handle multiple mass payment methods and tracking.
Using a system such as Tipalti lets payees choose their preferred payment methods and prompts them for the necessary informational items to successfully complete payments in any currency and in any country in the world. This saves you from having to keep track of the latest changes in national and international banking regulations. You will no longer need to remember that an IFSC code must be entered in order to send money electronically to India or that a SORT code is required in the UK. All you need to do is specify the amount to disburse to each payee and fund just one account with the aggregate of all payments, and the system handles the mass payments for you. In addition, the Tipalti mass payment solution can handle multiple banking interfaces to accommodate all payment methods. Forcing payees to use a single payment method can make mass payments easier, but it becomes a serious competitive disadvantage since no one payment method fits all payees. Handling everything on one system gives you the simplicity of dealing with one interface while giving your suppliers the option to choose whatever method they like.
- Make tax compliance a no-brainer.
You are responsible for collecting W-9 and W-8 forms from all payees. Keeping track of who provided these required forms and therefore received payments — as well as ensuring that you don’t pay anyone who hasn’t provided these forms — can be complicated and time-consuming. When tax season rolls around, you need to make sure that you’ve kept track of every payment. Preparing 1099 forms can take time away from your business and can even incur unexpected costs. Using a mass payment system that supports tax-document collection and end-of-year tax form generation will save you time and money.
- Never be late with affiliate payments again.
As your business grows and you need to handle thousands of affiliates, making all payments on a timely basis can become a real challenge — especially when mass payments involve hundreds or thousands of different payees. Affiliates, developers, publishers, and other payees help your business flourish, so making sure that they get paid on time not only keeps your business practices professional, it can also become a major competitive advantage. Using an enterprise-class mass-payout system ensures that all payees are paid on time and payment rejections are kept to a minimum, while white-labeled, automatic email communication with payees keeps them informed on when and how they are being paid.
Don’t spend your time fending angry payee calls and emails. Let a single mass payment system do it for you.
Expert Systems for Mass Payments
An ever-changing landscape of tax and regulatory compliance can have a major influence on how a company makes mass payments. Required forms are constantly being tweaked, and staying up-to-date with compliance information is an undertaking that requires constant surveillance and research. This can become very time-consuming for a company that does not specialize in these areas. Without the use of an expert system, things can quickly become cumbersome, confusing, chaotic, and counterproductive.
This becomes especially important for companies that make mass international payments and are required to collect personal, banking, and regulatory information from their payees. The lack of an intuitive and powerful expert system can quickly cause a business to experience negative consequences. This can be avoided by utilizing the services provided by a payment processing expert like Tipalti.
Tipalti’s enterprise-class system enables a mass payer to easily keep up with the fickle global landscape of tax regulations and compliance. In addition, a company can save a great deal of money and man-hours by using an expert system like Tipalti to automatically collect the necessary tax and compliance information.
