How can software resellers improve their margins?
Software resellers play an important role in helping organizations find the right software to meet their needs and goals. Simply put, they are experts at helping businesses of all sizes navigate the complex software landscape, choose the right solutions for their needs, and get the most out of their software investments. But like any other industry, these companies also need help streamlining their own operations and payment processes.
In this article, we'll talk about how virtual credit cards can help software resellers overcome payment-related setbacks and improve their margins.
Common payment problems software resellers face
In addition to selling software licenses, some resellers offer subscription-based licensing where customers pay a monthly or annual fee for access to the software.
However, as with any service provider, there are the typical headaches like chargeback disputes and billing fees that come with day-to-day operations, such as:
Late payments: Delayed customer payments have a direct impact on cash flow, making it difficult for software resellers to manage their finances effectively. This can lead to problems meeting financial obligations like paying suppliers or investing in growth.
Currency exchange rates: Software resellers who sell internationally may face challenges with foreign currency exchange rates that can affect their revenue and profitability. Fluctuating exchange rates can affect the value of your sales. It can also make it difficult to accurately forecast revenue. To find the best rates and minimize currency risk, software resellers may need to work with currency providers or consider hedging strategies.
Manual license purchasing: Software resellers often need to manually process license purchases, which can be a time-consuming process. This can result in delays in delivering licenses to customers and inefficiencies in the overall sales process.
Fraud and security issues: Resellers in the software industry are often involved in digital transactions, which can leave them vulnerable to fraud and security risks.
How can software resellers benefit from virtual credit cards to improve their margins?
Virtual credit cards can provide several benefits to software resellers.
These include:
High single-transaction limit: When making large purchases or paying for expensive services, a high single transaction limit provides greater flexibility. This is especially useful for businesses or individuals making large payments for equipment, inventory, or other high-value items.
Lower transaction fees: VCCs often have lower transaction fees than traditional credit cards, allowing merchants to reduce their overall transaction fees and improve their margins.
Reduced currency fluctuation risks: Credit card usage effectively mitigates currency fluctuation risks for software resellers buying in one currency and selling in another.
“By purchasing software in USD and instantly obtaining the conversion rate, resellers can charge customers in EUR using that rate. The exact EUR amount, based on the predetermined rate, is deducted from the reseller’s account after the payment term, providing a predictable schedule. This process locks in the exchange rate, minimizing currency fluctuation risks, and allowing resellers to focus on core business operations.”
Additional benefits that are available to software resellers with the use of virtual credit cards:
Increased security: VCCs help protect against fraud and unauthorized transactions by generating a unique, one-time number associated with a specific transaction or payment.
Simplified payment process: They automates payment and reconciliation, reduces management costs, and eliminates manual payment processing.
Improved cash flow: By providing faster and more efficient payment processing, virtual credit cards reduce the amount of time it takes to receive payment and allow resellers to reinvest their cash in their business more quickly.
Enhanced tracking and reporting: They provide detailed transaction information to help resellers track and report on payment activity, monitor expenses, and identify opportunities for cost savings and optimization.
Boost customer satisfaction: A more convenient and streamlined payment process reduces the risk of payment errors or delays, and enables resellers to provide faster, more responsive service to their customers.
Pro Tip! Some corporate credit card companies offer rewards programs that provide benefits such as cashback, travel rewards, or other incentives for spending over a certain threshold amount. It can be easier to reach these thresholds and take advantage of these rewards with a high single transaction limit.
“With Pliant, we have been utilizing credit cards for all foreign currency transactions, whenever possible, in order to mitigate currency-related risks. Pliant is a flexible and user-friendly solution that enables me to issue new cards to our employees, significantly streamlining our operations.”
Conclusion
In short, Pliant virtual credit cards can provide significant benefits to software resellers, helping them to simplify payment processes, improve cash flow, enhance security, track and report on payment activity, and increase visibility and control over employee spending.
Using a virtual credit card allows software resellers to:
reduce transaction fees,
improve expense management,
lower fraud and currency fluctuation risks, and
earn cashback to improve margins.
💳 To learn more about our corporate credit card offering and how companies are leveraging our best-in-class integrations, click here.
