Four Ways To Monitor GIRO Payments For Your Business
As the end of the month approaches, the tiring task of making and requesting payments from vendors gets summoned for most business owners. Interestingly, Singapore has devised a solution to streamline the payment processes, significantly decreasing manual intervention. GIRO, which is the abbreviation for General Interbank Recurring Order, is a fund transfer method that allows business owners to make or collect payments directly from their bank accounts.
GIRO is an effective fund transfer method that business owners can use to settle recurring expenses, such as loan repayments, utility bills, and more. GIRO is a service provided by banks that eliminates the need for manual payment approvals unless a business owner opts for ‘GIRO-on-demand,’ where they’ll have to authorize each GIRO payment.
While the decreased reliance on manual authorization may be a convenience for businesses, it’s not unusual for business owners to feel a little skeptical about adapting to such a payment system. Business owners may feel monetarily insecure from a concept that boasts of automated payment authorization. A solution to this challenge is routine monitoring of GIRO deductions. There are four major ways of monitoring GIRO payments that business owners can opt for. These methods include:
Regularly reviewing bank statements: Every GIRO deduction would be highlighted in the bank statement, which can serve as a valuable tracker for GIRO payments. These payment records may even include other empirical information, such as the details of the recipient.
While regularly reviewing bank statements can be a healthy practice, it can be time-consuming, especially if numerous transactions are getting registered every day. Thus, business owners should consider getting a filtering system programmed that automatically detects GIRO payments and registers them in the records. Alternatively, business owners may consider designating the task of manually filtering out GIRO payments to someone from the financial team.
Setting up notifications: Business owners can opt to get notifications for GIRO deductions through SMS or email if their bank offers this service.
Getting notifications can be an effective way of tracking GIRO payments. However, this service may not be scalable if there is more than one person in charge of monitoring GIRO payments. Coordinating and managing notifications for a team of people could lead to confusion, duplication of efforts, or oversight of critical alerts. Thus, before using this method for tracking GIRO deductions, business owners should set up a centralized notification system that all members of the financial team can access. It could include sharing access to the account that receives the notifications or setting up a notification platform that is accessible by all members of the team.
Checking the transaction history online: Online banking is commonplace, and its omnipresence serves as a valuable method of monitoring GIRO payments. A business owner can log into their online banking portal and access the record of all GIRO payments without having to visit a bank branch to get a physical copy of the bank statement.
While this method of monitoring GIRO payments is effective, it brings the risk of exposing critical financial details of the business to unauthorized personnel if there’s more than one person keeping track of GIRO payments. Thus, business owners should use the online banking portal for personal record keeping rather than sharing the access with the entire team.
Reviewing the list of scheduled payments: If the bank offers the service, GIRO payments can be scheduled. The list of scheduled payments can serve as a guidepost for the financial team to track GIRO deductions. Scheduled payments shed light on the anticipated deductions, allowing the team to make more accurate financial forecasts.
However, this method of record-keeping is prone to discrepancies and errors if there’s a cancellation or a sudden change in the payment schedule. If everyone on the team does not acknowledge the change in the payment schedule, confusion may arise. To address this challenge, the person in charge of monitoring the GIRO deductions should routinely compare the list of scheduled payments with the actual deductions when they occur.
To conclude, keeping track of all GIRO deductions is essential for gaining insights into the financial health of the company, and eliminating the fear of making duplicate payments to vendors. GIRO payments can be tracked using physical or online bank statements, a list of scheduled payments, and payment notifications. Tracking GIRO payments allows business owners and their financial teams to make more informed financial decisions and use GIRO optimally.
