ISV payment integration

Building Payments Around the Way Construction Actually Works

Posted on September 10, 2026September 14, 2026 by Charlie Colletti

Read time: 3 minutes

Construction doesn’t bill like other industries.

Work may be completed over months or years. Billing follows project progress rather than a traditional point of sale. Payment applications build on previous billing periods. Retainage may hold back a portion of earned revenue. Change orders can alter contract value. Stored materials may need to be accounted for before they’re installed.

For the software platforms serving contractors, those aren’t minor industry details. They’re part of the workflows customers expect their technology to understand.

And they have an important implication for embedded payments: a construction payment experience can’t be designed separately from the construction workflow around it.

In construction, getting paid starts long before the payment

A typical commercial construction billing cycle involves much more than generating an invoice.

Progress billing often starts with a schedule of values (SOV) that breaks the contract into billable components. As work progresses, contractors submit pay applications reflecting work completed during the billing period, prior billings, stored materials, and the amount currently due.

Depending on the project, that process may also involve AIA-style G702/G703 documentation, percent complete, retainage, approved change orders, lien waivers and multiple layers of review and approval. Current construction software products increasingly bring these elements together as one connected billing workflow.

That’s why a generic invoice-to-payment experience only tells part of the story.

The software platform has to understand what happened before a customer is ready to pay—and what needs to happen afterward to keep the project and financial records aligned.

Retainage and progress billing change the payment experience

Take retainage.

A portion of payment may be withheld until contractual conditions are met or the project reaches a later stage. That means the amount earned, the amount billed and the amount actually paid aren’t necessarily the same.

Progress billing creates another layer. Each new pay application may depend on the original contract value, the schedule of values, prior applications, work completed during the current period, stored materials, retainage and approved changes.

For a construction software company, those mechanics matter because customers don’t experience “billing,” “payments,” “project management” and “accounting” as completely separate worlds.

They’re parts of the same project lifecycle.

The opportunity for construction software platforms is bigger than payment acceptance

This is where embedded payments can become strategically interesting for an ISV.

The goal isn’t simply to give contractors another way to accept a card or ACH payment.

It’s to make the payment experience feel like a natural continuation of the project and billing workflows the platform already manages.

For the software provider, that can create value in several ways.

A stronger product experience. Customers can complete more of the project-to-cash workflow without leaving the software.

Greater platform relevance. Connecting project activity, billing, and payments can make the platform more central to the financial side of the job.

Product differentiation. Construction software that understands how the industry actually bills can deliver a more relevant experience than a generic payment capability bolted onto the product.

A path to platform growth. When payments happen within the software, the ISV has an opportunity to participate in payment activity that may otherwise happen through disconnected providers. For example, Concrete Pumping Holdings, the nation’s largest concrete pumping company, offers a look at what that depth of participation can mean. Centralizing payment activity across nearly 95 branches in 23 states, with data flowing nightly into their accounting system for reconciliation, solved exactly the kind of visibility and workflow challenges an ISV’s own customers deal with every day.

The construction workflow becomes the context. The stronger software platform is the outcome.

Don’t force construction workflows into a generic payments model

This is where the payments partner matters.

Construction software companies shouldn’t have to simplify the way their customers work simply because a payment provider was designed around a conventional checkout experience.

A better approach starts with questions such as:

How does the platform already handle progress billing?
Where do pay applications and approvals happen?
How are invoices, project records, and incoming payments connected?
What role do retainage and change orders play in the customer experience?
Where can payments be introduced without creating another disconnected process?

Those are software-platform questions as much as payments questions.

And they require a partner that understands the vertical—not just the transaction.

Build around the way construction gets paid

Construction software earns its place in the market by understanding the complexity that generic business software doesn’t.

Payments should follow the same principle.

When payment capabilities are designed around project-based billing and connected to the workflows contractors already use, the software platform can provide a more complete experience while strengthening its own value proposition.

The goal isn’t to turn a construction ISV into a payments company.

It’s to help the platform do more for the construction businesses that already depend on it.

For a deeper look at how software platforms can approach embedded payments, explore our Embedded Payments That Strengthen Your Platform guide, including how to evaluate ownership models, adoption strategy, platform value, and the role of a strategic payments partner.

Ready to get started? Contact us, and we’ll walk you through the next steps.

Building a Stronger Manufacturing Platform With Embedded Payments

Posted on September 9, 2026September 14, 2026 by Charlie Colletti

Read time: 3 minutes

For manufacturers, a payment rarely stands on its own.

It sits at the end of a much longer operational chain: an order is entered, inventory is allocated, materials move, production happens, goods ship, an invoice is generated, and eventually payment needs to be collected and reconciled.

Manufacturing software platforms already sit at the center of much of that activity. The opportunity with embedded payments is to bring another critical part of the customer workflow into the same experience.

For ISVs serving manufacturers, that makes payments more than an additional feature. Done well, embedded payments can make the platform more useful to customers, create a more connected experience, and give the software provider a greater role in the workflows that drive its customers’ businesses.

Manufacturing workflows don’t end at the invoice

Manufacturing software is built around interconnected processes.

Sales orders affect inventory. Inventory availability influences production planning. Production and fulfillment lead to shipment. Shipment triggers invoicing. And ultimately, incoming payment has to be associated with the right customer, invoice, and business record.

That interconnectedness is why payments shouldn’t be treated as an isolated transaction at the edge of the platform.

Manufacturing systems commonly connect workflows across orders, inventory, production, dispatch, invoicing, and finance. Industry software providers themselves increasingly describe these processes in terms such as quote-to-cash, order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, production planning and inventory management.

When payment happens through a disconnected experience, customers may be forced to move outside the system they use to run the rest of the business.

For the software platform, that’s a missed opportunity to make the product more complete.

Embedded payments should fit the way manufacturers already work

Embedding payments isn’t simply about placing a payment button inside an application.

The more important question is whether payments fit naturally into the workflows the platform already supports.

A manufacturing customer may need to accept ACH or commercial card payments against an invoice, manage payment terms across business customers, identify incoming payments, and reconcile those payments back to the appropriate records.

The exact requirements vary by manufacturer and software platform. But the principle is consistent: the payments experience should adapt to the business workflow rather than forcing the business workflow to adapt to payments.

That’s particularly important in B2B environments, where the transaction is often only one step in a larger financial and operational process.

A stronger payments experience can make the platform stronger

For manufacturing ISVs, the strategic opportunity isn’t simply to help customers accept another form of payment.

It’s to ask what role payments should play in the broader platform strategy.

There are several ways to think about that value.

A more connected customer experience. When payments live closer to invoicing and the other workflows customers already manage in the platform, users have fewer reasons to move between disconnected systems.

Greater product value. Extending the workflow through payment can make the platform more central to how customers run their businesses.

New revenue opportunities. Payment activity already taking place across the customer base may create an additional opportunity for platform monetization.

More differentiation. For software providers competing in specialized manufacturing markets, an embedded payments strategy designed around real manufacturing workflows can become part of the product experience rather than a generic add-on.

That changes the strategic question from “Should we add payments?” to “How can payments make our platform more valuable?”

Integration is only the beginning

The technical integration matters, but getting payments live isn’t the same thing as building a successful payments program.

Software platforms also need to think about how customers discover the capability, how they activate it, how it fits into existing workflows and what will drive adoption over time.

That makes the right payments relationship important beyond APIs and processing.

An embedded payments partner should understand the B2B environment the ISV serves, help the platform determine how much of the payments experience it wants to own, and support the program as it moves from integration to activation, adoption and growth.

Build payments around the platform you’re already building

Manufacturing ISVs don’t need to become payments companies to make payments a more valuable part of their product.

They need a strategy that recognizes the complexity of the manufacturing environment and connects payments to the workflows their customers already rely on.

When that happens, payments become more than the last step in a transaction. They become another way for the platform to create value for customers—and participate more deeply in the business activity it already supports.

Want to explore what that could look like for your platform? Read our Embedded Payments That Strengthen Your Platform guide for a deeper look at ownership models, adoption, platform growth and what to evaluate in an embedded payments partner.

Ready to get started? Contact us, and we’ll walk you through the next steps.

How ERP Publishers Are Turning Payments into a Revenue Line (Not a Line Item)

Posted on June 22, 2026 by Chris Haldane

For ERP publishers, payments are no longer just a feature. They’re a revenue stream waiting to be activated.

For years, payments have been an afterthought for ERP publishers. You built powerful software to run the back office, and payments were just the thing that happened at the end of the workflow. A necessary feature. A box to check.

ERP publishers are rethinking that. The ones who recognize the shift are building a meaningful new revenue stream in the process. The ones who don’t? They’re leaving compounding revenue on the table every single day.

What does it mean to embed payments inside an ERP platform?

Embedded payments for ERP means the payment workflow lives natively inside your software—invoices, collections, and reconciliation all flow through one system automatically. There’s no handoff, no gap, no workaround. Your customers run their receivables inside your platform, and your platform becomes the operational backbone of their business.

That’s different from a connected payment tool, which is bolted on. It technically works, but it creates friction. Your customers end up managing separate logins, reconciling data manually, and toggling between systems just to get a complete view of their accounts receivable. Your platform becomes one of several tools in the stack rather than the center of it.

That distinction matters for your customers’ experience. It matters even more for your business model.

Why are ERP publishers leaving payment revenue on the table?

Most ERP platforms today fall into one of two camps. Some have integrated a third-party payment tool that technically covers the basics but hasn’t been built for the complexity of B2B payment workflows. It can’t handle multichannel environments, invoice-level reconciliation, or the varied payment methods a typical B2B customer base requires. Others have payments working but haven’t activated the revenue side.

Either way, the result is the same: payment volume flows through your platform, but the economics don’t flow back to you.

This isn’t a small miss. Mid-market B2B businesses are the core customer base for most ERP publishers, and they typically process hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in payment volume annually. Multiply that across your customer base and the number gets large, fast. ERP payment processing is already happening inside your software. The question is whether you’re participating in it.

How does payment monetization actually work for software platforms?

A common assumption is that building a payments revenue stream requires major lift: new infrastructure, compliance overhead, dedicated headcount. In practice, the right embedded payments partner handles that complexity on your behalf.

Most publishers expect building a payments revenue stream to mean new infrastructure, compliance overhead, and headcount. It doesn’t. The right partner handles that complexity. You embed their infrastructure through a single API integration and start earning on your customers’ payment volume. That’s it.

What you get in return is a revenue-sharing model tied directly to your customers’ payment volume. As your customers grow and process more payments, your payment revenue grows with them. It scales automatically—no additional headcount, no product development.

This model is gaining traction fast—and the publishers moving on it now will have a compounding advantage. It transforms payments from a utility your customers expect into a revenue engine that builds over time.

What does embedded payment revenue mean for platform stickiness?

Most publishers focus on the monetization case. They miss the retention case.

When payments are embedded in your ERP, your customers aren’t just using your software to manage their operations. They’re running their receivables through it. Invoices go out through your platform with links to pay, collections come in through your platform, and reconciliation happens automatically inside your platform. That’s a different kind of dependency—and a much stickier one.

The practical result is that switching costs go up significantly. Walking away from your ERP means walking away from their entire payment operation, including their history, their workflows, and their customer payment relationships. That’s a much harder decision than switching a standalone tool.

For ERP publishers thinking about customer lifetime value and retention, embedded payments are a structural advantage.

What should ERP publishers look for in an embedded payments partner?

Not all embedded payment partnerships are built the same way. The right partner goes beyond technology, though technology matters. Here’s what to evaluate:

Your business customers operate in multichannel environments and need to accept a range of payment methods—cards, ACH, digital wallets, and more. Your payment partner should enable all of it through a single integration. If they can’t, you’re stitching together multiple solutions and passing that complexity to your customers.

Consumer payment processing and B2B payment processing are not the same thing. B2B workflows involve invoice-level reconciliation, complex approval chains, and payment methods that simply don’t exist in consumer contexts. Your partner should already understand these nuances, not learn them on your customers’ dime.

The best embedded payment partnerships operate on a revenue-sharing model that aligns incentives. Your partner should be invested in your customers’ adoption and success, not just the initial integration. Look for dedicated onboarding support and ongoing optimization throughout the partnership lifecycle—not just a handoff after go-live.

Finally, ask whether your partner owns their technology or resells someone else’s. Partners who control their full stack give you more flexibility, faster iteration, and a more cohesive experience for your customers. Infrastructure dependencies you can’t see become your problem eventually.

The revenue line is already there. The question is whether you activate it.

Payment volume already flows through your platform. Your customers are already paying and getting paid inside your software. The investment your competitors are making right now is in turning that existing volume into a recurring revenue stream that scales automatically as their customer base grows.

The publishers who move on this now will have a structural advantage—not because the technology is hard, but because the compounding effect takes time to build. Every month you’re not participating in your customers’ payment volume is a month of recurring revenue you can’t recover.

The payment infrastructure is already in your platform. The revenue opportunity is already there. The question is whether you’re the one capturing it.

Payment volume is already flowing through your platform. The question is who’s capturing the revenue from it. If you’re ready to find out what that number could look like for your customer base reach out.