Expert Commentary: Vendor Payouts: Why the API is Better than the Bank Portal

AP/AR & Compliance

Oct 7, 2025

The Illusion of Control in the Bank Portal

For decades, treasury and accounts payable (AP) teams have relied on the bank portal as the primary method for initiating vendor payouts and salary transfers. It feels secure and familiar. However, the bank portal is fundamentally a silo. It forces AP teams into a repetitive, high-risk process: exporting payment lists from the ERP, manually uploading them, and re-validating data—often without direct feedback to the underlying accounting ledger. This lack of integration is a breeding ground for error, fraud risk, and audit complications.

The API Advantage: Integration and Governance

The shift to API-driven payment initiation (PI) is not just a technological upgrade; it's a fundamental change in financial governance. When using an API like Saldi Tech's, the ERP system remains the source of truth. Payments are initiated directly from the accounting software where the invoices and approvals reside. The API simply acts as the secure, compliant transmission layer, communicating instructions to the bank.

Security, Control, and Auditability

The benefits of the API methodology directly address the largest pain points in corporate payments:

Audit Trail: Every payment initiation and status update is logged in the company's own system (ERP), not just in the bank's external portal. This creates a clear, unbroken audit trail from invoice approval to payment execution.
Approval Enforcement: The API enforces the company's internal, multi-level approval matrices before the payment leaves the system. In contrast, the bank portal often requires redundant approval steps, creating bottlenecks.
Reduced Fraud Risk: Removing manual file handling and uploads eliminates common points of vulnerability, drastically reducing the risk of file manipulation and unauthorized payments.

The Clear Conclusion

The bank portal forces finance teams to work around a disconnected system, prioritizing the bank's architecture over the company's internal control framework. An API integrates into the company's workflow, making payments a seamless, auditable extension of the ERP. For any enterprise seeking genuine control, efficiency, and reduced risk in their AP process, the choice is clear: migrate payment initiation to the API.