Automated payments system brings peace-of-mind to Digital Monitoring Products.
Digital Monitoring Products (DMP), a manufacturer of security, safety and communications products, based in Springfield, Mo, is known for innovation. It consistently achieves double-digit sales growth by anticipating and responding to customer needs with innovative solutions that work. The latest example: a product that uses video analytics to transform a surveillance camera into a crime detection tool.
Founded in 1975, the family-owned company is also known for its generosity. In 2019, its leaders launched Project 100, an audacious campaign to give away $100 million in time and money to non-profit organizations over the following six years. Three years later, the company and its 400 employees had already beaten that goal, donating $112 million and more than 10,000 hours of volunteer service to 50 non-profits around the world.
DMP, in other words, is known for delivering on its promises.
When they teamed with Commerce Bank in 2019 to improve the efficiency of their accounts payable system, the company found a partner with similar values, according to Aaron Forston, DMP’s controller.
The bank introduced DMP to the Commerce Bank Payment Hub, a portal that interfaces with DMP’s accounting system to automate the company’s payment process.
“We went from writing hundreds of checks each month to sending a single payment file to Commerce,” says Forston. “Commerce takes care of the rest. Each month, they check to see if we’ve added any new suppliers and whether they will take payment by card. If not, Commerce provides a list of vendors we can contact to see if they can accept ACH payments.”
The bank then pays each supplier listed in the file using the method they prefer. “It saves our AP department a significant amount of time,” notes Forston. “It eliminates our need to issue payments or reconcile them on our bank statement.”
DMP also earns a revenue share on every payment made to a supplier by card – an amount that has grown over time. In fact, card payments today are more than double the original estimates.
“Once our volume hit a certain threshold, our Commerce account manager let us know that we qualified for a higher tier and our revenue share increased,” Forston explains. “We appreciate the incentives built into that structure.”
DMP also benefits from its payments automation strategy in other ways. Thanks, in part, to Commerce Bank’s outreach to DMP’s suppliers, the total number of paper checks sent on the company’s behalf is down more than 75% since the program began.
The tipping point.
Forston says the Payment Hub meets DMP’s high expectations. “It’s a great product that performs the way we need it to work,” he says. “But the tipping point for us is the relationship we’ve built with our account management team.”
“If there’s a file upload error, we both get an email,” says Forston. “More often than not, someone from Commerce will call to let us know that there’s an issue before we even realize it.” DMP is so pleased with the Payment Hub results that it recently tapped Commerce to automate its invoice processes as well.
“Commerce has lived up to its reputation for great personal service,” says Forston. “We know that when we have a question, we can expect a fast, helpful response. In our business, that matters.”
