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January 11, 2013

IVR Provider Billtrust Acquires Best Practice Systems in National Billing Merger

By Ed Silverstein
TMCnet Contributor

A New Jersey-based company, Billtrust, has acquired Best Practice Systems, a billing company located in Colorado – in a strategic move in the promising billing sector.

Under the combination, the two companies will provide billing services to over 24 industries located in North America. Other acquisitions are possible in the future.

Billtrust focuses on online billing services for companies and individuals, according to The Times of Trenton, and is now employing an “aggressive growth strategy.”

Billtrust also recently raised $25 million from Bain Capital Ventures. “That investment was a key part of this move,” Billtrust Vice President of Marketing Mitch Rose told The Times. “The strategy for Bain was to fuel and accelerate our growth, particularly for acquisitions like this.”

The acquisition is likely to result in growth in development, operations, customer service, project management, sales and finance, the newspaper added.

Best Practice Systems (BPS) features solutions related to voice and mobile technology, the newspaper added. BPS’ interactive voice response, which lets consumers pay bills by phone, mobile technology or customize solutions — will diversify products offered by Billtrust. BPS also has more customers in the insurance and health-care sector than Billtrust.

"Billtrust and Best Practice Systems are a great fit," Flint Lane, Billtrust CEO and president said in a company statement carried on TMCnet. "Our customer bases are diverse, spanning different market segments and billing needs. Our joint electronic offerings will place us in a commanding position within the industry. Most of all, Best Practice Systems shares our unwavering commitment to customer service. Together we expect to provide an even greater level of service to our current and prospective customers."

"Our two companies share the same values and are committed to driving electronic billing and payment within our customer base,” Clint Waite, CEO of Best Practice Systems, added in a statement. “Moreover, we are two of only a handful of providers that deliver the complete value proposition including print and electronic billing."

Details on the deal were not disclosed.

Billtrust previously acquired Mark Altman and Associates, a Boston-based billing service – which focused on municipal, utility and private-sector markets.

Billtrust focuses on the business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), municipality and utility markets. It offers complementary billing solutions with payments over mobile devices and Interactive Voice Response (IVR).

Analysts see positives in the direction of the companies. "Service providers that offer technology to meet the diverse needs of both B2C and B2B markets will be well positioned for future growth," Nancy Atkinson, an analyst at the Aite Group, said in the statement. "The most effective providers will be those offering advanced capabilities such as receivables processing across all channels as well as automated interfaces for users and integrated, channel-agnostic information reporting." 

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Edited by Rich Steeves