Viewpost goes to U.S. Bank not for a loan — but for business for its invoicing network

Invoicing and payment platform Viewpost is announcing a partnership with U.S. Bank today to get its free software in front of more small- and medium-sized businesses.

While more popular companies are focused on solving peer-to-peer payments, Viewpost is upgrading the way companies and vendors get paid. Despite the rapidly changing pace of consumer payment options, plenty of businesses still rely on paper invoices, physical checks, and the U.S. postal service for the delivery of payments.

Quickbooks, Xero, and Square have already created software that allows businesses to send and receive invoices and payments via email. Viewpost does the same thing … but it can also make deposits on behalf of its users thanks to some major bank partnerships.

The company charges $0.50 for every electronic check it sends and $0.75 for every paper check and integrates with existing back-office software from Oracle, SAP, Peoplesoft, Microsoft’s Great Plains, and Quickbooks. Comparatively, Square charges businesses 2.75 percent of every invoice paid with a credit card.

The secret sauce for Viewpost is the way it turns debts into a source of liquidity: More than invoicing software, the company is selling a network that allows businesses to collect debts early at a discounted rate determined by the debtor.

For example, a hotel pays a recurring quarterly fee for trash collection. The hotel can note in Viewpost that it’s willing to pay it’s invoice in advance of the due date in exchange for a 5 percent discount on the total bill. If the trash collection company needs or wants that money early and the 5 percent discount is acceptable to them, they can accept the hotel’s offer. Viewpost takes a percentage of that transaction from the entity cashing in on the discount.

The new partnership with U.S. Bank gives Viewpost a new distribution channel that could help grow the company’s user base more quickly with access to U.S. Bank’s 1.3 million existing small business customers.

Founder Max Eliscu first raised $25 million in 2011 to start the company. Since then, Viewpost has taken in $30 million in additional funding and is in the process of raising another $35 million, which the company expects to close on in the next couple of months. Though Viewpost doesn’t name its investors, it has been funded without VC dollars and private equity. All of its backing has come from C-suite executives.