CIT’S Michael D’Errico places this new integration into perspective for the dealer channel.
(Pictured above: CIT Group’s Commercial Leader for the Office Imaging team Mike D’Errico.)
CIT Group Inc., the provider of commercial lending and leasing services, has announced the integration of its FlexAbility solution with ECi’s e-automate.
CIT’s FlexAbility solution allows manufacturers and dealers to structure what they sell, how they charge for it, how invoices are presented, and how data is exchanged with CIT from credit application through account servicing. For office imaging dealers on ECi’s e-automate platform who finance customer purchases through CIT, CIT maintains the integration means their software now can automatically communicate data for accounts receivables, usage billing and periodic maintenance charges.
Nearly 100,000 commercial financing customers are serviced through the FlexAbility solution, including vendors in the technology and industrial markets.
In an exclusive interview with The Cannata Report, Michael D’Errico, CIT commercial leader for the Office Imaging team in CIT’s Equipment Finance unit, spoke about the integration with ECi e-automate and what it means to CIT and to dealers.
The initial impetus for the integration came from CIT’s dealers who were already using ECi’s e-automate.
“Our goals are aligned with our client’s goals and a lot of how we do that is with platform integration,” explained D’Errico. “We define platform integration as technology, process, and people. Our FlexAbility system is critical [to do that].”
The system, which D’Errico described as plug and play, allows CIT to take that data collected from e-automate and identify what CIT will bill the dealer’s customer on the dealer’s behalf with no touch on the dealer’s part. The data is then used to generate a report and a quality invoice without any manual intervention, which D’Errico says is important to CIT’s dealer partners.
“Many people say they integrate, but after they receive the data, there’s a touch after that, and that’s where errors happen,” noted D’Errico. “Integration lowers the dealers’ operating expenses and, more importantly, it improves the customer experience, particularly for managed print and cost per copy deals powered by our FlexAbility offering.”
According to D’Errico, it takes about two days to onboard a dealer. Some dealers are already taking advantage of the new integration, and of course the aim is to encourage even more dealers to use it, which he says, better aligns CIT with its leasing partners.
“It’s up to us to get them motivated enough to do this,” acknowledged D’Errico. “Some people see the value right away and are very excited. As a finance company we’re set up to be better at billing and collecting.”
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