From real-time bank reconciliations to automated reports, APIs are great allies for businesses of various sizes. These technological tools bridge different systems and software, enabling automation and efficient data exchange between them, which provides greater financial visibility, quality, and efficiency to internal operations.
In retail, consumers use multiple payment methods, from cards to bank transfers, and it is precisely payment gateway APIs that simplify this reconciliation and allow a store to offer such variety at checkout. With their help, the finance department can automatically monitor the status of payments and identify any discrepancies between sales made and amounts received.
“For retail companies, the main advantages include operational efficiency, time savings, data centralization and agile decision-making. But one of the biggest attractions of APIs is the ability to automate repetitive and time-consuming processes, such as bank reconciliation. By connecting stores’ financial systems to banks’ platforms, they allow transactions — such as transfers, supplier payments and balance monitoring — to occur and be recorded automatically,” says Ticiana Amorim, CEO and founder of Aarin, the first tech-fin hub specialized in Pix and Embedded Finance in Brazil.
This not only streamlines financial control but also reduces the risk of fraud, allowing for a more rigorous analysis of payment data. For companies, this security is essential in a scenario where the volume of transactions grows every day.
Ticiana also states that companies using digital accounting systems can use APIs to automatically integrate accounting entries, organize revenues and expenses, and reduce the time spent on manual records. "It's like having a live cash register control panel. The ability to constantly update and check the balance is a key feature that helps identify where adjustments are needed," highlights Ticana.
The acronym API comes fromApplication Programming Interfaces(or application programming interfaces, in Portuguese), and Brazil is the fourth country that creates the most APIs in the world. In 2023 alone, there were 5.45 million programs of this type in Brazilian territory, according to the report.State of the API 2023, carried out by Postman. "With the growth of API development, the future of retail is becoming increasingly connected, efficient, and dynamic," concludes Ticiana.
