Elavon Live Payments: Embedded Invoicing in Outlook and Teams

Elavon’s new Elavon Live Payments app brings invoicing and payment collection directly into Microsoft 365 — embedding payments into Outlook and Teams to let professionals send invoices, accept PCI‑compliant payments, and track receipts without switching applications.

Background / Overview​

Elavon, a payments business owned by U.S. Bank, has been expanding its cloud‑native gateway capabilities with the Elavon Payment Gateway (EPG), and the company now positions Elavon Live Payments as the first major embedded payment experience built on that platform for Microsoft 365 users. The product is distributed via the Microsoft Marketplace and is explicitly designed for business and professional service providers who use Outlook and Teams as daily workflow hubs.
Microsoft’s app certification records confirm the app (listed as “Live Pay” for Teams) and show the developer‑provided details used for app store publishing and compliance self‑assessment, reinforcing that Elavon shipped a Teams‑native client alongside Outlook integration.
Why this matters now: merchants and service providers increasingly expect payments to appear where work happens — in email threads, chats, and document workflows — rather than forcing people to leave the context of a sale, a matter of both convenience and conversion economics. The Elavon announcement sits within a broader industry shift toward embedded payments and in‑context checkout experiences from both processors and platform owners.

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What Elavon Live Payments Does​

Elavon’s product brief and the accompanying announcements highlight a compact set of user‑facing capabilities designed to remove friction from B2B and professional service billing:

• Create and send invoices from inside Outlook — compose and dispatch bill requests without leaving the mail client.
• Collect payments in Teams — collaborative billing during a Teams call or chat lets teams request and reconcile payments in the moment.
• Real‑time notifications and tracking — transaction status updates feed back to the sender so cash applications and reconciliation become more immediate.
• Customizable invoice templates geared to consultants, tutors, freelancers, law firms and other professional services.
• PCI‑compliant processing and EPG plumbing — Elavon positions the Elavon Payment Gateway as the backend that handles authorization, tokenization and settlement while the Teams/Outlook interface handles the user experience.

These features are aimed at shrinking Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) for service businesses by collapsing the billing loop: draft, send, receive payment, and reconcile — all within the apps users already open every day. The press materials cite industry benchmarking that professional services often experience longer DSO than other sectors, a core part of Elavon’s value narrative.

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Technical Underpinnings and Compliance​

Built on EPG and Azure​

Elavon Live Payments is presented as an extension of the Elavon Payment Gateway (EPG), a cloud‑first, omni‑commerce gateway launched to centralize payment acceptance for card, wallet and alternative payment methods. The public materials state the service leverages Microsoft Azure as a core cloud component for hosting and scale. That architectural choice aligns Elavon with the cloud and platform governance models many enterprise buyers expect.

PCI and Data Handling Claims​

Elavon’s announcements explicitly state the solution is PCI‑compliant and uses tokenization to limit sensitive card data exposure. Those are essential baseline claims for any payments integration; however, the press release does not include the detailed Attestation of Compliance (AoC) or a breakdown of which PCI SAQ type or managed service scopes apply. Buyers should treat the compliance statements as vendor declarations until they review the AoC, scope diagrams and the specifics of key management and token vaulting.

Microsoft App Certification​

The Microsoft app certification metadata for the Teams app (Live Pay) documents the publisher‑provided security and data‑use statements and shows the app was prepared for Teams distribution. This registry entry is useful for IT teams performing an initial compliance or procurement review because it lists supported clients and developer contact information used in the Marketplace submission. It also records the last developer update timestamp for lifecycle tracking.

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Who Wins — and Who Should Be Cautious​

Real benefits for professional services and small teams​

• Faster conversions and fewer manual steps. By moving invoicing and payments into Outlook and Teams, Elavon reduces the typical friction of “draft -> email -> portal -> pay,” replacing it with a shorter loop that can materially reduce payment latency for small, desk‑centric sellers.
• Lower cognitive and operational load. Smaller teams that lack accounting automation can avoid multiple systems and reduce reconciliation errors through single‑pane workflows and real‑time notifications.
• Market reach via Microsoft Marketplace. Distribution through the Marketplace offers rapid access to millions of Microsoft 365 subscribers and simplified procurement channels for many organizations.

Practical risks and open questions​

• Vendor claims vs. verifiable SLAs. The promotional materials call Elavon Live Payments “the first major embedded payments expansion on the EPG platform.” That phrasing is a marketing assertion; buyers should ask for contractually bound SLAs, historical uptime data, and proof points for payment success rates rather than relying on headlines alone. Flag as vendor‑claimed.
• PCI scope and responsibility model. Embedded payments still require clear delineation of who controls the cardholder data environment (CDE). Does Elavon manage all tokenization and key storage? Do merchants need to adjust their PCI SAQ? These are procurement-level questions that must be answered with documentation.
• Platform concentration and operational risk. Embedding payment flows deeply into Microsoft 365 provides convenience, but it also increases reliance on the Microsoft platform for both UX and availability. High‑impact businesses should require incident runbooks and contingency plans in case of service interruption. This is a general trend in cloud payments and platform‑embedded commerce that deserves attention.

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The Bigger Picture: Embedded Payments, Market Dynamics and Platform Commerce​

Elavon’s move is part of a larger industry pattern: payment processors and fintech platforms are embedding checkout and payment collection into the tools people already use — email, chat, and conversational surfaces. Microsoft’s own commerce and agentic commerce initiatives have emphasized in‑context checkout and delegated, tokenized payments delivered through partner PSPs and marketplace channels. That context matters: platform‑native payments behave differently from standalone merchant portals and create new considerations for discovery, attribution and revenue share.

• Major platforms are moving to support tokenized, delegated payments where the platform handles UX and partners (PayPal, Stripe, traditional PSPs) handle settlement and risk. Elavon’s Marketplace distribution and Teams/Outlook integration mirror that model and give merchants another path to be discoverable inside enterprise workflows.
• Competition: other payment providers and commerce platforms are racing to be the preferred payment partner inside platform ecosystems. Expect feature rounds and pricing/settlement differences to surface as new embedded payments plug into Microsoft and other major productivity suites.

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Due‑Diligence Checklist for IT, Finance, and Procurement Teams​

If your organization is evaluating Elavon Live Payments, use this practical checklist before enabling the app for production users:

• Demand the AoC and PCI scope diagram. Verify what parts of the CDE Elavon controls and what the merchant still needs to attest to.
• Ask for SLA details and historical availability. Obtain the uptime guarantee, response times for payment failures, and incident escalation contacts. Vendor headlines about convenience are not substitutes for contractual guarantees.
• Review tokenization & key management. Confirm whether keys are managed in a customer‑owned HSM, cloud provider HSM, or by Elavon — and validate the cryptographic controls.
• Test end‑to‑end flows in a sandbox. Simulate failed authorizations, partial refunds, chargebacks and reconciliation to ensure the app’s UX and your back office integrate cleanly.
• Clarify billing, fees and settlement timing. Understand transaction fees, refunds, monthly minimums and the vendor’s settlement cycle to avoid surprises in cash flow.
• Confirm logging, audit trails and data retention. Ensure transaction metadata required for finance and regulatory audits is available and durable.
• Plan incident & rollback runbooks. Given the integration into Outlook/Teams, include communications templates to notify customers and internal stakeholders in case of outages.

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Implementation Notes for IT Administrators and Developers​

Admin rollout​

• Use Microsoft Marketplace governance to control which tenants and users can install or access the Elavon Live Payments app. The Marketplace and Teams Admin Center settings let IT manage consent and app provisioning.
• Begin with a controlled pilot among a small set of users or a single business unit to exercise the reconciliation and refund processes end to end.

Integration & automation​

• Ask Elavon for API docs and webhook options. Full production value is realized when payments trigger automated ledger entries, client notifications, and accounting reconciliations. Automated posting reduces manual errors and accelerates cash application.
• If you use Dynamics 365, NetSuite, or QuickBooks, request specifics about native connectors or recommended middleware patterns to avoid manual CSV reconciliations. Embedded payments are most valuable when they reach the ledger without friction.

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Security, Privacy and Regulatory Considerations​

• PCI and regulatory proofing. Beyond an AoC, look for evidence of penetration testing, third‑party vulnerability scanning, and SOC 2 or equivalent attestations to complement PCI statements. An AoC alone does not answer all security governance questions.
• Data residency and cross‑border flows. If your organization is subject to local data residency or sectoral rules (healthcare, government, payments in particular jurisdictions), verify how Azure hosting and Elavon’s processing footprint map to those legal obligations.
• Model governance for AI features (if any). The announcement emphasizes convenience and workflow — if future product updates add AI‑driven routing, reconciliation, or decisioning, require model governance details, explainability, and error‑handling guidance. This is a broader industry ask as payments systems incorporate ML for routing and fraud decisions.

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Business and Competitive Analysis​

From a market perspective, Elavon’s integrated Teams/Outlook play is a sensible extension of the EPG platform and of its parent U.S. Bank’s distribution muscle. The proposition is simple: reduce the number of clicks between invoice and settled cash. For the target user — solo professionals and small practices — that convenience can translate into faster payments and fewer administrative hours.
Strengths:

• Contextual convenience — users don’t need to leave Outlook or Teams to issue invoices or accept payments.
• Marketplace distribution reduces procurement friction and simplifies access for many Microsoft 365 customers.
• Backed by an enterprise payments gateway (EPG) that supports omni‑commerce flows, giving Elavon flexibility for additional integrations.

Risks and open considerations:

• Operational concentration — embedding payments in a single platform raises questions about redundancy and recovery; dependence on Microsoft’s availability and on Marketplace distribution mechanics needs contractual clarity.
• Vendor governance — marketing claims (e.g., “first major embedded payments expansion on the EPG platform”) should be measured against contractual and technical evidence. Independent validation and pilot performance metrics are necessary.
• Monetization friction — platform or Marketplace fee structures and merchant fees may erode margins for low‑ticket professional services unless the offering demonstrably shortens the cash cycle enough to justify the cost.

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Practical Recommendation: How to Evaluate Elavon Live Payments Quickly​

• Run a two‑week pilot with a set of recurring invoice customers and measure Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) before and after activation. Use a control group to verify impact.
• Request the security pack (AoC, SOC report, penetration test summary) and validate the tokenization approach.
• Negotiate an SLA that ties remediation or credits to availability and failed transaction windows; verify who owns remediation for Marketplace or Teams‑level incidents.
• Confirm settlement timing and fee schedules in writing, and model any net cash flow changes to ensure the service improves liquidity net of fees.

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Conclusion​

Elavon Live Payments is a pragmatic, productized step in the migration of payments into productivity applications: invoice and collect inside Outlook and Teams, reduce friction, and accelerate cash conversion for professional services. The app arrives at a moment when embedded payments are becoming table stakes inside productivity and commerce surfaces, and Elavon’s EPG and Marketplace distribution give it credible reach.
That said, buyers should treat the launch claims as the starting point for a disciplined procurement process. Confirm PCI scope and Attestation of Compliance, demand measurable SLAs and independent verification where possible, pilot in a controlled environment, and ensure accounting/ERP integration eliminates manual reconciliation work. With those guardrails in place, the convenience of in‑context payments can produce real operational and cash‑flow benefits — but only if the technical and contractual plumbing is validated in production.

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Source: Chartmill https://www.chartmill.com/news/USB/...-with-elavon-live-payments-and-microsoft-365/