This article is the second in a series focusing on small business banking financial technology. The first covers accounts payable technology and can be found here.
There are 33.2 million small businesses in the United States. With a looming recession, many may soon be looking for ways to lower their budgets, be it by reducing staff, cutting back on hours or even terminating contracts with other vendors. The median small business holds only 27 days of cash on hand, according to a 2016 study from the JPMorgan Chase Institute — an amount that could be challenged by the changing economic state.
Financial institutions should see cash flow management as an opportunity to provide their small business customers with integrated products and services they used to go elsewhere for.
Business owners decide where, when and how to invest and spend revenue after tallying bills, employee hours and balance sheets. They now have modern tools and ways to leverage third-party softwares to automate their balances.
Banks can provide this software to their small business customers, and they don’t have to start from scratch: They can turn to a fintech partner.
Here are three fintechs that could satiate this software need.
Boston-based Centime launched its Cash Flow Control solution in partnership with $26 billion First National Bank of Omaha in 2019. Centime gathers accounts receivable and accounts payable data to provide accurate, real-time forecasts to business customers. Any bank can integrate the solution as an extension of their online banking or treasury management services.
Banks can profit off of these cash flow products, too. Small business customers have access to a direct credit line through the analytics platform. And in a still rising interest rate environment, expanding the lending portfolio will be crucial to a bank. Banks that offer Cash Flow Control to their business customers can play a strategic role in their clients’ cash flow control cycle, gain visibility into their finances and provide streamlined access to working capital loans and lines of credit.
Centime states that it works best with banks with more than $1 billion in assets.
Cash flow solutions can also provide essential insight into current and projected business performance for a bank’s own purposes. Less than 50% of banks said that not effectively using and/or aggregating their data was one of their top concerns in Bank Director’s 2022 Technology Survey. Data segmented into business verticals could shed light into what businesses need from their banks and when they need it.
Monit from Signal Finance Technologies is another cash flow forecasting and analytics solution available to small businesses. Monit aggregates data from the small business’s accounting software, like QuickBooks, Xero or FreshBooks, along with data inputs from the business owner. The projections are dynamic: Business owners can dive deeper into exact factors that influence anticipated dips in cash flow. They can also model alternative scenarios to find ways to avoid the shortfall.
Using the projections, Monit provides business owners with suggestions for the future success of their business, such as opening a new line of credit or slowing down on hiring.
Accessing business data and the third-party apps that house it is another way to strengthen a bank’s understanding of their business clients, as well as indicate how, where and when to help them. UpSWOT’s data portal could be the right solution for a bank looking to gather better data on their business customers and connect with the third-parties that house it.
UpSWOT uses application programming interfaces, or APIs, to collect data from over 150 business apps and provide key performance indicators, marketing data and actionable insights to both bank and business users. It can even notify a bank about a small business client’s activity such as new hires, capital purchases like real estate or vehicles, payment collection and accounts receivable, financial reporting and tax information.
The upSWOT portal also creates personalized marketing and sales dashboard, which bankers can use to anticipate their business clients’ needs before their balance sheets do.
Essential to every single one of the more than 30 million small businesses in the U.S. is cash. And without the ability to effectively forecast and manage it, these small businesses will fail. Banks can help them flourish with the aid of fintech partners.
Centime, Monit and upSWOT are all vetted companies for FinXTech Connect, a curated directory of technology companies who strategically partner with financial institutions of all sizes. For more information about how to gain access to the directory, please email finxtech@bankdirector.com.
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