As we’ve discussed before, the biggest challenge facing any business, whether start-up or scale-up, is ensuring that expenditure doesn’t outstrip revenue. Fortunately, there’s plenty of fintech out there to help businesses cope with the complexities of financial management.
Choosing fintech appropriate to your business will save you vast amounts of time, previously wasted chasing paper trails and will make your business far more efficient. Finding the right fintech will result in increased productivity, fewer mistakes, greater employee and customer satisfaction, improved security and improved planning capability.
Create a seamless payroll system
Let’s state the obvious: payroll is important. Get it wrong and you’ll have an unhappy workforce and you may land yourself in trouble with HMRC. The government website provides a helpful step by step guide and even provides free software. For something more sophisticated you should explore a complete accounting system such as the cloud-based system offered by Sage. Not only will it manage your payroll it will also handle invoicing, cash flow and tax, as well as handling all the documentation and processes required.
Never operate your business from your own account
However committed you are to giving your business 100% this should never include mixing your personal finances with business finances. It will lead to a complicated financial situation, which will be time consuming and therefore expensive to unravel.
Consider giving employees with budgets prepaid cards
Traditionally, managing employee expenses has tied up finance departments, chasing and collating receipts, and infuriated employees at the amount of time their expenses claim is taking to process. By providing your employees with a prepaid company card you can radically streamline the expenses process. Prepaid cards are loaded with a set amount of money, meaning that the employer can differentiate between employees and that there is no risk of overspending. The cards are not linked to a bank account, so the level of security is much higher than using a conventional company credit card. The beauty of the system for the employer is that the ‘payment control dashboard’ gives a complete real time picture of employee spending and enables an employer to modify budgets or freeze a card instantly.
Set up an all in one payment solution
Your business needs an appropriate payment gateway. In making your choice you need to consider the following factors:
- Can you have confidence in the level of security, not just for your business but most importantly, for your customers.
- Data portability. Will you be able to take customer data with you if you decide to switch gateways?
- How convenient is the gateway for your customers? Consider the ease with which you can make an Amazon purchase.
- Does the system accept all major cards and currencies?
- Can the system be accessed from a mobile phone? Desktop internet usage is falling, and mobile internet use is rising.
- What are the fees? Amazon, for example have high charges for low sales volume.
- What is the level of customer support?
These steps can all help to simplify the management of business expenses, freeing up valuable time to spend on growing and improving your company.
