Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) are important cornerstones to both our economy and community. In Canada, businesses with fewer than 100 employees employ nearly 11 million people, and nearly three times as many Canadians work for small businesses than larger ones. The impact of SMBs is similar in the U.S., with small businesses accounting for 99.9% of companies and generating nearly two-thirds of all new jobs.
And SMBs are important for their local economies, too. Independent businesses create new jobs, products, revenues, and services for their communities. Nearly 70% of money spent at small businesses stays in the local economy.
It’s clear that small business survival is crucial for the communities that surround them. The more SMBs are able to flourish, the more they’re able to put time and resources into their communities.
By implementing technology, business owners and their teams can put more effort into growing their business and maximizing their community impact.
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Explore how automation and AI can be game-changers for improving your workflows in our guide to workflows management.
Here are three ways that businesses that invest in technology are able to make investments in the communities around them.
1) Freeing up time that can be dedicated to community impact
Implementing technology saves businesses time by reducing the workload needed to complete tasks, which leaves more time for strategic business activities and extends their bandwidth of the impact they can leave on their community.
Thames Valley Family Health Team (TVFHT) is one of the largest family health teams in Ontario Canada with more than 120 physicians across 18 sites, providing care to more than 160,000 patients. Originally, they handled their financial processes manually. As they began to grow and take on the financial responsibilities of other healthcare organizations, the increased workload was holding their team back.
By investing in Plooto, TVFHT digitized their finances and automated their processes, expanding the team’s capacity without taking on additional members. Plus TVFHT was able to cut back on all costs associated with the manual financial process, allowing them to put those dollars into more impactful areas of their business.
Technology allowed TVFHT to grow and put more time towards their support of healthcare professionals and the patients in their community.
2) Supporting their mission of supporting other businesses
Many businesses exist to help other entrepreneurs succeed. As they increase efficiency and are positioned to scale, they have greater opportunities to take on more customers and provide deeper support.
One example is Startup TNT, which connects local startups and entrepreneurs with angels, supporters, and other investors. Their mission is to help Canadian businesses get the funding they need to make an impact, but they struggled at first to move capital efficiently between investors and startups.
By implementing Plooto, Startup TNT cut transaction costs, saved payment time, and reduced friction in sending payments, enabling them to better support the next generation of Canadian companies.
In addition to needing funding, many small businesses don’t have the budget for a full-time marketing team and can struggle to get their story out in the world. That’s where Crisp comes in. Crisp provides fractional marketing services and comprehensive marketing strategy for growing businesses.
At first, Crisp only accepted payments through checks and credit cards, which ate up time and costs. Physical checks are error-prone and difficult to reconcile, meaning the Crisp team would waste time dealing with payments. But with Plooto, Crisp cut costs and saved time, enabling them to put more effort into helping other businesses get themselves known.
Serotina is a Toronto-based social media agency specializing in social strategy, content creation, and social media management. Initially their financial processes were clunky and time-consuming.
Since switching to Plooto’s all-in-one solution, Serotina has saved time and effort in their financial process. Instead of dedicating time to managing their books, they can focus on helping other businesses promote their products and services.
3) Enabling accounting firms to bring the best out in their clients
Accountants are often the first line of financial advice for SMBs. The more manual number-crunching and data-entry they can eliminate, the deeper they can dive into helping businesses understand and manage their cash flow and make smart financial decisions.
More than half of small business respondents say cash flow issues were impeding their growth, with 38% saying they’ve had to turn down growth opportunities due to capital restraints. Finally Remote Accounting is working to change that. By implementing technology that streamlines their financial management, Finally has been able to put more work into helping other businesses be financially successful. 
Looking for strategies to improve cash flow? Check out our cash flow management guide.
LiveCA’s goal is to move clients into paperless, cloud-based accounting. Cloud-based accounting allows businesses to access their finances on one central platform, and stores financial data all in one place – meaning no need to track down paper files. This standard ultimately helps both client and accountants manage finances more seamlessly.
By leveraging Plooto, LiveCa has been about to manage payments at scale for all their clients from a single platform. This way, LiveCA can focus on growing their business and extending their services, managing 10 times the number of clients without having to increase their workforce.
Using a cloud-based system is safer for your data and is accessible anywhere there’s internet. Read more about the benefits of cloud-based systems.
There’s a tremendous domino effect when businesses have more time and resources to invest in those around them — and time-saving technology plays a huge role.
