Today’s business environment is putting pressure on businesses to be efficient and intentional with their investments. Business owners are increasingly turning to technology to overcome challenges like rising costs and difficulty accessing capital. In fact, in a 2024 survey of American small business owners, 50% said they were likely to allocate more of their budgets to technology and infrastructure.
Businesses are seeing the benefit of using technology to bridge the gap between their objectives and available resources. One survey found that early technology adopters were more likely to report achieving business objectives and growing revenue compared to others who were tech-hesitant.
Financial technology (fintech) is especially helpful for streamlining processes, limiting the time and resources needed to manage money. Fintech digitizes the financial process, reduces time and effort needed, and enhances visibility — all of which drive business growth.
As a fintech platform provider, we’ve seen firsthand how improvements in efficiency can save time and resources.
Here are four ways we’ve observed fintech enabling businesses to invest in their long-term growth.
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Want a breakdown of specific technology your business should use? Check out fintech expert Tal Schwartz’s recommendations.
1) Streamlining the entire financial process
It’s incredibly difficult to scale manual processes that are confined to physical locations and often involve chasing down in-person approvals. These processes are inefficient and time-consuming, especially as your business grows and gets more complex.
Traditional approaches limit accounting firms to working with customers within their immediate area due to needing in-person meetings, sign offs, and file exchange. Envolta was looking to change that. As a fully virtual practice, they have expanded their potential client base and escape the burden of manual accounting. With the increased efficiency of Plooto’s centralized platform, Envolta promoted scalability and was able to increase their revenue by 400% in less than three years.
Check out our guide on how to use automation and AI to simplify and speed up your processes.
2) Saving budget that can be invested elsewhere
The traditional payment process is often slow to process, error-prone, and time consuming. Plus there are costs tied up in paper supplies and the wages of employees working on these processes. By digitizing and automating the accounting process, businesses can often rid themselves of these costs. This opens more capital to invest into growth-supporting activities.
The Influence Agency, a digital marketing business, was paying thousands of dollars every month to receive and send payments. With a growing remote team, managing paper checks became cumbersome and inefficient. By switching to Plooto, they were able to save time preparing checks and cut the costs associated with it so they could put more resources into providing marketing services to other businesses.
3) Giving back time to focus on growth
Technology reduces the time it takes to complete processes by taking over manual tasks and reducing errors. Automation can drastically cut down the time and effort needed by reducing human intervention and data entry. Time saved can be put to growth-promoting activities, and you can scale processes without taking on extra staff.
Freightzy, a logistics management business, was struggling to keep up with their manual payment process — which was error-prone — as their business grew. They wanted a payment software that integrated with their transportation management system and their accounting software to reduce errors and save time as they continued to bring on more clients.
With Plooto, they saved a significant amount of time with automated payments, while the integration enabled them to make a growing number of error-free transactions. Freightzy’s efficient processes now allow them to put accounting resources on higher value tasks, like growing their business.
Watch our interview with Freightzy founder Sean Freedman to learn how he used automation to scale sustainably.
4) Centralizing finances, enhancing visibility
Fintech centralizes your finances and integrates between your systems, giving you access to greater visibility. This surfaces important insights into your financial processes, including pinpointing where to improve your process and opportunities for growth. Technology gives you real-time data so you can make informed decisions and forecast accurately.
By digitizing their finances, Greenhouse was able to see their whole cash flow process, reducing time with follow-ups and reconciliations. With Plooto, they cut costs with their manual process, saving 40 hours a month and $50,000 a year.
Technology facilitates growth for businesses by reducing costs and time associated with manual processes. By saving resources in the financial department, it can be invested into areas of the business that promote growth.
