6 Ways FinTech Can Improve Your Business

Financial tech, often nicknamed FinTech, has become an integral part of the way many businesses operate. Some can no longer run efficiently without this technology because it’s become such an integral part of their operations.

If you haven’t already, it might be time to integrate more FinTech into your business. Start by educating yourself, and as you learn more about FinTech, you might see many different ways that it can benefit your business, including the following:

1. Small Business Funding

Small business owners often face unique challenges in finding funding for their businesses. Because they haven’t yet proven that their venture will be successful, it’s more difficult to earn those startup funds from traditional lenders.

However, according to AmericanBanker.com, FinTech companies are starting to change that. They’re putting pressure on traditional lenders to hand out more funding because, otherwise, they’ll lose business to online lenders.

“Entrepreneurs demonstrated that technology could change the built-in frictions in the traditional small-business lending process, and a new era of innovation was born,” the article states, pointing out that many online lenders offer better matching, fewer gaps in credit information, lower loan costs, and greater transparency. It hasn’t replaced traditional lending, but it has helped many small businesses get started.

2. Accounting Services

Hiring an in-house accountant is pricey for new businesses struggling to keep their overhead low and maximize their profits. FinTech solutions offer a more affordable alternative to keeping the books for small businesses because there are plenty of software options that can do much of what an accountant does for just a few dollars a month.

The most popular digital accounting tools include QuickBooks, FreshBooks, and Sage Accounting. They’re all-inclusive tools with step-by-step instructions for simplicity’s sake. This tech doesn’t always make it possible to forgo hiring an accountant, but it can help you out at the start and reduce the number of hours an in-house accountant will have to work.

3. Productivity

When you’re able to use technology for keeping your books, getting loans, and maintaining your accounting needs, suddenly, it paves the way for greater productivity in the office. The hours you would have spent crunching numbers can be spent on the fundamentals of your business or better yet, maintaining your work-life balance.

There are also ways to collaborate using FinTech so that everyone in management is up to date on what’s happening with your accounts. This can be invaluable in cutting down communication and meeting times so that your team can simply focus on their jobs.

4. Decision-Making Tools

One of the most tangible impacts of bringing FinTech into your business is the decision-making tools that help you scale up. Raw data is being collected all around your business by websites, social media, bots, and other internet things. However, this data is unusable without a dashboard to help you understand it.

Some technologies can help you make sense of relevant financial data, usually in the form of data dashboards. Various tools of this kind can help you make sense of bundles of information that would have otherwise been meaningless. They not only show you what the data looks like in visual graphs and presentations, but also make recommendations to help you grow your business faster.

5. Customer Service

Technology has revolutionized the customer service sector in a hundred ways, from chatbots that can automatically respond to customer questions to customer relationship management software that helps companies get to know their customers better.

FinTech is also playing a role in customer service by providing useful information about customer demographics, spending power, and correct pricing of products. It enables salespeople to give discounts and improve the overall image of their company’s customer service. The result is better engagement and an overall stronger consumer image of your company.

6. Process Efficiency

Each process in a small business can be automated to a certain extent to create more efficient processes. For example, a payroll system that’s bogged down with extra steps for approval, paperwork, and busy employees is a huge bottleneck for many small businesses. Automated payroll software can make payouts happen instantly without waiting for the other pieces to fall into place.

This can be applied to most areas of the business where finances have become a burden. Rather than slowing things down, companies are relying on blockchain, artificial intelligence, and automated programs to get things done in the financial sector and beyond.

This doesn’t take the human out of the equation. On the contrary, you’ll always need people there to double-check accuracy, push data through the programs, and communicate with the rest of the company. These FinTech tools simply make their jobs infinitely easier, which directly benefits your business.