New Tools For Banks To Help SMBs Manage Cash Flow

Small businesses often struggle with cash management and find themselves guesstimating about how much cash is at their disposal to pay bills, invest in new technologies and services and general operations. A new platform that turns this art into a reliable science is now available for banks to offer as a white label service to its customers.

A subsidiary of Acxsys, the Small Business Payments Company, saw many SMBs guessing way too much about their cash flow and just how much money they had at their disposal. In response,  they’ve launched a cash-forecasting software tool, called the Small Business Workbench. James Good, Assistant General Manager of Small Business Payments Company explained that they were inspired by the SMB owners who are “staying up Sunday night after they put the kids to bed, trying to figure out if they can meet the payroll next week”.

The service is available as a white-label for banks and small business providers to offer to their clients as a feature to set them apart from their competitors. Convenient Payments, an ISO, is the first to offer the service. The hope is that with the proper tools, small and medium businesses will be able to avoid having to take out emergency loans, that often have high interest rates and fees, and focus on the growth of their business.

The tool was designed to help businesses determine whether they can make capital investments in addition to having enough funds for day-to-day operations. With it, small businesses can forecast projected cash positions for the future, planning for payroll, taxes, capital purchases and other events. In addition, they can create action plans to minimize or avoid potential problems. Small Business Workbench users purchase additional solutions from an inventory of apps that will feed directly into the Workbench tool for make the forecast more accurate. The app offerings cover inventory, payables, payroll and managing receivables.