Go digital: Benefits of fintech for small businesses.

Discover how the benefits of fintech for small businesses make financial systems more efficient, and some ways you can leverage it in your own business.

Even organizations that conduct business with little to no alignment with the financial industry still have a need to manage their fiscal responsibilities. From ensuring accurate cash flow management to mobile banking access and accounting platforms, fintech is helping small businesses streamline processes and improve performance projections.

What is fintech for business?

Short for financial technology, fintech is helping change the way small businesses operate. One of the biggest impacts this technology has is helping to minimize cash flow challenges many entrepreneurs or small business owners face. Let’s explore some examples of fintech and how you can put it to work for yourself.

Importance of small business fintech.

Fintech is making banking and accounting solutions more accessible and practical for small businesses, opening new avenues for financial management, planning, and insights. Companies that leverage fintech solutions can optimize their operations while gaining new and improved insights into how their business is operating on a financial level.

Small businesses stand to gain quite a bit by implementing fintech solutions into their existing workflows. Not only can costs and revenue be tracked with more accuracy, often in real time, but costs can actually be reduced by identifying areas for efficiency, even when considering any purchase or subscription fees associated with the software.

5 benefits of fintech for small businesses.

While fintech has been around for a while (think ATMs, wire transfers), it’s a sector that continues to evolve quickly to meet the needs of business owners and consumers alike. Here are some ways you may be able to use it to help your business grow, scale up, and thrive.

1. Small business loans. If your business is new, it can be difficult to secure traditional funding without certain documents like tax returns or credit scores. Fintech lenders help solve this by assessing your creditworthiness with AI analysis of multiple data points.

2. More ways to pay. Fintech helps keep the cash flowing by allowing your customers to pay in myriad ways — whether it’s through an online platform such as Shopify, card readers like Square, or digital transfers from banking accounts.

3. Account management. Accounting platforms have historically been expensive and out of reach for many small business owners. With fintech solutions, you can now manage payroll, pay loans, keep track of your business expenses and taxes, and more. All of this can be done with document digitization to create secure records. The ability to send and accept e-signatures keeps these documents moving and may also save a trip to the bank.

4. Invoice from anywhere, anytime. Long gone are the days of sending paper invoices and waiting weeks (or months) for a check. With digital invoicing, you can simply add your signature, send it from anywhere, and receive payment almost instantly. Plus, it extends that flexibility to your customers as well.

5. Streamline related processes. When you go digital with your financial management solutions, it becomes more natural to automate related processes to create a secure audit trail of business management. Business process automation software can be a great fintech companion by helping with recurring tasks that overlap with financial management.

How small business fintech benefits security practices.

Financial data of any kind requires the right tools and processes to ensure the utmost security when it comes to data management and handling. Incorporating fintech into a comprehensive small business tech stack can help bolster security protocols.

When it comes to handling sensitive consumer and corporate information, you’ll want to leverage systems that prioritize compliance and ensure data security from every angle. Even the smallest businesses can experience fintech benefits that provide authentication and fraud detection services to prevent theft, breaches, or leaks. You might think your small business is too small to target, but not having the right small business fintech solutions in place could jeopardize the security of your finances.

In addition, fintech for small businesses can help with:

• Mitigating cyber attacks
• Establishing data access policies
• Preventing identity theft
• Reinforcing customer trust
• Creating vital data backups
• Implementing encryption security
• Complying with local, state, and federal laws

Getting started with fintech for small business.

Whether you’re a fintech fan or just exploring options, there are many ways you can use the technology to improve cash flow, automate processes, and better serve your customers. For even more digital solutions, take a moment to discover everything that’s possible with Adobe Acrobat for business.