Fortunately, digital cash flow management tools can make this process simple and effective. Read on to discover more about the benefits of switching to more digital cash flow management tools.
Step Away from Reactive Data
Digital cash flow management tools are nothing new. In fact, businesses have been using digital tools such as spreadsheets and databases to keep track of their cash flow for decades. The problem is, these legacy tools are reactive. They do not provide reliable insight into future cash flow performance or requirements.
Modern tools should step away from this reactive approach and instead offer proactive and predictive capabilities. Drawing upon historical cash flow data, and then cross-referencing this with predicted operational changes in the future, digital solutions can forecast cash flow requirements ahead of time, helping with the cash flow management process.
Leverage Actionable Insights
Human teams are not adept at handling raw data. The human brain is brilliant at thinking creatively and critically, but it is less well suited to identifying patterns within complex data sets. Fortunately, digital cash flow management tools can handle this easily and efficiently, providing teams with actionable insights that form an operational road map.
Invest in digital cash flow management tools that do the heavy lifting of data interpretation and analysis. This not only frees up human teams to focus their attention on projects more suited to creative and critical thinking, but it also helps to eliminate the human error that can lead to problems with cash flow forecasting and calculation.
Get a Handle on ROI
Cash flow represents a valuable data resource. Understanding your incoming and outgoing funds helps your business to understand precisely how your investments are performing and how quickly you are seeing returns.
For example, if you invest in new IT infrastructure for your business, cash flow data can tell you how this infrastructure has changed your operating costs. You will be able to see how much revenue is being generated by the new solutions, as well as the ongoing operating costs. Your cash flow management software should put all of this data in an easily comparable format so your teams can understand your ROI at a glance.
Improve the Customer Experience
Your customers provide the lifeblood of your cash flow. It is customer payments that keep your business moving, providing the healthy cash flow it needs to thrive and grow. With this in mind, make the action of paying easy for the customer — improve the customer experience and make cash flow easier to manage.
Digital tools can support this. A customer payment portal is far more convenient and easy to use than a back and forth exchange of emailed invoices. Your customer will be able to handle the payment directly through the portal, eliminating much of the hassle from their end and helping you to collect invoices more quickly. This portal should also integrate with your cash flow management software so you can quickly identify any outstanding invoices and save any historical invoices in a secure cloud storage structure.
Achieve Reliable Income Through Subscriptions
Streamlining the payment process with a portal is highly effective for customers who make ad hoc, one-off purchases. However, this model can leave your business vulnerable — with no long-term guaranteed income, it can be difficult to accurately forecast future cash flow.
One-off purchases can still form a significant part of your cash flow, but you can achieve better reliability and security by supporting this with a subscription payment model. Products such as Software as a Service (SaaS) or other managed service offerings are suitable for monthly contracts, effectively guaranteeing a reliable monthly payment for the duration of the contract. These subscriptions can be logged via your digital cash flow management solution, which then draws upon this data to provide more accurate forecasts and predictions in the future.
Develop Your Software and Hardware Infrastructure
Digital business tools need to be supported by the right IT infrastructure. If you feel that your business' infrastructure needs an upgrade, reach out to our team and we can help you get ahead of the competition with the very latest equipment with the right leasing plan for your business.
