The latest tech tools can make work easier, and that’s particularly true when it comes to your finances. Financial technology — or fintech, for short — automates time-consuming tasks like categorizing expenses. It can help you get the reporting you need to make data-informed decisions. It can also make it easier to comply with regulation that applies to your company.
All of that said, that doesn’t mean you should go out and buy the first fintech solution that looks good to you. There are countless options out there and the best fit for your company depends on criteria that are unique to you.
Ultimately, getting the right combination of fintech tools (i.e., the stack) requires some thoughtful planning. Here are a few areas to consider.
Stack size
Depending on your company’s stage, your stack should look different.
Seed-stage startups often only need a few tools. We always recommend starting with a base accounting software. Operating with QuickBooks Online might be enough in your early days, for example. In addition to QuickBooks, you can explore other options like Xero, FreshBooks, and NetSuite. For bootstrapping startups, we’ve seen some companies use Wave, which has a freemium product that can help keep companies organized.
There’s one other core fintech component that companies at any stage should have: business accounts. Everyone from major banks to new players in the game (like Mercury) offers tech tools to accompany checking, savings, and credit card accounts. That might include an app so you can deposit checks and track transactions on the go, for example.
As you grow, your stack should scale with you. You might implement a solution to help manage A/P and A/R (e.g., BILL) or one to make payroll easier (like Gusto). The right tools to add depend on your finance function’s needs. Your outside accounting firm or any in-house people you hire should be able to guide you here.
Implementation
As you add tools to your tech stack, it’s important to think through implementation. This means getting that solution up and running at your business.
A lot of software providers promise out-of-the-box plug-and-play functionality. That doesn’t mean you should fire it up and walk away, though. Good implementation means taking the time to train your team on how to use the solution’s full suite of features. This way, you’re not paying for aspects that lie dormant.
As you’re vetting software options, talk with that company’s sales team about what kind of implementation services they offer. Some companies call it training, others call it enablement. Whatever it’s named, you’ll be best served by choosing a solution that your team will know how to adopt.
You should also ask about the ability to tailor the solution to your needs.
If the fintech provider doesn’t offer what you need in terms of training or customization, you can hire a consultancy to help you here. That means investing more on the front end, but it can mean the difference between a highly useful tool and one your team abandons over time.
Integration
The bigger your stack gets, the more integration matters.
Integrations mean that the solutions play nicely together. If you have a business checking account that can’t integrate with your base accounting software, you’ll miss out on the ability to pull transactional data in where you need it. Similarly, if your payroll tool can’t feed data back to your other software, you risk that key part of your finances getting siloed.
Fortunately, a lot of the most notable fintech tools know the importance of integration. In many cases, it will already be built in. QuickBooks, for example, has a pre-built integration with Gusto.
If the integration doesn’t exist already, look at the tech tool’s application programming interface (API) offering. An API requires a bit of work from your developers (or developers at the software provider, if they offer this service). But it can help data flow the way you need between the tools in your fintech stack.
Quick tips: tried-and-true tools for every stage
As you explore implementing and integrating new tools to reach the right fintech stack for your company, sorting through the wide array of software solutions can feel daunting. Fortunately, Akshay Shrimanker, our Founder & President, has some recommendations for you. These are based on what he’s seen work for tech companies at each stage of their growth.
Pre-seed
Implementing the right fintech tools in your early days sets you up for success and scalability. Consider the following options for your various needs:
- Bookkeeping: Quickbooks Online Essentials, Wave Accounting
- Banking: Mercury
- Payroll: Gusto
- Cap Table: Carta
Seed stage and/or pre-seed with revenue:
In this phase, it’s time to add a solution that allows your company to spend. Shrimanker has some recommendations in that category.
- Bookkeeping: Quickbooks Online
- Banking: Mercury, Rho Treasury
- Credit/Spend/Virtual Cards: Rho, Ramp, Brex
- Payroll: Gusto
- Cap Table: Carta
Series-A and beyond:
As you get bigger, you can keep a lot of the same fintech solutions in place. But you might need to add to your stack to make it easier to recognize revenue and pay bills. In this stage, we recommend the following tools:
- Bookkeeping: Quickbooks Online
- Banking: Mercury, Rho Treasury
- Credit/Spend/Virtual Cards: Rho, Ramp, Brex
- Bill-Pay: BILL
- Revenue Recognition: ChargeBee, Stripe Rev Recognition Module
- Payroll: Rippling, Justworks, Niural
At any stage, getting the right guidance can make a huge difference when establishing your fintech stack. Our team has experience with all of the above solutions. In fact, we’ve specifically partnered with many of them. That means we can help you explore what they can do for your startup based on your current stage, your business model, and more.
Here at ShayCPA, we’ve partnered with all of the following companies:
- Betterment
- BILL
- Brex
- CorpNet
- Deel
- Gusto
- Justworks
- Mercury
- Ramp
- Rho
- Rippling
- Snyder
- TriNet
We’ve synced with all of these brands because we’ve seen how their solutions can make life easier and make work more efficient for startups. If you have questions about any of these options, our team would be more than happy to discuss them with you. Get in touch with us whenever you’re ready to explore building or fine-tuning your fintech stack.