Chasing up late payments is something business owners and their finance and accounting teams spend a lot of time doing.

When it comes to remote working, the one thing we learned over the past 18 months is that working in the office doesn’t necessarily equate to happier employees or higher productivity levels.

Chasing late payments can cost your business a lot of money, and today, Australian small businesses spend an average of 12 days per year chasing late payments – many of which are still likely relying on out-dated and inefficient manual processes.

Late payments amongst Australia’s SMEs have been an ongoing issue for many years. To address the issue, various policy measures have been introduced, especially when it comes to larger businesses paying SMEs.

Services-based businesses require many systems to run smoothly. From bookings and project management, to operations and payments systems, everything can take a lot of time to organise and manage, so it’s critical you have systems and processes that enable you to deliver a smooth customer experience, and get paid on time.

While the COVID-19 pandemic brought about many challenges for businesses, it also shifted consumer behaviours and created opportunities.

When economic uncertainty hits, you may find it more difficult to manage your cash flow. This article outlines how to balance your business’s cash flow in an uncertain economy.

Discover the best ways to build & retain new employees through virtual onboarding in 2021. Click to learn our 6 best tips to add to your onboarding checklist.

With a virtual terminal you can process payments in-store, over phone or online using a tablet. It’s easy & secure! Read more

You might have heard a bit about Spenda and perhaps you are keen to learn more? Or maybe you have recently discovered our business? Either way, we thought we’d dive deeper into who we are, what we do and how we help businesses excel so they can trade faster and most importantly get paid quicker.

Over the last decade, payment service providers (PSPs) have made a range of payment methods available to customers, particularly when it comes to online payments.

The payment processing industry has progressed rapidly in recent years, particularly for business to consumer (B2C) transactions. Platforms that offer integrated payment technologies for businesses to business (B2B) transactions are also becoming more widely adopted, allowing businesses to accept online payments and transform the way in which they trade.

Providing a great customer experience is critical for long-term business growth. Studies show increasing your customer retention by just 5 per cent can lead to revenue increases of at least 25 per cent.

Today, as part of International Women’s Day, we celebrate all women, everywhere. Aside from it being a day to honour and promote female empowerment, International Women’s Day brings with it a deeper meaning.

Businesses that sell online need a payment gateway to accept online payments. As the infrastructure that ensures all your payments occur seamlessly in the background, it’s important that you understand what payment gateway providers are available and how this integrates with the rest of your business.

For the majority of us, working from home has now become quite the norm. This new way of working certainly has a lot of perks – you miss the rush-hour traffic, you can save on child care fees and you can do your job from the comfort of your own home.

Many things need to be operating successfully for a profitable business, but the most important factor is cash flow management. Without adequate cash flow, it becomes difficult to pay suppliers, manage stock and cover the everyday expenses of running a business.

As businesses have started using technology more, online payment fraud has become a common problem. Email payment fraud is one of the most common and costly online scams.

End-of-day funds settlement just got a whole lot easier with Spenda’s new feature upgrade in SpendaPOS.

Today, Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering (STEM) careers are still very underrepresented by women. While there have been massive steps taken to promote STEM as a career to young women, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to encourage young women to even consider these disciplines when planning their futures.

Australian small to medium businesses (SMEs) have a cash flow problem and despite government legislation implemented on 1st January 2021, many may not survive if lockdowns and trading restrictions continue.

If you’re an accounts receivable professional or a business owner, you’d know the headache of following up overdue payments all too well. You may use a range of strategies to collect overdue payments, from agreeing on payment plans with your debtors to sending the invoice for debt collection.

The COVID-19 pandemic has permanently changed the way in which business is done and how customers shop. In 2020, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to USD 4.1 trillion and are projected to grow to USD 6.54 trillion in 2022.

Despite innovation in payment methods offered to consumers, the way businesses pay each other has changed very little over the last 40 years.

The fiscal policy measures introduced by the State and Federal Governments to cushion the economic impacts of the COVID-
19 pandemic have provided some businesses with a much-needed lifeline.

There is no doubt that company culture matters. Culture defines the way in which a business operates, the way tasks are managed, how colleagues interact with each other and with their customers.

Last week, many businesses across Australia were impacted by connectivity issues with their EFTPOS terminals resulting in customers simply walking away because there was no other digital alternative to pay for their goods and services.

Paying merchant fees might seem like the simple cost of doing business, but the recent surge in eCommerce means it is an area where businesses can save a significant amount of money.

Point of sale (POS) systems are an excellent tool for taking and managing payments in your business. Payment features, however, are just the basics of a POS system.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in 2020 being defined by a huge uptake of business-to-customer (B2C) payment services, such as contactless transactions and online shopping.

A Point of Sale (POS) system is the software used to make sales and take payments for goods and services within a business. While a POS system’s role is to facilitate financial transactions, the latest fintech innovations have revolutionised POS systems to manage multiple aspects of business.

What a year 2020 has been. We all had specific hopes and aspirations for the year and as we know, it’s turned out to be a very different outcome for everyone. Two words that sum up 2020 are uncertain and unpredictable, and while it’s been a tough year for business in general, we’ve decided to take a quick trip down memory lane and look back at the positives, the happy moments, and what we achieved for our customers.

No matter what your professional background is, you likely know how popular digital transformation has become over the last two decades. Starting with the internet changing how information is gathered and shared, through to today’s technologies that enable you to digitise your business.

If 2020 has taught business owners anything, it is the importance of being agile and resilient. For most businesses, the past year was a whirlwind of adapting and pivoting, such as introducing working from home arrangements and fast tracking eCommerce.

COVID-19 and the resulting decline in business activity has made it necessary for businesses to provide safe, fast and easy payment options for customers.

A payment platform that lets customers settle multiple invoices in one transaction could be a ‘game changer’ for ending late payments.
Australian business software developers have created SpendaCollect, which allows customers to track, group and batch-pay all of their outstanding invoices simultaneously.

When you own a service business, a lot of time and energy is focused on booking, tracking and closing jobs, often using a manual system. While this may be what your team is used to, legacy manual systems leave more room for human error and result in inefficiencies.

The New Year is the ideal time to reflect on past achievements and challenges and set goals for the coming year. For most Australian businesses, 2020 was a year to pivot, introduce remote working arrangements and fast track eCommerce.

Today, cash flow is the leading cause of business failure. In fact, 30 per cent of businesses say they only have enough cash flow to survive for three months or less.

Despite innovation in the payment methods offered to consumers, the way businesses pay each other has changed very little over the last 40 years.

Business owners, suppliers and customers will be the big winners after Cirralto (the parent company behind Spenda) secured a Business Payments Solution Provider (BPSP) agreement.

Revolutionary fintech functionalities are a ‘game-changer’ for retail and business-to-business transactions. COVID-19 has propelled the move to eCommerce into hyperdrive and app developers have risen to the occasion, providing business owners with effective tools to streamline their payment process.

As a local Australian business, we aim to do what we can to help out in the community. Our goal as a company is to support local charities and causes with both cash donations as well as our time.

Digital transformation has been key a focus for businesses in recent years, but particularly in 2020 due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lie by a pizza worker, that sent Adelaide into a strict lockdown last week, could potentially have been avoided if contact tracers had easy access to financial transactions at COVID-19 hotspots.

Earlier this month we attended the Accounting Business Expo, and for the first time, the event was 100 per cent virtual.

US President-Elect Joe Biden’s hopes for Australia to be the innovation hub of the southern hemisphere have been realised if our burgeoning fintech industry is anything to go by.

Earlier this month we were fortunate enough to have a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) join our team. As a fast-growing fintech company, bolstering our financial capabilities was a necessary milestone as we head into the next key stage of growth.

Selling online is an excellent way to grow your business as it allows customers to access your store 24/7.

Long queues at the Christmas and Boxing Day sales could be a thing of the past as businesses adopt mobile checkouts to help keep customers safe from the spread of COVID-19.

For many businesses, the team bonding experience often stops at the weekly Monday team catch up session, or perhaps the CEO delivers a regular update from the boardroom, and then you might end the week with some Friday afternoon office nibbles and drinks.

In a product-based business, having an effective stock management system is critical, especially in the lead up to the busy Christmas trading period.

In recent years, business to consumer (B2C) Buy Now, Pay Later providers have skyrocketed in popularity as more payment options come to market.

Managing a team just got a whole lot easier with Spenda’s User Management feature.

When we think of processing payments, it typically takes place when certain milestones are reached between your business and the customer.

Business is inherently about two things — people and numbers.

When you run a business, turning a profit is often a key focus as a business gets off the ground and continues to grow.

For many businesses, 2020 has been the year that has forced them to innovate and implement digital technologies in their business systems and operations.

Making sure you get paid on time is critical to your business’s cash flow.

Owning a business comes with many benefits. You get to decide the direction your business goes, steering in one direction to realise your vision, or another if you decide to change course.

Available now on SpendaPOS for no extra cost, this feature allows businesses to easily add variants for products that come in more than one option.

“When you look around retail stores and you see customers over the moon about the products you help craft every day, that’s a win for me.”

There is a lot that can potentially go wrong when it comes to the technical aspects of planning and developing elite software that can handle specific processes, data and tasks for businesses across Australia.

Today is R U OK? Day – and as 2020 has thrown many of us a curveball, it’s never been more important to highlight the importance of asking a friend, colleague, or loved one “are you okay?”

While she intended on galavanting around the world as a travel bug throughout this year, our new Software Tester, Hannah Van Schayk, was forced to abandon her booked holiday plans due to COVID-19 and focus her attention on software bugs instead.

If customer engagement and marketing is the face of your organisation, your company culture and working environment is the personality.

Our Business Analyst and Margaret River local, Andrew Mann, is our man on the frontlines meeting with our customers around Australia and helping them iron out their issues with the best digital technology available.

Late payments have become so ingrained in Australian business culture that small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) seem to accept them as a permanent challenge of the job.

While the effects of COVID-19 has seen many small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) fall into unprecedented times, e-commerce has been a welcomed safety net for many.

When he’s not catching waves at his local Queensland beach, our Server Technical Lead, Shane Nall, is creating them.

There’s a reason why cash flow contains the word ‘flow.’ The way it travels in and out of your business is the very thing that keeps it thriving.

We’re pretty lucky our brilliant Software Test Lead and favourite Kiwi, Angela Carne, decided to call Australia home and join the team at Spenda.

Many Australian businesses have been challenged by the economic conditions brought about by Covid-19.

I recently sat down with our experienced Chief Product Officer, Dave Wood, for a chat and inside view into the mind of our leader in Product Development.

No business owner or employee enjoys telling customers their preferred payment method is not accepted in store. Or even worse, that a surcharge will be added.

It’s estimated that 82% of retailers close down due to poor cash flow.

How many times did you or your customers pay for a product with cash in the last six months?

We’re excited to announce the launch of SpendaCollect. This payment platform enables customers to view and pay one or many outstanding invoices in a single payment transaction so businesses get paid on time and improve their cash flow.

When it comes to being a business owner, you’re either old school and run it with pen, paper and logbooks, or you have switched to digital technologies where your business data is automated and looking back at you from behind a screen.

For retailers and suppliers looking to expand their reach, e-Commerce is a logical fit. Joining the forces of Spenda and WooCommerce is a sure way to boost your exposure.

We’ve already invented 3D printing, spray-on skin and self-driving cars, so you would expect we can seamlessly send and pay off invoices without errors in an instant, right?

Merchant Fees. They’re as annoying as they are confusing. Many business owners don’t know enough about how they work or what they are paying for, let alone the breakdown of costs behind each transaction.

Developing a loyal customer base of repeat shoppers gives your business resilience to weather economic cycles and periods of uncertainty.

Every business struggles with the same thing. Satisfying customers. Giving them what they want, when they want it, and giving it to them in the way they want to be engaged.

Thankfully here in Australia, we’re handling the COVID-19 pandemic incredibly well and there is now a visible sign of the light at the end of the restriction tunnel, with a planned restoration of all businesses opening by July.

While Spenda now has more than 40 employees fine-tuning multiple software tools across two office locations in Perth and Sydney, the business started in a lounge room in Greenwood and was fuelled by a supportive single mother.

Ben & Jerry’s. Fish & Chips. Tom Hanks and Wilson. Some things were just created to become a great working duo, Spenda and Xero have joined the party.

Eat. Play. Love.
There’s no doubt pets have been a group of unsung heroes while we’ve been working from home to help flatten the Covid-19 curve.

There are two ways to build a profitable business, increase sales or decrease costs.

SpendaPOS and SpendaPay are now fully integrated with the Ingenico Move 5000 EFTPOS device to deliver an incredibly fast and secure checkout experience.

COVID-19 may have thrown Australian businesses a curveball, but everywhere you look people are adapting, and finding ways to keep their business moving forward.

Working in a retail or supplier business can be stressful even at the best of times, let alone with an unstable economy and global pandemic upon us.

We’re excited to announce all the following features have been updated within our Spenda App!

We may be socially isolating ourselves from one another, but the community spirit is alive and well.

Yes, Covid-19 has made our world uneasy and full of unprecedented challenges, especially for Australian businesses who are wondering what the future holds.

Need some tips on how to work from home during Covid-19? We’ve got your covered!

Over the last few years, Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) efficiency, revenue and customer engagement has differed enormously.

Our Spenda rep’s Alex, Domi and JB spent two full days meeting with software pioneers at the React Conference in Sydney and have walked away with mountains of innovative knowledge.

Our Spenda representatives Sandy Jones and Dominic Gattellari are over in Melbourne right now for the Inside Retail Live event!

The introduction of Point Of Sale (POS) systems revolutionised how people conducted business.
As technology evolved, cash payments and registers rapidly diminished as shoppers were gifted more payment options than ever before.