September 2016 - Excel Capital Management

How Automating Repetitive Business Tasks Can Save You Time

February 19, 2020September 28, 2016 by Excel Capital

As a business owner, you know that there are many tasks you and your staff find yourselves doing that just take up more time than they should. While important, spending unnecessary time on repetitive tasks that could be used to better the business in other areas can negatively affect productivity and company morale. The negative impact is made much worse for small businesses that just don’t have the manpower to handle hundreds of tasks per day, in turn, stunting the overall growth of the business. Here are a few common tasks to consider automating!

Checking and Answering Emails:

For many businesses, email is the lifeline. It is used to correspond with partners, answer customer inquiries, make requests, and much more. While checking your email is essential, if possible, try setting a few solid times throughout the day to check your inbox rather than every few seconds or minutes. If this is not possible, setting up your email filtering to allow urgent emails to go to one inbox and less important emails to go to another could save you time and stress. Additionally, try setting up automated email replies for when you are out of the office or even an autoresponse to let customers and partners know that you will reply to them shortly.

Payroll and Accounting:

Since you are most likely doing payroll weekly or biweekly, it may be a good idea to try to automate this process as much as possible – especially if you have a large staff. Consider hiring a payroll company to take on the job for you so you can focus on running your business, or if you want to handle most of the job yourself, consider purchasing a payroll, bookkeeping, or accounting software such as Quickbooks or Sage50. These types of softwares will not only help you with payroll management, but they can also help you with keeping track of business expenses, paying bills, and more.

Social Media Marketing:

By now, we’re sure you’re on top of the social media business marketing trends. Constantly creating and promoting content is essential in running a successful business, but it is a hefty job. If you are managing all of your social media accounts yourself, it is easy to quickly become overwhelmed. Consider downloading an app such as Hootsuite. This neat app packs quite a punch, allowing you to manage all of your social media accounts at once. You can even schedule posts for each account (maybe you use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) and track analytics.

Inventory Management:

Keeping track of inventory is time consumer, but one of the most important tasks for your business. Proper inventory management will require work from actual employees, however, human error does occur, not to mention, this task can be a tedious one. To make ensure that you are on top of what inventory your business has in stock, what needs to be purchases, and what is selling and what is not, consider using an inventory tracking system. Keeping a handwritten record or even a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is helpful, but Fisbowl or FlowTrac are two great softwares that can make the task even more seamless.

An ACH Loan Could Be The Perfect Funding Solution for Your Business

March 19, 2024September 6, 2016 by Excel Capital

ACH Cash Advance or ACH Loan for Your Bar or Restaurant

Deciding if an ACH Business Loan is right for your business:

Applying for funding for your business can be quite daunting. Do you go the traditional bank loan route or work with an alternative lender? ACH Loans make Funding Quick and Easy

Well, traditional bank financing can be quite tedious, tiresome, and unfortunately, not always the best solution.

Alternative lenders like Excel Capital Management can offer better funding products depending on your business’ needs such as an ACH Business Loan. Let’s take a closer look at how ACH Loans work and how one could benefit your business.

What Are ACH Loans?

money exchange | Excel Capital Management

To start, the primary purpose of an ACH Business Loan is to service the working capital needs of small to medium-sized business owners. They are a popular funding solution for businesses that do not accept credit cards or want a set repayment schedule.

Whether you need the working capital obtained through an ACH Business Loan for inventory purchases, new hires, employee training, additional office space, or almost anything else for your business, this funding solution can be extremely beneficial.

Unlike traditional business loans, funds from ACH Business Loans are disbursed in as little as one business day after being approved for funding.

Additionally, this funding product does not require a minimum credit score to qualify, which means many up and coming businesses or businesses experiencing a rough financial period. Having collateral is not necessary to qualify, so business owners who have poor credit or lack business history can still apply for this great funding solution.

Lenders use the ACH (automated clearing house) system provided by many banks to set up automatic recurring payments to collect payments. This is the main set up for Unsecured Business Loans.

Payments are usually remitted via daily or weekly ACH’s and provide micropayments instead of one large payment due at the end of every month. This ACH loan process reduces the risk for many higher-risk industries such as restaurants, car dealerships and trucking. Allowing alternative lenders to provide restaurant business loans, Cardealer funding and truck financing when most other traditional banks would not consider funding.

What Can an ACH Loan Be Used For?

The great thing about ACH Loans is that they are a funding solution that can be used for businesses in all industries and for virtually anything as long as it pertains to the business itself. Here are some common uses of working capital acquired through an ACH Business Loan:

Business Permits & Licenses – Depending on your industry and state of operation, your business may be obligated to obtain and display certain permits and licenses. Renewing these documents can be costly, but are necessary since not having the proper documentation at any point of operation can cause major legal issues in the future.

Office Space & Business Locations – Maybe you need an office space or facility in order to properly operate. Business capital can be used to acquire new space or to improve and expand an existing location.

Inventory Purchases – Business capital acquired through an ACH Business Loan can be used for bulk inventory purchases so there is never a shortage of goods and products. Often times, purchasing inventory in bulk has it’s benefits and is much cheaper than individual purchases.

Marketing & Advertising – Website development, paid ads, and social media marketing is a big job, and hiring a team of professionals can be pricey. Having enough business capital in order to cover these expenses can help tremendously.

Research & Development – Constantly developing your products, goods, and services is essential for staying ahead of the competition in your industry. Additionally, doing the proper market research and analyzing your target audience and consumers is key to knowing what your customers want. Business capital can certainly be used to help fund this process.

Product Manufacturing – Similar to research and development, product manufacturing may be a constant need depending on your industry and business capital may be needed during slow periods or when business is so great, that you must quickly meet the demand.

Employee Hiring & Training – Consider using the capital obtained through an ACH Business Loan to hire additional employees or to train existing staff on new business operations.

How are ACH Business Loans Paid Back?

The process of collecting payments on an ACH Business Loan is typically done through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) withholding method with fixed daily, weekly, or monthly payments. Lenders are able to withdraw a predetermined amount from you business’ bank account. The less common, but just as efficient, method is through a lockbox agreement. This process is a little more involved as all of a business’ daily credit and debit sales are deposited into a lockbox account with the lender withdrawing a predetermined repayment amount.

Deciding if an ACH Business Loan is Right for You

Many business owners feel ashamed when it comes to applying for some sort of financing, but not to worry. Almost all successful businesses have reached out for additional working capital at one point or another. In fact, many businesses that are doing incredibly well obtain additional working capital through a business loan for continued growth and expansion. Here are a few steps to take in order to decide if an ACH Business Loan is right for you.

Identify Your Business’ Needs – First things first, why does your business need a loan in the first place? Sit down with your core staff members, financial advisors, or simply yourself to determine your business’ needs and how a quick business loan could help. Do you need to purchase inventory, hire additional staff, catch up on bills? Having a plan of execution once the loan is acquired is essential for success, as well as a plan for paying the loan back.

Do the Due Diligence – You may hear the phrase, “do the due diligence” a lot when researching quick business loans. In simpler terms, this means doing the necessary research before applying and accepting an offer with a lender. There are thousands of lenders and brokers out there – traditional and alternative. Don’t take everything at face value. Learn as much as you can about each lender you are interested in, compare pricing, read reviews, ask questions, and follow your gut if something just doesn’t seem right. You have the right to protect yourself and your business. The last thing you want to do is put your business in more of a financial bind or have setbacks. Research and knowledge is key. Do your due diligence.

Choose the Best Quick Business Loan Option – Maybe you did this when identifying why your business needs a quick business loan, but it’s a good idea to confirm again the type of loan product your business truly needs. Could your business benefit from an SBA Loan, Term Loan, Startup Loan, or something else? Speak with your chosen lender to go over all of your options and get a better understanding of how everything works.

Find Out What’s Needed To Qualify and Apply – All lenders have different business loan qualification guidelines. Depending on your business’ financial standing the amount of money you are looking to obtain, the documentation needed to be presented with an approval will vary. It is a good idea to at least have your last six months of business bank and credit card processing statements available, as well as additional financial documents like P&L and Balance Sheets and tax returns easily accessible.

What is the Application Process for an Ach Loan Like?

loan application | Excel Capital Management

Typically, most lenders that offer ACH Loans require minimal paperwork in order to present your business with an offer and approval. As mentioned, your business’ bank account can even be funded in as little as three business days! Here is a list of items to have ready when applying:

Completed application provided by your chosen lender

Four months of recent business bank statements

Four months of recent credit card processing statements (if your business accepts credit cards)

Clear copies of identification for all business owners
Voided check for the business bank account that is to be funded

*additional documentation may be requested prior to funding*

How An ACH Loan Can Help Your Restaurant or Bar:

While it is a trendy and thriving industry, owning and operating a bar or restaurant isn’t so simple. The business is constantly growing, changing, and will forever be one of the most competitive. These issues on top of the fact that business owners of all kinds will inevitably run into some financial hurdles overtime can be overwhelming to think about. So what do you do when your bar or restaurant is in need of working capital to fix cash flow issues? What do you do when the traditional big banks decline your business loan application? There are options. Introducing the ACH Cash Advance and ACH Loan or Unsecured Business loan.

As mentioned, all business owners will be in need of working capital at some point over their business’ lifetime. Whether additional funds are needed to fix your bar or restaurant’s cash flow issues during a slow period, train new wait staff, hire more bartenders, purchase inventory, or repair kitchen appliances, A quick Business loan can help. Two popular reasons many bar and restaurant owners reach out for capital is due to the turnaround of employees and the fact that their business may be cyclical.

For instance, employees in the bar and restaurant industry do not tend to stay at a job very long due to constantly looking for additional or better work opportunities. It’s a fast paced industry that many work in on the side to make extra cash. The causes many issues for business owners who can’t compete with other bars or restaurants that pay better. Additional capital could help you to give deserving employees a raise or promotion. Similarly, many bars and restaurant are cyclical, meaning they are open 2 to 4 days per week. Thus, generating enough revenue to pay rent for the business and cover expenses and payroll can be tough.

To acquire working capital from a traditional bank via a business loan is no easy task. BIg banks require lengthy applications, lots of paperwork, and tend to take a few weeks for processing and an approval or decline. Not to mention, due to the unsteady industry, an approval can be even more difficult to receive. (Check out our recent blog, “Why Business Loans Declined For 3 Reasons” for more on that).

Luckily, alternative financing is available, and the most popular financing solutions tend to be the Merchant Cash Advance or ACH Loan. The primary purpose of a Merchant Cash Advance or ACH Loan is to service the financial needs of small to medium sized business owners. Unlike traditional business loans, funds from a cash advance or ACH Bank Loan disburse in as little as three to four business days. They do not require a minimum credit score to qualify, therefore, many rising businesses or businesses that run into a rough patch over the years opt to use this financing solution.

Another benefit is that Merchant Cash Advances or ACH Bank Loans do not require any collateral to qualify, so business owners who have little to no collateral (or poor credit or limited business history) to offer can rest assured that nothing will be taken from them. Finally, since ACH Cash Advances and ACH Bank Loans do not necessarily have fixed payments, business owners who run into financial troubles over time do not carry the burden of large monthly payments, balloon payments and do not accrue over time (since they are classified as a purchase of future sales at a discount).

When it comes to paying back your ACH Cash Advance or ACH Loan, there are two common collection processes. With a Merchant Cash Advance, payments come from a set percentage of credit and debit sales. With ACH Loans (this financing product is typical for businesses that do not accept credit cards or want a set repayment schedule) the collection process is done through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) process. collection process is through the Automated Clearing House withholding method with fixed daily, weekly or monthly payments. This method allows the lender to withdraw a predetermined amount from your business bank account. Lastly, a lesser common method of collection is through a lockbox agreement. With this method, all of a business’s daily credit and debit sales are deposited into a lockbox account, in which the agreed upon repayment amount is removed by the lender.

Guest Blog presented by Kabbage: How Fintech Has Helped the Small Business Lending Industry Grow

April 19, 2017September 1, 2016 by Excel Capital

How Fintech Has Helped the Small Business Lending Industry Grow | Excel Capital Management | Kabbage

It is amusing the way popular art often foreshadows or even predicts the future. Science fiction movies focused on space travel long before the first probes were sent to explore the galaxy, and self-driving automobiles were part of novels on the future long before they even became a possibility. Perhaps the best example of popular culture accurately predicting the future happened in 1984. The movie “Revenge of the Nerds” depicted a ragtag crew of science geeks getting revenge on the jocks and popular kids at their school.

Today, as foreshadowed in the movie, nerds indeed have taken over the world. From one of the wealthiest men in the world, Bill Gates to the domination of the geek and nerd driven internet, the nerd now is in global positions of power. These same nerds, while long in the institutional financial space, have decided to shift their focus to the retail financial sector.

The Emergence of Fintech

Fintech has capitalized on the relationships that can be formed between finance and technology to drive innovation for everyone from businesses to everyday consumers. Whether it is having the capability to access a bank account on a tablet or paying for an in-store product with a mobile phone, these ties formed between finance and technology are the epitome of fintech.

The so-called fintech industry is targeting a treasure chest of over $4.7 trillion once dominated by old school players. Following in the footsteps of the other disruptive nerd driven technology, the fintech sector is on fire in regards to growth. The sector drew $12 billion investor dollars in 2014, an over 40% increase from the previous year.

Within the retail financial sector, small business lending, personal loans and loans for professionals have already been radically improved by the growth of fintech. This is not just speculation about the future – every day, small business owners are taking advantage of the new world of lending powered by the fintech revolution.

Fintech vs. Traditional Lending

The fintech revolution has the traditional institutions very concerned. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, warned in his investor letter that “Silicon Valley is coming.” Jim Marous wrote in The Financial Brand, The impact of digital technology and the digital consumer is transforming the way consumers access financial products and services. Beyond simple transactions, such as checking balances, the intersection of finance and technology (fintech) is impacting virtually all categories of financial services at an increasing rate, reshaping the industry’s status quo.

Backing up his contention, Marous cited, Results from a PwC survey, ‘Blurred Lines: How FinTech is Shaping Financial Services’, found that the majority of survey participants see consumer banking and fund transfer and payments as the sectors most likely to be affected over the next five years. The report included responses from 544 CEOs, Heads of Innovation, CIOs and top management involved in digital and technological transformation across the financial services industry in 46 countries.

While these projections and warnings remains premature, it is a tell as to what the future holds for the overall financial sector from the fintech revolution. Truth be told, the fintech lending space remains a tiny part of the overall lending industry. One example of the size differential could be considered with $9 billion in loans funded by a fintech firm. While $9 billion is a tremendous amount of money, it is peanuts compared to the total loan volume. Even just compared to the $885 billion in total credit card debt outstanding in America, it is like a flea on an elephant’s back.

An Analysis of the New Lending Industry

Traditional institutions stand to gain from the growth of fintech. Fintech has accelerated the growth of the small business lending sector in multiple ways. First, and perhaps most critically, fintech has lowered the cost of making loans for the lender. These savings can then be passed down to the borrower, creating a less-expensive product. Lending costs have been slashed by cutting out physical branches, legacy IT systems and burdensome regulations, allowing a more direct connection with the borrower.

Also, by moving the application process to the internet, additional costs can be cut from no more physical paper application processing. For example, the standard loan cost for a traditional lending institution is 5-7%. Fintech lenders can cut this number down into the 2% zone.

Next, fintech has opened up an entirely new clientele for business lenders. Due to a lack of pertinent data and ways of processing it, traditional small business lenders are forced to rely on the old fashion ways of approving borrowers. The old style approval process takes into account credit score of the business and owner as well as the collateral to secure the loan.

The new fintech small business lending firms consider hundreds of data points, often in real time, to make credit decisions. This practical use of big data enables the new wave of fintech small business lenders to make loans that were previously impossible by traditional means. Credit-worthy customers may not have the collateral or perfect credit score to qualify at a bank for small business financing. However, the new wave of fintech small business lenders can be secure in making these once impossible loans.

Finally, fintech is in the process of creating a more stable credit environment. The reason for this is the simple fact that banks rely on borrowed money to fund loans whereas fintech small business lenders use investor’s money directly to fund loans. This helps eliminate the inherent risks of borrowing to lend.

Wrapping things up, as you can see, fintech has revolutionized the financial industry and online business lending in particular. Although fintech remains a tiny part of the overall financial sector, it is rapidly growing. Using big data and high-speed processing computers, fintech firms can make loans that were once considered impossible by traditional lending institutions. In the process, fintech is super-charging the small business lending world with growth and new possibilities.

Kabbage is the industry leader in providing working capital online. Kabbage is dedicated to supporting the small business community and has funded more than $1.6 billion to help business grow.