From Bar Bills to Back Office: How Fintech Simplifies Hotel Invoicing

Glenn: Everybody to your hospitality, friend Glenn here. And listen. I’m a small business owner, just like you. And one of the areas that I find really complicating is making sure I’m invoicing everyone at the right time to make sure I get the cash that I have earned. And I’m just a single guy here. I can’t imagine what it’s like operating a hotel with bars and food and beverage and all of that kind of stuff. So today we’re going to talk about simplifying your lives with my good friends over at Fintech, because they’ve got great hospitality business solutions that are right up this alley. Let’s welcome Amit  Agora chief technology officer with fintech. How are you Amit? What’s going on?

Amit: Doing great. How are you?

Glenn: I’m doing great. So it’s really cool that you started this with the liquor side of the business, right? Because it’s so complicated, so many different rules, not just nationally and on the state level, but even local jurisdictions could add confusion. So you started out there. You moved to the mainstream hospitality Business. So in your own words, what is making your technology so valuable to hoteliers out there like those in my audience?

Amit: It’s actually exactly what you started out with. Glenn. Yeah. You know, our system was built over the last three decades and starting with state level local jurisdictions to national rules, there are lots of rules surrounding whether it’s beer, you know, liquor, wine and how you process an invoice, the rules surrounding it, the payment terms, how they’re handled, how we actually validate an invoice coming from a distributor, and the authenticity, authenticity of it, right, is part of what this, you know, platform handles. And make sure your payment is actually made on time and doesn’t put you in any kind of blacklist with any distributor, and actually getting you in any trouble with being able to actually sell the alcohol that you would. Absolutely.

Glenn: Yeah, totally. The only blacklist I want to be on is Johnnie Walker Black. Speaking of alcohol over there, right. Yeah, this makes a lot of sense because it’s just super confusing. And it probably takes a lot of time for each individual to process a single invoice on their own to make sure there’s no mistakes. So by automating everything, you’re probably my guess is saving a lot of human hours of work while also making sure that you’re more consistently paid correctly or pay correctly every single time. Yes.

Amit: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the human, you know, time savings is absolutely important factor. But I will also tell you it’ll de-risk your AP function in general, right. So you don’t have to worry about, you know, dealing with the nuances. There are lots of distributors that will kind of, you know, there are payment term changes that are happening. We actually follow state regulations and keep up with our we have a regulatory team that keeps up with all the changes as well at every state level. So it allows you to actually not have to deal with that issue whatsoever. And kind of, you know, make sure all your bills are paid on time.

Glenn: Ooh, that’s that’s pretty good. So what makes you guys different from other companies out there that may or may not be doing the same kind of thing?

Amit: Honestly, lots of things. Right. So number one, over the last 30 plus years, we’ve actually built this network, a two sided network where we take all, whether it’s hotels or any kind of retailer for that matter. On one side, you know, who wants to pay those alcohol bills, and then every distributor you can think of in the country. So we have north of 8000 distributors that are part of the network. They all actually deliver invoices to us electronically. They’re processed through our system and actually paid through through our, you know, through the retailers. Of course, you know, as those invoices move through our platforms. So that’s one big difference. That two sided network makes it super easy. So if you’re a new hotel owner setting up shop, or you acquired one and you want to set up in a bar now in that in that hotel that you didn’t have before, you could actually go to our portal quickly. Find any local distributors that you have that serves alcohol in that area, and quickly add up a relationship and get started right away. So that is one secret sauce about our platform and our company that is very useful for anybody starting out and of course wants to continue this journey. The other big thing is integrations to back offices before all that invoice data mastered and cleaned up into your back office so you can actually do inventory. You can actually keep a close eye on exactly what you’re buying and of course selling. Are you actually getting the right price point? You know that that you think you’re getting. So we have various kind of cost analysis components in our platform that gives you that that visibility into your purchasing of your, of the alcohol that you’re purchasing with distributors.

Glenn: Right. And also, we’re talking beyond alcohol. I want to make that very clear to everyone. So even if you don’t have a bar, you’re probably still dealing with companies like Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay and all of those organizations. So the same rules kind of apply, except it’s probably a little less complicated on your end is.

Amit: A little less complicated, but the problem is bigger, right? So thanks for bringing that up. Right. Because we’ve now ventured beyond just the alcohol piece and we take care of any kind of invoice alcohol non alcohol. So whether it’s Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Cisco Foods, you know US foods whatever invoicing that you’re getting today. So we now have just like we have a couple of thousand alcohol distributors. Now we have several hundred non alcohol vendors, you know, in our system already. So we take care of any one of those invoices and ensure that it’s paid on time and through the through the same platform that you use and trusted already for the alcohol side.

Glenn: So how are you thinking about continuing to adapt and build your business? Because in business over 30 years, obviously you need to keep changing in order to be successful. I think about the technology I was using 30 years ago, and it’s probably ancient history to you. You probably got people from the Smithsonian coming out to check out that technology.

Amit: Not not quite that bad, but but, you know, again, for the last five years, we’ve actually been going to a big tech renovation. So. Yeah. You’re right. I mean, yes. When when you have trusted legacy tech while it works and it’s not broken, nobody wants to change it. But we’ve been going through a lot of changes for various reasons. Right? Number one, actually, number one, I’ll tell you, even security. Right. We’re in the world of moving money. So we want to make sure your, you know you trust us with the payment transactions, we have to ensure that the security is at a different level. And for everything you’re hearing in the tech business now. Cybersecurity has become a big issue for every industry, right? So we’ve actually invested a lot into our security posture in the last five years. You’ve renovated our tech posture completely in the last five years. So our tech stack is actually completely redone. Now we actually have a portal that people, you know, a net new customer can just simply sign in and actually get free trials of our paid products as well, and taste the goods before they actually choose to continue to sign up for a paid service again. So we made a lot of renovations to our tech itself, both at a platform level. And then if you take each product and capabilities, we made it easy to now set up relationships with your vendors, set up various parameters on how you actually set up a relationship and autopay, auto approve things like that that you would want to do, especially on the non side. Yeah, again, all of that is actually part of our platform now. So.

Glenn: All right. Yeah. So as a business owner I’m like that’s all great. But how can you help me have actionable insights in my business as well.

Amit: So this is a common question and the most important question for especially a business.

Glenn: I hear I thought I was being clever and creative. So.

Amit: Well again you’re asking the right questions right. So number one, since we’re moving the data and we have the two sided components of it, we actually have a pretty good visibility on not just what’s happening in your business, what’s what’s happening around you at a, let’s say a regional local level or a county level or a state level, right. So we can actually, first and foremost offer you a lot of analytics that we already have in our portal today. So top selling products, top selling products in your area for example. Right. We actually do something called, you know, expected cost analysis. So you tell us what you think you should be paying as your back door price. And we actually compare it for you, just so that sometimes there is actually an issue with your top line price that you may have to kind of address or renegotiate or get that case break fees, or get that discount volume discount from your distributor if you buy two more cases, things like that. So we’ll give you that analysis for you to actually get better buying decisions. The other one that is actually very popular, especially in hospitality right now, is what’s called the beverage program management capability. We have this allows especially let’s say if you’re a chain owner, let’s say a higher, for example. Right. Hyatt will actually dictate exactly what kind of products you should carry in your bar a common set. So they’ll actually help you be compliant with what corporate demands. At the same time, have some local choices for your customers.

Glenn: That’s that’s essential. You have to have stuff of the area and the national brands that everybody loves. Yeah, that’s.

Amit: Correct. But see, it allows them to actually tap into some marketing dollars. So one of the reasons why they actually do this as well is they do a lot of joint marketing with the suppliers and remain compliant, but still, you know, attract the local products and local customers and products they love as well. So that’s a very popular product as well, especially in the hospitality business.

Glenn: Yeah, it sure is. This is really fascinating. I want to learn more. I mean, how can I do that? Where do I go? Who can I talk with?

Amit: Well, of course you can talk to our wonderful sales team, but you can first start with fintech. Com you can actually sign up to talk to one of our, you know, wonderful sales reps that we would be happy to talk to any one of your customers, of course. But we’ve put a lot of information online now. So we also have chat bots and online content. You can start there. Like I said, anybody can just sign up for free. So just there’s a sign up option right on fintech. Com and and yes we own the domain believe it or not. So we are a fintech. Com. Yes it’s true. You can actually go sign up. You know right on fintech. This is not just the industry that you’re signing up for. Yeah. And and then try the product for free.

Glenn: Awesome. I mean, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you. And I appreciate all of you for joining us. So why not share like this video? Give us a comment down below about how you think better invoicing capabilities can make your life a little bit easier out there. I’m Glenn Hausmann. Thank you so much for watching. I want to thank Amit over at Fintech and we’ll see you next time.