Author 

Justin Bohlmann

Thriday is a Silver Sponsor of Be MPowered 2023

What's changed?

The business world is undergoing two significant transformations.

A negative force pulls in one direction, and an opposing, positive force in the other.

There's a sweet spot in the middle where the winning business will play.

The sting of inflation

Like a powerful storm, inflation is eroding the profitability of small businesses, making it essential to become more efficient.

The rising threat of competition

Driven by inflation, business competition is at its highest levels.

More businesses are failing, which you can see in the yellow.

Because more people need more money, more people are starting businesses than ever before.

The net effect of this is competition which you see there in red.

If you do nothing, competition will make your life harder.

If you adapt, innovation and efficiency can make your life significantly easier.

The best businesses will have to become the most efficient businesses

Inflation-driven competition means the winning businesses will need to be the most efficient.

They will need to improvise, adapt and overcome.

The winners will be those who can harness the power new processes, tools and technology, including AI, to combat the challenges posed by inflation, becoming more efficient and staying ahead of the competition.

The losers?

Those who fail to adapt and leverage innovation fall victim to inefficiency, shrinking profitability and increased competition.

Technology offers a beacon of hope

Imagine a world where your small business isn't just surviving but thriving.

A world where you've harnessed the power of technology to streamline operations, implement better systems, improve efficiency, and outsmart the competition.

That's the world we envision for you.

AI and other technology offer a beacon of hope to enhance efficiency.

However, it's not just a saviour but also a challenger.

As AI democratises, those who don't adapt could find themselves outmatched by more efficient competitors.

Your customers already want more for less

If you're not delivering value efficiently, your customers will be the first to let you know.

If not to your face, certainly with their feet.

They're already experiencing the results of this new technology every day.

They're already expecting more for less.

Efficiency is much more than a nice-to-have.

It's now table stakes, par for the course.

Efficiency helps you too

Greater efficiency isn't just about your customer. 

Technology and tools, used well, can significantly improve your life, saving many hours each week and helping you do more with less.

• Automation
• Better productivity
• Improved decision making
• Complex problem solving
• Dramatically increased efficiency 
• Enhanced lifestyle
• These are all benefits accessible to everyone.

Financial management is one of the most inefficient processes there is in business

The reason... the finance industry has been notoriously slow to innovate and adapt to change.

• Before 1985 we were still using paper.
• Then came Excel, what a product! And what an innovation.
• 22 years later, in 2007, we finally got an upgrade from software to products that worked in the cloud. Xero was an exciting product back then.
• The best part of 2 decades later, today, after very little change or innovation, we finally have another ground-breaking technology to take advantage of. AI.
• That enormous gap between cloud and today has created a mess.

Financial management has become a complex mess

Heavy regulation, high cost of change and lack of control and access to your data have led to complexity.

What's complexity?

Complexity is the enemy of efficiency

This mess isn't really anyone's fault.

Until now, the technology hasn't existed to do it any other way.

The old way of:

• Sending quotes and having to reproduce them as invoices
• Keeping physical receipts 
• Chasing invoices by phone
• Processing payroll externally to your bank account
• Maintaining financial records 
• Manually categorising expenses 
• Manually calculating depreciation 
• Manually reconciling transactions 
• Maintaining an asset register 
• Preparing your end-of-year tax in a combination of Excel and accounting platforms with numerous emails back and forth with your accountant 
• Preparing business activity statements with pen and paper
• Creating and managing a chart of accounts 
• Understanding rules and regulations so you can minimise your tax
• was far from efficient...

Finally, times have changed

These inefficiencies are where we've focused our attention with Thriday.

From running small businesses, we realised that if we could build a single platform, combining all the tools a small business needs to manage their money in one place and give them the ability to easily monitor the health of their business in real-time, without having to call their accountant, we could save them many hours a week and give them a much higher chance of success.

And when we say success, we don't mean grow at all costs. We mean to have the lifestyle they deserve.

The inefficient has become hyper-efficient

• Instead of manually reconciling receipts on a Sunday evening, we've built in AI-powered 'automated expense reconciliation', taking away the drudgery of manual record-keeping and making your business more efficient and resilient against inflation.
• Instead of calling and hounding your clients weeks after invoice payments are due, we've integrated 'automated overdue invoice follow-up,' so you no longer have to worry about chasing down payments. Thriday does it for you to help you get paid faster.
• Our 'automated tax forecasting' feature acts like a personal accountant, effortlessly calculating your liabilities, helping you plan better for the future, and freeing up your time and mind to focus on other things. 
• 'Multiple bank account creation' is your secret weapon for efficient budgeting. It enables you to create and manage multiple bank accounts in seconds, ensuring financial discipline and transparency.
• 'Real-time business health monitoring' provides a crystal ball to see your cash flow status and overall business health in real-time.
• Automated bookkeeping, accounting and tax forecasting is nirvana for small business owners.

Financial admin has changed from one of the most inefficient, hated business tasks to one of the most efficient, even to the point you might enjoy it.

With Thriday, what used to take 6.5 hours each week can now be done in 30 minutes or less.

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BIO

Justin Bohlmann is Head of Growth and an early investor at Thriday. As a former small business owner and entrepreneur, Justin has deep empathy for the challenges faced by small business owners and is passionate about helping them succeed, whatever success means to them.

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