Written by Enhancing Financial Operations for Small Growing SaaS Companies
Just raise money? Now it’s time to build a great software stack. Creating efficient financial management is essential for the success and growth of SaaS companies. Organizations can leverage a wide range of tools in their software stack to optimize their operations, gain valuable insights, and ensure overall efficiency.
If you want a free graphical view it’s all here:
From accounting platforms to payroll management, payment processing, and financial analysis, there are numerous software solutions available to build software stack that cater to the specific needs of small growing SaaS companies as well as large enterprises.
To facilitate effective financial management, the following authoritative software solutions are recommended to build your software stack:
Accounting Platforms:
- QuickBooks: A popular accounting software offering a comprehensive suite of features tailored for small to medium-sized businesses.
- Intacct: We use Intaact as our go to platform. It’s an advanced cloud-based accounting platform suitable for mid-sized and larger businesses. It provides robust financial management capabilities and offers integration options such as international consolidations and also provides a handy dandy dashboard so you dont have to recreate charts in Excel.
- Xero: A widely used cloud-based accounting platform (mostly overseas) specifically designed for small businesses and startups.
Payroll Management:
- Gusto: An intuitive payroll service provider catering to the needs of small businesses, offering automated tax calculations and direct deposits. For a fee gusto takes care of all the state registrations (it’s not fun waiting on hold with the Georgia dept of labor)
- Paycom: A comprehensive payroll and HR software solution providing end-to-end solutions for businesses, including payroll processing, employee management, and compliance.
- ADP: They’ve been around forever serving companies of all sizes. Typically its for bigger companies but they do have a small company version.
- Rippling: A payroll and HR platform that integrates payroll, benefits, employee onboarding, and IT management into one seamless system.
Accounts Payable/Receivables:
- Bill.com: Offers accounts payable and accounts receivable automation, simplifying digital payments and invoicing processes.
- AvidXchange: Provides automated accounts payable solutions, streamlining invoice processing and approvals.
Payment Management:
- Stripe: A widely adopted payment gateway enabling businesses to securely accept and manage online payments.
- PayPal: Offers versatile online payment solutions, including invoicing, recurring payments, and mobile payment options. Oftentimes we use PayPal to pay small vendors such as marketing subcontractors.
- Braintree: Provides a platform for processing online and mobile payments, supporting various payment methods.
FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis):
- Jirav: A cloud-based FP&A tool that helps businesses with approved budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. It provides integrated financial modeling, scenario analysis, and real-time reporting capabilities.
- Mosaic: They do a whole bunch of things including financial planning and Mosaic just raised some money themselves.
- Planful (Host Analytics): It’s a little older but still works well and Planful provides comprehensive financial planning and analysis solutions, including budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.
Equity Management:
- Carta: Specializes in equity management, cap table management, and employee equity plans for startups and growing companies. The only thing is that it gets expensive as you add users so something to watch out for.
- Capshare: Offers equity management software designed for private companies, simplifying stock options tracking and administration.
Business Intelligence:
- Tableau: Provides robust data visualization and business intelligence tools, enabling businesses to explore and analyze data visually.
- Looker (Google Cloud): Offers a data exploration and visualization platform that seamlessly integrates with various data sources.
- Power BI: This is our go-to platform and you can get started for free. A powerful business analytics tool by Microsoft that enables businesses to analyze data and share insights through interactive dashboards.
There are a ton of software companies and one has to piece it together for what works. Take a look at our poster which highlights all the vendors and in addition adds all the metrics and KPIs you need as well. Good luck.