Few small businesses and their accountants proactively manage the costs of doing business internationally. Some turn to fintechs such as Wise, WorldFirst and Airwallex to reduce the costs of international transfers and collections, but this still leaves a wide gap compared to how large businesses get to manage their international finances. HedgeFlows offers a flexible toolkit that helps cross this gap for businesses of any size.

Jonathan Gaunt (FD Works): "FX is becoming more and more important to our clients. We are dabbling with things like Wise but it is not sufficient for this kind of clients."

LACK OF TOOLS

Starting with tedious payments and reconciliation processes, foreign currencies are a bug bear for many FinOps teams and book-keepers. Where other solutions have emerged to help streamline these processes in one’s home currency, popular accounting systems don’t offer adequate tools to make foreign payments reconciliations or remittances easy, for example.

“We're not taking advantage of using things like batch payments that we would use for kind of UK, domestic payments”, adds Jonathan.

HedgeFlows is the first cloud-based solution that supports two-way integrations with Xero, Sage or Quickbooks and offers payments automation to easily process payment runs in up to 30 currencies simultaneously, with or without foreign conversions.

GAINS AND LOSSES

Understanding the true drivers of foreign currency gains and losses is also something that many businesses want to be able to do better. But for many, it is the lack of practical understanding and easy-to-use solutions that stops them from looking into this problem more proactively.

As Raz Miah (Gunberg & Co) explains: "When and where should they exchange their FX - they don't even think about it.  Some of them don't even realise they've got a problem or that they will have a problem. And this could easily eke out their margins."

SMALL BUSINESSES; THE FORGOTTEN ONES

Both mainstream banks and fintechs have yet to be able to offer the scale of supporting thousands of small businesses with better currency solutions.

Jonathan Gaunt saw it first-hand: “They're not big enough to get the corporate banking experience or the international experience from their bank, and the bank is just looking at them and wouldn't even offer an appointment. Because there are not enough zeros on the end of the ticket."

The limitations of popular accounting systems also get in the way: "The type of ledgers that they use don’t help to understand the exposure.  Xero converts everything into the base currency, and you can only see balance sheet in your currency. So, in terms of understanding my exposure between my sales ledge and purchase ledger - I have not got that. And if I wanted to do something, it suddenly becomes complicated.  So the lack of visibility would be a good starting point."

HEDGEFLOWS: THE ONLY SMART SOLUTION THAT MAKES FOREIGN FINANCES EASY & FAIR

HedgeFlows offers a Cost and Risks Analytics package that shows a timely and detailed picture of the costs of doing business across borders. Integrating with Xero takes less than a minute, and users can instantly see a live picture of financial risks stemming from accounts payable and receivables in foreign currencies. From automated email alerts to periodic management reports, accountants and business owners can now easily understand the impact and consider their options for saving money when they trade internationally.