Tide have identified a pain point of most small businesses and that’s cash flow management. Cashflow Insights from Tide is a free service that let’s you connect your business bank account to Tide via Open-Banking to help resolve this problem. So what is it and what does it do?
Tide are once again a step ahead of the traditional high street banks. They’ve launched a new free service called Cashflow Insights. Tide haven’t paid for this article but it does contain affiliate links – these help to cover the costs of running this free website.
Cash flow is one of the most important indicators of business performance. Get it wrong and you’re in deep trouble. Get it right and your business can flourish. Unfortunately for most SMEs cash flow management isn’t high on the priority list. Day-to-day business activities usually take priority. Coupled with this, the unpredictable nature of cash flow can be a real headache for most small businesses. Has your customer remembered to pay you? Did you forget about that big bill that only comes out once a year?
The solution? Tide have developed a prediction tool to identify when you might be heading for rocky waters. Cashflow Insights let you gaze in to the future and identify problems before they happen.
How does Cashflow Insights work?
The system generates insights and predictions by combining data from your account balance, transaction history, invoice data and many more factors. It then uses a machine learning model to predict future account activity. The more you use your Tide account and other products connected to Cashflow Insights the more accurate the forecasts will be.
The system works by connecting your business bank account to the Tide platform to generate insights and predictions based on your account balance, transaction history, invoice data and many more factors. It then uses a machine learning model to predict future account activity. You can currently connect 4 banks to Tide Cashflow Insights:
- Barclays
- Lloyds
- Santander
- Natwest
- Bank of Scotland
- HSBC
- TSB Bank
How to you access Cashflow Insights?
You need to have an existing or new Tide account. You can then simply access the service from within the Tide app. Simply select the ‘More’ menu and you should see Cashflow Insights under Tools and Services.
If you’re already a Tide member, you can find Cashflow Insights under the ‘more’ menu of the app. If you don’t have a Tide bank account and don’t plan on opening one, fear not! You can also use Open-Banking to connect your current business account to the Tide platform.
Once your bank account is linked to Tide it’s a bit like having your own financial assistant in your pocket, giving you heads up about your cash flow before it becomes a problem.
- You can see your account activity with all outgoing and incoming payments
- See whether or not your cash flow ill be in a good place in the next 30 days
- With an embedded Experian credit score you have a single source of cash flow information
- You can pre-qualify for business funding via Tide’s partners
- You can even see the chances of getting paid on time along with a list of actions to get your cash flow in a healthier state.
Balance prediction
Tide members can see a balance predication to see how their business has been doing in the past as well as how your balance will look in the next 30 days. This allows you to plan ahead and manage your finances before a tight spot becomes a major problem.
Invoice payment probability
How likely are you to be paid on time? Do you have customers how always pay late? The system will give you an instant view of invoice payment probability based on past behaviour of that customer. This alerts you to risky customers and gives you an idea of the best time to chase. This is currently available to Tide bank account members, the feature should be released soon for the businesses using Open-Banking.
Credit score
How credit worthy is your business? Can you get access to funding when you need it most? Your credit score is integrated within Cashflow Insights via Experian. This is great for an ‘at a glance’ view of whether you’re likely to be accepted for additional business funding when you need it. It removes the guesswork and lets you build up your relationship with lenders so that credit is never a problem you need to worry about.
Account activity
This give you a quick snapshot of all incoming and outgoing payments for the past months. It’s aggregated and summarised for the last 3, 6 or 9 months. This gives you a quick view of profit and loss status so you know whether you need to correct your trajectory for the rest of the year.
Developing solutions to help your business
It’s all very well knowing you have a problem. How you’ll fix it is another matter. Cashflow Insights gives you direct access to tailored credit products from Tide partners including:
- Business loans
- Start up loans
- Revenue based finance
- Business cash advance
- Many other credit products
It also gives you at-a-glance actions without having to wade through hundreds or thousands of financial records. For example it will let you know that your balance will be going dangerously low soon and that 50% of your invoices are overdue.
Tide have done it again! I haven’t seen anything even vaguely as functional from any of the big high street banks. This could be a life saver for many small businesses. Want to give it a try? See if a Tide account is right for you by following this link. You can read more about Cashflow Insights here – Tide even have an offer for a free £100 Amazon voucher!
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Last Updated on 23 September 2022 by Andy Mac
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