Routable’s Director of Global Alliances, Benjamin Weiss, recently sat down with Kathy Manny, Vouch Insurance’s Head of Finance, to learn about the successful fintech stack her team uses. To meet the demand of an ever-expanding client base, Vouch implemented both an ERP and payment platform: NetSuite and Routable, respectively.
NetSuite is the renowned cloud-based business integration system that has been paving the way for more than 29,000 customers in 215 countries and territories.
Routable is an automated AP/AR platform that can reduce manual tasks by 80% for finance teams. As integrated systems, Routable and NetSuite’s two-way sync provides reliable source-of-truth data to its users.
Let’s take a closer look at how Vouch’s experience with both platforms helped reframe their approach to scale.
Who is Vouch?
Vouch is an insurance provider designed for the unique needs and risks associated with technology startups (think fintechs, AI, SaaS, blockchain). Vouch Insurance provides a digitally native experience to its users, shortening the traditionally drawn-out, arduous process of acquiring coverage to less than 10 minutes. A startup success story in its own right, Vouch recently funded $90 million in new capital to launch its own insurance carrier.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) there are an estimated 137,000 new startups that begin every day around the globe. More than 24% of those are related to the tech industry. Unfortunately, many startups run into legacy insurance providers that either can’t or won’t provide coverage because they don’t understand the nature of the tech industry, which is quickly rewriting the rules for venture capital backing.
That’s where Vouch comes in.
As quickly as startups are born, Vouch’s user base is growing, and they, in turn, discovered they needed scalable business solutions to meet the growing demand.
How Vouch chose NetSuite as its ERP
“Multiple entities take a long time to consolidate manually,” reflected Kathy when discussing the challenges she saw her team facing, especially when it came to month-end finance and intercompany transactions. As an insurance carrier, Vouch needed an ERP that could bring together their segmented data sets to provide comprehensive reports and minimize manual data entry.
After first reaching out to her business networks, Kathy did a deep dive on software demos and looked for a system that matched her team’s needs rather than something that forced her team to remap their workflows.
“We really asked ourselves ‘What does it do? Will it work for my setup?’” she said.
Suggested reading: How to improve your month-end close process
The research for an ERP led Kathy and her team to NetSuite. “The biggest standouts for us have been enhanced controls and traceability,” Kathy said, noting that the ability to pull a consolidated finance report with the click of a button—with no manual work—has meant her team can focus on analytical and strategic functions.
How Vouch chose Routable as its payment solution
Quickly following the adoption of a new ERP solution was the need for an automated AP platform. Similar needs drove this decision: consolidated data and click-of-a-button answers.
Kathy knew that as much as it was helpful to see lump-sum numbers for reconciliation, her team instead needed a breakdown of the total without having to chase down the details.
“We knew we had paid something, but we needed to quickly know how,” said Kathy. With Routable, her team can see how Vouch’s funds are flowing, saving hours of manual thought processing involved in tracking payment questions.
Now, after a year with Routable as their payment solution, Vouch enjoys Routable’s two-way sync with NetSuite, spending 25% less time on reconciliation. She knows that when she conducts month-end work in Routable, that information is synced to NetSuite without her team having to move back and forth between systems.
Further, Kathy enjoys the way that Routable’s program evolves, constantly meeting the needs of its users—an echo and parallel approach to how Vouch interacts with the tech startup industry. “We’re going to keep up with our clients and continue to produce products that support their insurance needs,” she said.
Vouch’s three-step start to ERP and payment solutions
Benjamin ended the webinar by asking Kathy for any advice she would give another business conducting a similar search. Here’s what she shared:
Step 1: Connect with your network
When exploring a new finance deck, one of the first stops to make is checking in with your network. Don’t shy away from finding what has worked for others and what hasn’t. Kathy said this was a great way for her to establish an initial set of software she could research.
Step 2: Demos, demos, demos!
Really get to know the platforms and systems you’re investigating. Kathy encourages others to approach this step from a future-state standpoint. Don’t just ask yourself if it meets your needs today—will it continue to meet them in six months? Two years?
And pro tip: If it feels like a red flag, it probably is.
Step 3: Understand cost and implementation timelines
You need solutions that can integrate into your workflows in a timeline that won’t impede your business. Any new system will have an implementation lead-time, but explore what makes the most sense for your business. Kathy recalls being quoted six weeks to integrate a competitor payment solution, for example, but her team couldn’t wait that long. Vouch was able to import their settings from NetSuite into Routable and was up and running in only minutes.
It takes time to find the right tech stack for your business. Launch your search with the following resources: