Fintech (Financial Information Technologies) is a payment and data solution for the alcohol industry. Here’s how it works

What is Fintech alcohol payment? Source: unsplash.com

The alcoholic beverages industry is striving for innovations in the realm of convenient beverage selection and payments. As other food retailers and restaurants, the companies dealing with alcohol need to seamlessly combine on- and offline customer experiences. At the same time, the industry faces additional challenges like age limitations and stricter regulation. Hence, alcohol retailers must pay additional attention to KYC procedures and checkout solutions.

Sales and distribution

The company offers a set of tools for alcohol suppliers. Automated Payment Collection allows alcohol producers to receive invoice payments effortlessly.

Due to specific regulation, local authorities generally limit the use of credit purchases and require cash on delivery (COD) for orders within the alcoholic beverages industry. Currently, Fintech is the only electronic funds transfer (EFT) provider approved by all 50 US state alcohol regulatory agencies.

The automated solution is deployed only with regards to the applicable policies. Thus, credit cards are still not supported in most locations. Yet, Fintech is working with US regulators to move these rules forward, and ensure that businesses in the industry can deal with B2B payments efficiently and compliantly.

The process offered by the Fintech B2B platform is very simple. Customers may add any retailer in their area to electronic payments via text, email, or their personal Fintech portal. They get online access to invoice details, are able to overview completed and pending payments, and send credits directly to retailers through the Fintech portal. This solution integrates with popular route-accounting systems (RAS) and standard EDI files, among others. Sellers and distributors may also send COD or term invoices to the Fintech portal and receive payment from selected retailers electronically on the day it’s due.

It’s estimated that this automated solution saves about 15 minutes per each delivery, as the delivery service doesn’t have to wait for payment to be made in cash or fill manual payment forms. Besides, it eliminates the dangers for drivers who would need to carry piles of cash around otherwise.

Retail

In addition to automated invoice delivery, alcohol retailers receive data insights and centralised alcohol purchase databases. Therefore, they can manage invoices from suppliers online, access bank activity information, see line-item invoice details, submit credit requests to distributors and track receipts, as well as receive funds directly to their bank account.

The smart platform created by Fintech offers a few crucial reporting solutions:

• Price Discrepancy Report. Retailers may view and analyse product cost fluctuations, whether they buy at retail or bulk prices.
• Top Products Report. This data illustrates fast-moving products, so that merchants may take advantage of quantity buys and stock the right selection on time.
• Split Case Report. The latter insights help to eliminate unnecessary ordering fees and know when to buy by the case or by the bottle.

Partnerships

In late 2020, Fintech partnered with e-invoicing technology firm AccountsFlow. The collaboration helps to boost inventory visibility, facilitates data connectivity with QuickBooks Online, as well as gives greater understanding of consumer consumption behaviour. Fintech’s solution ingests abbreviations used for alcoholic beverages, translates them into understandable descriptions, categorises items and transfers this information into QuickBooks Online along with pricing details, product type, distributor discounts and other related data points.

In June, Fintech acquired a powerful web-based data management platform STX Business Solutions. STX’s intuitive cloud-based BI technology consolidates data points from several sources, creating credible and actionable data reports that expedite business performance. The mechanism provides up-to-date trend analysis, allowing alcohol suppliers, distributors, and retailers to track product success and performance. This acquisition will strengthen Fintech’s product suite.

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