Sidetrade has today launched a new feature called CashTarget, which uses gamification for businesses who are restarting treasury performance.
As businesses emerge from pandemic lockdown, the dash for cash will intensify. With revenue proving unpredictable and loans running out, the focus needs to turn to accounts receivable – invoices which remain unpaid. Rob Harvey, global director of solutions consulting at Sidetrade, said:
‘Cash is king’ is truer than ever. For business leaders, it is crucial to create a much stronger cash culture, where every team is thinking about cash, whether that’s around sales, credit terms, receivables, or customer relations.”
CashTarget enables managers and cash collection teams to track, allocate and manage collection targets at both individual and team level. It creates a more comprehensive ‘cash culture’ throughout the business, right acoss the order-to-cash process, for all the staff involved.
Linking fun and gamification to serious KPIs
The Sidetrade R&D and product teams thought about how they could motivate users, to boost cash collection as businesses plan for recovery after the pandemic. They turned to game theory techniques, integrating game features into CashTarget. Dashboards are replete with graphs, charts, and goals, creating greater visibility among teams and a healthy competition feel. Rob Harvey, added:
Everybody loves a competition, so injecting a little fun into a cash collection application has a big impact on performance and user experience. CashTarget adds value to individuals and teams, and gives employees greater visibility on their own actions. Who says cash collection can’t be fun?”
Sidetrade has redefined the accounts receivable automation market, with its powerful, yet easy-to-use, augmented cash solution. Since 2018, Aimie, Sidetrade’s AI assistant, has brought predictive payment behaviours, and the best dunning strategy recommendations, to the cash collection market. Aimie helps over 2,700 customers in every industry accelerate cashflow generation, on average by 50%.
Since 22 April, Sidetrade, the AI specialist, has been publishing a B2B unpaid invoice tracker. Freely accessible to all private sector decision-makers and public authorities, it shows the payment behavior, week by week, of over 3.7 million businesses in six European countries: France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands.
A clear picture of the impact of the Covid-19 crisis per business sector
A first of its kind, the Sidetrade tracker analyses the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on twelve business sectors. As of 25 May, the UK sectors hardest hit by payment delays tied to the crisis are:
- Finance, Insurance, Real Estate: 76% of invoices over 10 days overdue
- ICT (Information, Communication, Technology): 60% of invoices over 10 days overdue
- Leisure, Hospitality: 55% of invoices over 10 days overdue
Note that Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, as well as ICT are areas where late payment rate was already high prior to the pandemic: 56% and 53% respectively.
Sectors least impacted by the crisis include Food industry (19% invoices over 10 days overdue), retail (22%) and manufacturing (23%).
Hard hit by the crisis, the UK seems to be seeing the first effects of lockdown exit
Evidence from the Sidetrade tracker shows a strong correlation between payment behaviour and economic activity. The latest tracker release was highly awaited this week to see the effect of exit from lockdown. With 38% unpaid invoices as of 25 May 2020, the UK has seen a slight improvement in customer-supplier relations. This is the first positive effect of lockdown exit.
Nonetheless, the unpaid rate remains extremely high, representing a threat for many businesses. Late payment deterioration in the UK rose +26%.
For the first time, all six countries tracked showed a significant improvement, even though the unpaid rate is still high. The UK has the highest rate (39% unpaid), whereas the Netherlands can boast the lowest figure: 18% unpaid, not far from their pre-pandemic rate of 15%.
The Sidetrade tracker is a trusted reference for payment behaviour trends. In the coming weeks, it will be a crucial to analyze the reality of the economic upturn in Europe.
About the Sidetrade Unpaid invoice tracker
The Sidetrade tracker, shows the payment behaviour, week by week, of over 3.7 million businesses in six European countries: France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Since 1 January 2020, Sidetrade has analyzed over 26 million invoices representing €54 bn in B2B transactions.
The tracker is freely accessible to all private sector decision-makers and public authorities.
Researchers in charge of the barometer, operated by industry analyst Sidetrade, stressed that the finance, insurance, real estate, as well as ICT, are areas where late payment rates were already high prior to the pandemic.
Sidetrack monitors six countries to see how their payment flows are progressing. The UK has the highest rate of unpaid invoices (39% unpaid), whereas the Netherlands can boast the lowest figure (18% unpaid), not far from their pre-pandemic rate of 15%.
The Sidetrade tracker shows the payment behaviour, week by week, of over 3.7 million businesses in six European countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and the UK.
Since the beginning of the year, Sidetrade has analysed over 26 million invoices representing €54bn in B2B transactions.
The tracker is freely accessible to all private sector decision-makers and public authorities
Axxion, acting on behalf of funds under its management, has announced that they have exceeded the 5% threshold of Sidetrade’s capital, now holding 5.19% of the capital.
Axxion has been a Sidetrade shareholder since 2015, and is advised by HC Capital on some of its Sidetrade shareholder funds. Jeremie Couix, co-founder of HC Capital Advisors, had this to say:
We are convinced that Sidetrade has a unique positioning. Its offers have a very short payback for its customers. In addition, Sidetrade has the highest recurrence rate of all software companies listed in France, and offers significant leverage on the forward margin. Olivier Novasque, its CEO, has a very ambitious project and we are perfectly aligned with the investments and growth strategy.”
Sidetrade and their AI assistant Aimie accelerate revenue and cash flow generation across all business lines.
Olivier Novasque, Founder and CEO of Sidetrade, commented:
I wish to thank Axxion and HC Capital for their trust. The Covid-19 crisis is accelerating SaaS investment and Artificial Intelligence to improve all business processes. The explosion of late payments is drawing the attention of CFOs to the use of the latest technologies to secure and accelerate cash flow generation. As a cloud and AI solutions pioneer, Sidetrade has a considerable lead in this area and is ideally positioned to create value in this new paradigm.”