How integrated banking reduces error 🏦
We have integrated with Evolve so all bank & card transactions show up automatically
We launched Rundoo Accounting at the beginning of the year and have written a bunch about it. Today is the last piece in our five-part accounting series:
Using Rundoo instead of Quickbooks? 🧮 An overview of why we launched integrated accounting: to help retailers save time and reduce error compared to moving Rundoo data to an external accounting system.
Accounting 101: Assets = Liabilities + Equity 🧮 This post goes over accounting fundamentals at the highest level, without discussing any Rundoo features. If you want to brush up on your accounting chops, this is a good place to start.
Why average cost matters 📐 An overview of the most challenging part of accounting for retail businesses: inventory. Tracking the average cost of your current inventory is at the heart of getting your profits accurate, and this post explains why.
Linking payments to orders 🖇️ A big benefit of Rundoo Accounting! Linking payments from your bank accounts directly to the received orders from vendors. This ensures your cost on every order, and therefore average cost on every product, is correct.
How integrated banking reduces error 🏦 (this post!) A second big benefit of Rundoo Accounting! We have integrated with Evolve Bank so that all bank & card transactions will automatically appear in Rundoo for categorization.
The Big Idea
Integrating finance & technology enables new experiences
At the highest level, fintech is the trend toward integrating finances and technology.
Having finances and technology integrate enables new experiences.
You’ve seen this already with Rundoo: we integrate with Stripe for card payment processing. This enables Rundoo to send the total and line items directly to the card reader, capture signatures on the card reader, and save cards in a PCI-compliant way.
Banking-as-a-Service
This is a similar idea but with banking! We have integrated with Evolve so that you can receive deposits, make ACH payments, and use virtual and physical cards.
Why? So that…
Transactions in your Evolve accounts appear automatically in Rundoo.
This saves you time and removes the inherent error of manually inputting payments & deposits in to your accounting system. You can go straight to categorizing them.
Why Evolve Bank?
Evolve is a tech forward bank that has become the market leader in integrating with technology companies. For example, Shopify built on Evolve to launch a similar banking program.
Furthermore, we can offer the Evolve account with essentially no fees:
No monthly maintenance fee: Many banks have a monthly amount you have to pay unless you keep a minimum balance—there is no such minimum here.
No volume limit fees: Many banks charge extra if you exceed a transaction threshold. There is no limit on this account.
No ATM fees: You can retrieve cash from any ATM in any network, and there is no associated fee.
No ACH fees: Maybe the biggest benefit is that you can pay vendors via ACH! There is no per-transaction or recurring fee to make ACH payments.
How do the money flows work?
So, how can you use this bank account? Let’s go through the four main ways you can move money. In brief:
✅✅ Card: Card processors can deposit money into this account, and you can make payments via card.
✅✅ ACH: You can accept and make ACH payments.
🔜🔜 Checks: We have not built the integrations for check deposit and check send yet, but they are possible!
✅❌ Cash: You can withdraw cash from any ATM, but we don’t have a good solution for depositing cash.
Let’s explore each of these in more depth.
Card
✅ In: Accepting cards in is easy. Your card deposits will just go to this account.
✅ Out: The cards are issued by Evolve, but they are Rundoo-branded.
You also have virtual card with a different number and CVV. Why? Online transactions are much more likely to fraud, so modern finance teams recommend using virtual cards for online transactions. Then, you can easily cancel them if fraud occurs.
When you make payments on these cards, they will show up automatically in Rundoo.
ACH
FYI: If you aren’t familiar with ACH payments, these are digital payments through the automated clearing house.
✅ In: ACH deposits are similarly easy. Give any customer your routing & account number, and they can pay you directly.
✅ Out: Pay through. Rundoo will encrypt and save the account & routing numbers for future payments.
We also included the payment information of some vendors that are common to our client base: AllPro, Benjamin Moore, Lancaster, Paint Sundries Solutions, and others.
Checks
🔜 Out: We have the ability to build a check send experience whereby you can mail checks directly from Rundoo. We have not built this yet but hope to by the end of the year.
🔜 In: Similarly, we have the ability to build a check deposit experience. This will allow you to match the check to the underlying payment on account in Rundoo. We have not built this yet but hope to by the end of the year.
Cash
❌ In: Evolve’s physical branches are in Arkansas, so if you don’t live there, it’s hard to deposit cash. We don’t have a good solution planned for this yet (and it seems Shopify hasn’t cracked this nut either yet). So for now, you still have to deposit cash in your external bank and enter that into Rundoo for accounting.
✅ Out: But Evolve has partnered with the ATM network to allow you to pull cash from any ATM.
What next?
This (of course!) isn’t the end
Rundoo Accounting, just like the rest of the product, will continue to improve. There’s a bunch more we plan to build in the coming months: check deposits and payments, scheduled ACH payments, automatically sending email remittances, accounting categorization rules, adjustment journal entries, vendor aging, and the list goes on…
Thank you!
Before we wrap, a HUGE thank you to the clients that have been testing this for the last three months. We have learned a lot from you, and as you know, the accounting suite wouldn’t be what it is without your input: 🙇♂️
Jim & Bob from Wallpaper, Paint, and More in Missouri
Dan from Drake’s Paint and Paper in Oregon
Justin from Billings Paint Center in Montana
Todd & Erin Modesto Color Center in California
Peter from Skokie Paint in Illinois
Doug & Mark from Wilhelm’s Paint in Ohio
If you want to get set up, reach out! For any existing clients, this is a free addition until April 30, 2024. After that, we plan to offer Rundoo Accounting at an additional charge.