Solving day-to-day problems is a priority for start-ups. And while at it, start-ups often lend a helping hand to their counterparts, the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Such has been the need that many start-ups today have started offering financial services to SMEs, often functioning as an alternative to banks.

Instant Loans For SMEs

One big problem that SMEs often encounter is the lack of sufficient funds to keep their operations running. Many start-ups have emerged in the lending space to fund them. Keerthi Kumar Jain, founder of AnyTime Loan, said, “SMEs and MSMEs require an unsecured working capital to meet the cash-flow gap and through our instant loan disbursement platform, we help them survive the cash crunch.”

Cash Flow Management

Another start-up that helps SMEs in their finance management is Numberz. “Ours is a Saas mobile-based platform. We help SMBs better manage their day-to-day cash flow by providing them simple yet powerful receivables and payables management tools. So, for example, we provide them tools for expense management, invoice management. We also help them get working capital loans and have tools for better integration with a company’s accounting software, giving its accountant an easy access,” said Aditya Tulsian, Co-founder and CEO of Numberz. The company was founded in February 2016 and it already has over 10,000 SMBs and 950 accountants on their platform.

Taxation

Outsourcing the management of their taxes has always been one crucial requirement of SMEs. And now, start-ups are taking it to the digital level. Companies like Cleartax don’t just adhere to an individual income tax filing, but also offer services to CAs. Cleartax is a platform that enables collaboration between a CA and the client for faster imports.

Automated Contracts For Invoice Management

Handling invoices, sending out payment reminders can be a tough task while running a business. So, invoice management is another solution provided to SMEs by start-ups. Spotdraft, which helps businesses create legal contracts online, also caters to invoice management. Over 10 per cent of their clients are government-certified SMEs while 35 per cent are other small businesses. “The genesis of all invoices is contracts. Once you create a contract on our platform, we generate automated invoices, send payment reminders and also receive payments online. When you are running a small enterprise, you don’t have the time to run around and here automation is of major help,” said Shashank Bijapur, a Harvard Law School alumni and former Wall Street lawyer, who has co-founded Spotdraft.

Digital Payments

From Paytm to every new fintech start-up today, taking payments onto a digital platform is one big service provided by start-ups. And with demonetization, the sector got its biggest boost, resulting in the birth of many other payment start-ups, which operate as kiraana waalas to an enterprise owner.

Insurance Aggregators

Every SME owner needs to insure his/her business and taking care of those needs are many insurance aggregator start-ups, some of which — bankbazaar or policybazaar — are also amongst the top-funded fintech start-ups in India.