Streamlined Efficiency and Cost Savings: Archa's Path to Revenue Optimization

Archa is a corporate credit card and spend management platform for small and medium businesses in Australia. It gives customers simplified access to credit and spend management tools to help run their business – but without any of the jumping through hoops and directors’ guarantees required by banks.

“99% of businesses don't necessarily want access to credit,” said Oliver Kidd, Founder and CEO of Archa. “What they really want is a mechanism to empower their teams to spend money and do their jobs.”

The Challenges

• Manual billing and reconciliation: A period of rapid growth made Archa’s manual, spreadsheet-based approach to billing a significant drain on resources and a risk to cash flow. In addition, the manual data import to Xero was error-prone and reduced the team’s productivity.

• Payment collection efficiency: Unlike traditional credit cards, Archa’s customers clear their balance every 30 days. That makes collecting payments like clockwork a vital part of its business model.

“As a startup and because of the nature of our business, it's really important that we get that money from our customers as quickly as possible; otherwise, we can't grow,” said Joseph Robins, Chief Operating Officer, Archa.

• Visibility into failed payments: Failed payments are a major headache for any business, but their impact is amplified in heavy cash flow-dependent operations like Archa. “Certainty around the timing of receipt of payments and high payment success rates are some of the most important things in this business,” said Oliver. “We need to ensure our cash flow is optimized to provide lines of credit to customers.”

Archa's team recognized the need to revamp their revenue stack. However, they strategically decided not to develop these infrastructural components in-house. Joseph explained, "We understood that a seamless billing and payment solution is crucial for our future scalability. To focus on our core objectives and operate efficiently, even in challenging economic situations, we decided to partner with best-in-class billing and payment providers instead of building these solutions internally."

The Solution

The Archa team's pursuit of scalable and streamlined solutions led them to partner with GoCardless and Chargebee. “It was a no-brainer to choose GoCardless to collect Direct Debit payments as they were experts in this space. As we expanded, we realized that billing was an area that needed to mature. So we partnered with Chargebee, mainly because it’s an all-in-one billing solution that integrates seamlessly with GoCardless.”

Here's how Archa transformed its revenue management operations:

• Effortless billing and payment collection: By integrating GoCardless with Chargebee, Archa could effortlessly collect funds from customer accounts across various credit cycles. This end-to-end automation provides control and reduces costs by streamlining the entire process from billing and collection to reconciliation.

"Chargebee empowers our commercial team to meet customer demands, such as offering free trials or implementing a staircase pricing model. Meanwhile, GoCardless automates payment collection, offering our customers a hassle-free experience. It's truly a game-changer to have a background system that doesn't rely on customers remembering to pay," highlighted Joseph.

• Granular visibility into payments: With GoCardless, Archa gained valuable insights into the success rates of their billing runs. Oliver explained, "GoCardless provides us with the ability to track the proportion of successful payments and automate the necessary actions for any failed payments. If a payment fails, we can automatically retry or proactively engage with the customer to understand the situation better."

The Impact

• Capital savings: “The GoCardless for Chargebee integration allows us to raise invoices, collect payments, and reconcile them without any manual intervention or data entry from our finance team,” said Joseph. “Because 100% of our customers pay by GoCardless, we are able to operate efficiently with a lean finance team and invest in other areas of the business.”

• Scalable Solutions for the Future: Archa's vision extends to working with larger businesses and expanding their operations beyond Australia into global markets. The integration between Chargebee and GoCardless provides the scalability they need, effortlessly handling diverse currencies, billing frequencies, and plan types as they grow.