Role of Data in Financial Services

Accounting, financial reporting and advisory, risk management, due diligence, fraud detection, cost reduction strategies, investment decision-making, operational efficiency, and portfolio management are just a few examples of the comprehensive services that financial organisations offer to their customers. These services are critical for businesses looking to navigate complex financial landscapes, manage risks, and make informed decisions.

Data plays a crucial role in enabling these services. By providing accurate, real-time insights, data empowers financial organisations to perform detailed analysis, identify trends, mitigate risks, and offer tailored advice. Without the proper collection, integration, and analysis of data, these services would be significantly less effective, underscoring the vital importance of efficient data management and onboarding processes in the financial industry.

SaaS Platforms as Primary Sources of Financial Data

With the rise of cloud technology, the average SME now uses between 10 and 100 SaaS applications, and this number continues to grow. As a financial organisation working to make sense of customers' financial data, you need to be an expert not only in your own SaaS products but also in your customers' systems. For SME-sized companies, where clients may use a diverse range of SaaS applications, you might find yourself managing data from hundreds of potential sources. This complexity highlights the importance of effective Customer's Data Onboarding.

The UK SaaS industry is expected to almost double between 2020 and 2025

For any financial organisation, being able to access all relevant client data quickly is not just a competitive advantage in the current market - it’s an absolute necessity for the company’s survival.

The SaaS market is vast, but a closer look reveals that valuable financial data sources can be categorised into several types:

Accounting and Bookkeeping Systems:

• QuickBooks

• Xero

• Sage Intacct

Invoicing and Billing Platforms:

• Stripe

• PayPal

• Bill.com

Payroll and HR Systems:

• BambooHR

• Gusto

Banking and Payment Processors:

• Wise

• OpenBanking

• PayPal

E-commerce and Point-of-Sale (POS) Systems:

• Shopify

• WooCommerce

• Wix

CRM Systems with Financial Data:

• Salesforce

• Zoho CRM

• HubSpot CRM

ERP Platforms:

• Netsuite

• Workday Financial Management

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance

  
  

  
  

These are just a few examples. In addition, there are industry-specific platforms such as courier management software for logistics companies, veterinary clinic platforms, and other niche SaaS applications.

How Customer Data Onboarding Equals a Robust Data Pipeline

Extracting data from SaaS platforms has become much easier with the right tools. We work with several ETL vendors like Fivetran, Airbyte, and dlt, which offer hundreds of pre-built connectors. Each tool excels in its segment of the market.

While creating a new connector from scratch for a typical SaaS service is more complex, it rarely poses a significant barrier to building an effective data onboarding pipeline.

The next step is to transform the data from its raw state, as extracted from APIs, into a useful and queryable format that can address business questions. This process involves joining data across multiple sources, handling missing or conflicting values between systems, and addressing performance, capacity, and security issues along the way. A suite of tools is available for managing and transforming data using SQL or Python, including our partner products like dbt.

The final step involves integrating all components with our partner solution, Dagster, to establish a continuously flowing process for managing the latest invoices and transactions. Dagster utilises the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) concept to deliver a structured, efficient, and scalable approach to data workflows. It simplifies the orchestration of complex pipelines, ensures reproducibility, and provides robust monitoring and alerting capabilities.

Criteria for Success in Customer Data Onboarding

Onboarding Cost: Minimise time and resources needed to integrate new customers efficiently.

Scalability: Ensure the onboarding solution can handle new data types without requiring new pipelines for each business type.

Solution Cost: Balance the cost of purchasing versus building the solution, including both implementation and ongoing expenses.

Accurate and consistent financial data is a crucial decision driver for any organisation. For financial organisations handling external financial data, this principle becomes even more critical and should be at the core of the company's values.