Small business owners that use QuickBooks Online or Xero to track their finances, but can’t quite afford to hire a full-time chief financial officer can now turn to the cloud for help. California-based Unleash Inc. promises that its new iPad app will act as a “cloud CFO” for small businesses, providing a dashboard that delivers metrics of business health at a glance.
Unleash analyzes an online database of business data including 15 million tax returns, business brokerage transactions, and credit agency reports in more than 700 vertical markets, according to a press release. It compares your business to others based on size, location, and target market. It aims to simplify financial analysis for business owners and give exposure to key information like revenue, cash reserves, and projections.
Unleash hinges around a “u score” that rates your business on a level of 0 to 100 to represent to overall health of your business. It provides line graphs to track expenses, income, and a series of alerts to warn users about things that may need their attention. The app displays accounts receivable to show if a business is waiting on invoices to be paid or not. Since small businesses are waiting on late invoices to the tune of $400 billion per year, this is a major problem the app
Founders Insaaf Mohideen and Mohamed Marleen have run more than 50 small businesses between them, the press release says, from restaurants and franchises to VoIP providers and pharmacies. Mohideen, the CEO, held senior roles at KPMG and Cisco in management consulting, strategic sales, and M&A.
The Unleash app is available as a free download at the moment. But it requires an account with either QuickBooks Online or Xero, to pull your financial data and populate the dashboard. Expect to see a price placed on the app for download soon, as the firm has said the free download was part of private beta testing that started March 21.
