Hot Toast relies on Ignition to improve the client experience, get paid, and expand revenue.
Meet Hot Toast, an accounting and bookkeeping firm that serves the creative, technology, and innovation industries. Founded by Sarah Lawrance in 2016, Hot Toast's mission is to help small and medium businesses scale.
Hot Toast is a B-Corp and a fully distributed company that focuses on quality over quantity. As such, Sarah and the team choose to have a selective client base rather than taking on as many customers as possible.
"The whole idea is to do everything end to end for a client so we can have a significant impact and make a difference at a client level rather than just moving through them," explains Sarah.
To that end, Hot Toast maximises the value it provides its clients, ultimately driving more revenue.
The challenge: managing a distributed team and client base
As a distributed team, Hot Toast has always been ahead of the curve. And from the very beginning, Sarah knew that the company needed to use technology to maintain seamless operations and keep all team members and clients connected.
"We were a distributed team before it was sexy to be a distributed team. That's the kind of business I wanted to build. And it was so clear that the only way to make this successful is to lean into the technology in a really meaningful way," Sarah explains.
Enter Ignition, which enabled the team to run efficient workflows and serve clients better.
"We never would have been able to see the levels of growth that we've had if it wasn't because of our technology," she adds.
The fix: adopting a robust client engagement and payments platform
Ignition powers Hot Toast's client engagement workflows, making life easier for Sarah and the team. They don't have to deal with tedious admin work around proposals, engagement letters, and billing; instead, Ignition frees up their time and energy to focus on what they do best: offering end-to-end CFO solutions and maximising the firm's revenue.
"Ignition just pays for itself. We use it because it's efficient and it adds value. Ignition removes the stuff we don't want to do."
In addition, Ignition helps the firm shorten its sales cycle so the team can get clients onboard faster.
"Leaning into technology enables us to have healthy conversations. You can have a conversation, and then, within minutes, send a proposal to a client off the back of a call. Ignition sped up the sales cycle for us."
Beyond that, Sarah is excited about Ignition's proposal add-ons, which allow firms to upsell additional services and maximise revenue. Add-ons make it so much easier to offer complementary services as clients go through the proposal process.
"It's such a valuable addition to the proposal journey. I like that it gives you flexibility and options at a client level. The feature has a nice structure that's definitely going to help uplift sales."
From a billing perspective, Ignition has eliminated debtors for Hot Toast, improving the firm’s cash flow.
"Ignition has 100% reduced debtors since we use direct debit and clients must put their card details through the system upfront."
Because of this, Hot Toast has predictable revenue and is more equipped to meet its clients' needs.
More revenue, less effort
With Ignition, Hot Toast has streamlined workflows and enhanced client satisfaction, all while maximising revenue per client. With shorter sales cycles, easy upselling capabilities, and improved billing, Sarah and her team have more time to focus on delivering exceptional value to their clients.
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