Any professional services provider knows that ensuring seamless communication, maintaining productivity, and delivering consistent client satisfaction are crucial to success. For Hot Toast, these demands were magnified by the unique challenges of operating as a remote team.

Additionally, the firm faced challenges with debtors, leading to cash flow issues and increased admin work. 

As a distributed team, Hot Toast has always been ahead of the curve. From the beginning, founder Sarah Lawrance knew that the company needed to use technology to maintain seamless operations and connect all team members and clients.

"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.

Hot Toast had its fair share of debtors. Invoices weren't always paid immediately, so the team had to spend considerable time and effort chasing payments. This would impact their ability to focus on core business activities. 

Hot Toast needed an all-in-one solution to improve its operations, client engagements, and cash flow—which is where Ignition comes in. 

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. 

She continues, "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."

Because all client engagement letters, proposals, and billing data live in one platform, clients and team members can easily stay coordinated and informed, even when working remotely. 

Ignition also streamlined client communication, helping the firm shorten its sales cycle so the team can get clients onboard faster.

"Leaning into technology enables us to have healthy conversations,” says Sarah. 

How much has Ignition sped things up? According to Sarah, the time savings her team has gained from automating the annual client engagement process saves them around 40 hours.

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 client billing and payments perspective, Ignition has eliminated debtors for Hot Toast, improving the firm's cash flow.

Because of this, Hot Toast has predictable revenue and is more equipped to meet its clients' needs.

All the benefits Hot Toast unlocked with Ignition — i.e., better client experiences, time savings, and debtor reduction — have led to significant revenue growth. 

Because Sarah and her team were no longer bogged down by inefficiencies, they could focus on recurring revenue and optimising workflows, leading to 35% to 40% YoY revenue growth in the past 2-3 years.