June 14, 2024 • 20 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Modern Church
Leader.
I'm here with my new bud, adamAlfin.
This is Adam who started a newcompany, not the LinkedIn Adam,
whose profile picture I have,but Adam, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you, frank, so good to be with you, great,
great chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We've been chatting for like an hour already, so
yeah, now we have to come upwith new things to talk about,
but friends.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, we can rehash some of it yeah, we'll re-talk
about.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Um.
Well, man, you, you started apretty cool company like we were
kind of geeking out on onstartup and tech and all that
kind of stuff.
But uh, you started a businessthree years ago serving all
kinds of customers, but over thelast year you focused heavily
on the church and found like agreat fit there.
So I don't know, tell us just alittle bit of your backstory
and kind of your connection tothe church and then you can get
(00:52):
into the business side yeah,yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So yeah, I've spent my whole career sort of early
stage software with a, with afocus in this what I'll call
spend management space orexpense management space.
Just prior to this, I spent thelast six years at a company
called Coupa Software, siliconValley company primarily focused
on sort of the Fortune 2000building procurement and
invoicing and expense managementsolutions for some of the
(01:19):
world's largest brands.
Exciting stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh yes, procurement, yes, procurement, sign me up.
Oh yes.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yes, procurement, yeah, yeah, uh, everybody loves
a good e-procurement system.
Uh, so, uh, yeah, and at theend of that that time there I, I
led a product management for asuite of payment products and,
uh and so the initial vision waswe wanted to build really
(01:45):
simple, easy to use expensemanagement for middle America.
That was really the initialvision.
Uh, I launched the company withmy co-founder, owen Hill, and
cousin Owen Hill, so we grew uptogether Um, he lives in
Colorado, I live in Virginia,but certainly lots of history
(02:06):
and love and trust, and so it'sbeen a, it's been a great
co-founding situation.
And so, yeah, that was theinitial vision was just, let's,
let's build something for formiddle America a year or so to
get a product that, to you know,really, really formed to get
all of the uh, the financialoperations behind it that's
(02:29):
required to do something likethis where we offer credit to
organizations and uh and uh andand simplify their whole expense
management process.
Uh, and then, yeah, like yousaid to about a year ago, we
well, first of all, our secondcustomer ever was my local
church, nice, and some of ourother early employees, as any,
(02:51):
good founder would do yeah, yeah, exactly, you know.
Yeah, first customerbrother-in-law's construction
company.
Second customer my local church, right.
So like a good starting pointthere, and I wish I'd had the
foresight to say, oh, thisworked great for them, let's
(03:12):
just do that.
Uh, but it took us a littlewhile to figure all that out.
Um, and yeah, about a year agowe said, you know, this is
really, this is an opportunity.
There's some features that needto be built for for this, um,
for for churches and, and Iwould even say, schools, cause
so many many have schoolsassociated with them as well.
So, um, and that and thatnonprofit space in general.
So, um, yeah, that's where wewe started focusing about a year
(03:36):
ago and, um, we built someother partnerships with the
accounting systems that servethat world.
Yeah, it's integrations there,and so that's been.
That's really what we're after,and now, and we're we're going
hard at at trying to to help asmany churches and schools as
possible.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So it's really fun.
Yeah, that's awesome and you're.
So.
You're three years in, threeyears in, and it sounds like
it's been a fun ride.
Like what is, uh, expensemanagement?
Like you know, like I don'tknow who's going to be listening
.
There'll be a lot of pastors,um, there'll definitely be some
on the op side and the adminside of the finance side, but
not everybody's, I don't.
(04:13):
You know, when you thinkexpense management, like what is
that?
Um?
And then like what you know,what is it for churches that
you've seen?
And then maybe how does thesoftware come in and start
playing?
Because in my head I'm likeexpense management, I think
receipts and volunteers andreimbursements and getting paid
three months later and just allthis yeah.
Yeah, yeah, muzziness, but youknow, you obviously understand
(04:34):
that world a lot better than Ido.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So we think of it in like, there's three legs to the
stool, if you will Right.
The one is organizationalcredit cards and all of the
expense management stuff thatneeds to go with that, right
Capturing a receipt to atransaction, getting it coded
correctly, getting it approvedin some instances.
So that's one piece.
(04:58):
The second piece is what wecall bill pay, which is just
kind of your classic vendor billthat comes in and it needs to
be digitized, it needs to berouted for approval and then
ultimately paid.
And the third leg isreimbursements.
You mentioned that, so giving areally easy way for both staff
and non-staff.
So this is what's unique aboutchurches and nonprofits in
(05:20):
general is that there's a lot ofvolunteer management, so they
may not all be users in yoursystem.
So how do you maybe get a cardto them in a good, secure way to
go buy, you know, to go buymeals for your Wednesday night
meal at your church, right?
Or if you're a youth volunteer,for a youth event and so so,
(05:42):
yeah, so I think those are thethree legs, right?
The cards and expensemanagement, bill pay,
reimbursement that's how wethink about it.
Um and, and I would say um theum.
So the management of volunteersis a big one, and then
integration back into sort offund accounting based processes,
which a lot of these churchescare about, and so those are
(06:04):
some of the key differentiatorsin the way we do it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
What do people do today, like without you guys?
Most churches like how do theyhandle this stuff now?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, so it's a mixed bag.
Yeah, so it's a mixed bag.
I mean, I think um, some areusing um, using something like
expense to fi or something likethat, and those are like the
more advanced ones right, wheremaybe there are um they're
they've got some process butthey're paying a subscription
for it and maybe they've got um,some piece of software they're
(06:37):
using.
Most are you doing a verymanual process, right, and then
ultimately keying that into anaccounting system.
So that means your staff haveto get receipts.
They may give that to someonein the office, right, an
accounting person, right?
Right, they may give thereceipts to an accounting person
(06:58):
but then upload some stuff anda spreadsheet gets circled
around, or a Google sheetperhaps, gets circled around.
They need to say what it wasfor and justify it and things
like that.
So in most of our new customers,it's those type of manual
processes that we're replacing.
Perhaps they use a local bankcard, right, so it's often a
(07:19):
local bank, that they're usingsome type of credit card from a
local bank, and so and I'll alsosay that the card and expense
piece of our product is wheremost churches start that's often
like a clear pain point tostart, and it'll grow, because
most people are.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's your first part of it.
Most people are like volunteersout there.
They're buying, you know,supplies for the kids ministry
program and then they're comingto the administrative person or
the finance person at the churchwho might be a volunteer or
maybe they're part-time or, youknow, maybe they're full-time.
They hand them some receiptsand then somehow they get a
(07:59):
check back.
That's right.
That's right, one of the mostcommon scenarios.
And then maybe sometimes yousaid they have a local bank
where they're issuing a card andmaybe they say here's our card,
go buy.
It's like the one church cardor something like that.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And they're like you're volunteering to buy
People can check it out, maybethis, that maybe they've they
spun up different cards fordifferent staff, right, but
there's nothing that connectsthat with their internal
processes, right, and that'sreally what this core product
does.
It connects a card transactionto your core internal accounting
process.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
As a church.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So so instead of someone going out and buying the
stuff and then gettingreimbursed, or you having like
one or a couple of central cards, you made software where you
can take those, you know, createvirtual cards or issue cards to
staff and volunteers, yep, andthen now they have a physical
card.
So every week when you'rebuying kids, ministry supplies
(08:58):
or food or whatever, you justput it on the card.
That's right, and then you knownot coming off your personal
finances kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right, put it on the card, you get a real time push
notification to our mobile appthat you can take a picture,
capture the receipt.
You can code it right then, ifyou'd like, if you want to like,
assign it to the proper expenseaccount.
We also have a whole AI layernow that is doing that for you
(09:25):
right, so we'll learn who youare and it populates recommended
coding based on um, who you arein the church or your role.
Uh, and and data we're gettingfrom visa and we're giving you a
recommendation.
So we're eliminating a lot oferrors there and we're really
reducing friction to gettingthat receipt included, uh, in
total real time there.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
so, yeah, that's super smart.
So if you see like a commoncharge, you're like, oh, this,
maybe they tagged it once asthis.
Yeah, now it's always going toget tagged as that thing, or
it's probably smarter than thatbecause it's actual ai.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But like it's even smarter than that.
Yeah, it's smart, but wedefinitely learn, uh, your
patterns and like, if we getsomething wrong, you can change
it and we'll learn that and doit right next time, and um, and.
But we are actually, um, we areactually.
You know, I don't know hownerdy you want to get here, but
we are using the, uh, the.
We're using open ai to um tovectorize all the data, right, I
(10:17):
know me some vectorization sowe're putting that in a vector
database, right?
And then we're creating a wholeprobability algorithm based on
who you are, and we can waitdifferent data.
Uh, you know how we want and wecan um.
So, who you are as a cardholder, we can recommend your proper
coding, right.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
That's.
That's pretty cool, pretty cool.
So, um, so there's the cardside, managing expenses, and you
do the.
You said bill pay, bill pay,yep.
So you know, is that that'smainly paying church, paying the
vendors that they use thatright?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
upload a bill or have it emailed in.
We'll extract all the data foryou, create a digital line,
create all the line items, breakit all out, all your quantities
and unit prices, and againanother little AI layer that can
do all that for you.
And then you can you can havepredefined approval processes
and and route that for approvaland then ultimately pay the bill
right from within clear card.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's super cool.
So when you show it to churches, yeah, super cool.
So when you show it to churches, what do they say?
What are the aha moments or thecommon things you're hearing
from the church and you'redemoing the product?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, so many of these, right.
It's like we demo to someone inthe office, typically an
accounting person or anexecutive pastor.
They have the job of sortingall this out every month, right,
chasing receipts, gettingthings coded correctly, nagging
(11:48):
their staff, and so they are.
There's a lot of demos that endwith how do we start?
So I think that the aha momentsare showing the mobile app,
showing that, like the real-timenature, like you can get a
receipt in before you get anotification in, before you know
the.
You get a notification beforethe waiter gets back with your
(12:09):
sign.
You know your receipt, right.
So the reduction of friction ofgetting receipts is a big aha
moment, uh, and you knowreducing errors and getting it
coded.
And then, if they use anaccounting system, we have an
integration with.
That's like the.
You know the icing on the cake,right where they can be.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Like oh my gosh, yeah , yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, that's
pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So those are, those are fun ones when it's a like
it's a, it's a no-brainer andright.
And so we, you know, I wedidn't ask about this.
But I think the other big thing, they they ask because we don't
, it's free, so we don't chargechurches for this, so we make
our money and get a piece of the, the transaction fee, from visa
.
These are all visa cards um asum, as it's as it's um used, and
(12:58):
so we've we very intentionally,you know we don't charge a
subscription fee.
So many people are sayingwhat's, what's the catch?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So there's a little bit of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, um true.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's pretty good, though, but you found a way like
you can uh, I mean, it'sbrilliant.
You can offer it to churches.
Um, because you're making yourmoney to build the business and
build great software and hireemployees and do all the things,
but you're making it via therelationship with Visa, not via
the church.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Correct, and it's not like the church is paying a
markup or something either,right?
So this comes out of where allthey're using the cards at all
the coffee shops and Walmart andCostco, right, they're eating a
small percentage of the fee toaccept that card payment.
Um, and then, as the issue ofthe cards, we get a chunk of
that and that's yeah, that's howwe're, that's how we're staying
(13:53):
, uh, keeping the lights on.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, I love it.
What's, uh, what's next for youguys?
Like, what else are you guystrying to do to kind of keep
improving it for churches?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, great question.
Um, yeah, we've got, um, uh, abunch of stuff.
So we've got uh.
So one of the things, the otherunique thing about churches is,
uh, there's this when you, whenyou talk to all these people in
the office, there's, because ofthe nature of churches, uh,
there and I understandably right, like, right, like uh, people
don't want to nag people about aprocess right, like it's sort
(14:32):
of like this grace needs to bein everything, and so there's
like more than sort of like yourother industries, where you
know you can just you can justbe very, uh, right, maybe overly
direct and blunt with people.
I think that's harder sometimesin a church office from what
we've seen.
So I think features that helpaccounting folks, keep staff
(14:58):
accountable but keep a distancefor, like, let the technology
keep them accountable is aparticular value in the church
space.
And so that makes sense to meyeah, so we've got this sort of
auto nagging feature where, like, if you can configure policies
and if you've not doneeverything on a transaction you
need to, we will send you adaily reminder, right, and so,
(15:19):
um, that is another one of thoseaha moments in a demo where we
show the that, um, we are, weare enhancing that to um, after
a certain amount of time haspassed, your card may not work
anymore, right, and that will bea system driven.
That will be driven by a systemdriven policy, and once you've
done the things you need to, itwill work again.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So that's eventually you'll integrate with like
payroll and their paycheck willstop happening.
Yeah, I don't know about allthat.
I don't know it's, I don't know, it's a little farther.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
That's a little.
That might be a little far.
It might be a little far.
Yeah, yeah, I'm hopeful, but um, the card, just um, just
working uh, will do it for me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So yeah, that's pretty cool are you guys doing
the virtual card thing too?
Absolutely yeah, so people canjust buy things online and not
even get a physical card issuedto them, kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Absolutely yeah, yeah , so you can we issue physical
cards, obviously virtual cards,if people that don't know what
that is, it's just like aphysical card, right?
16 digit, 16 digit visa number,expiration date, all that good
stuff.
It's just, it's just online andwe can.
You can go use that, not justonline.
Of our cards, both physical andvirtual, can be added to mobile
(16:28):
wallets, so, um, so they're allmobile wallet compliant, so you
can add them to your apple payor google pay and go use them at
a retail, as long as thatretailer accepts that.
Um, and the other thing we'vedone that's interesting is that
we can.
Actually we built this processwhere you can create a card and
share it externally with, like anon-clear card user, right.
(16:51):
So think volunteers again,where you can go share that with
a volunteer.
They could go add it to theirmobile wallet and go buy things
as needed, right.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, I love that.
What about, like spend limits?
Do you assign it to a volunteerand say you only have 100 bucks
to use on this card per month?
Yeah, so that, yeah, volunteercan't go crazy.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, great question.
Yes, so we have a coupledifferent types of limits the
your classic sort of monthlylimit that you can set up, right
, based on a time period, andthen that will reset.
Uh, you know, if you've got twothousand dollars a month, that
will reset every month.
And then we just have what wecall a reloadable card, where
you can add dollars to a cardand you can just spend.
(17:34):
When that's gone, the cardstops working right, so you add
a thousand dollars to a card andit's not tied to any time.
Um, and then you can add morefunds or take funds away.
So, yes, we have a completely,and that can be via physical or
virtual right.
So you can add.
Those limit types can be foreither physical or virtual cards
.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I mean super smart.
I mean every church on theplanet should be using something
like this right, like it's justthey're doing this anyways in
some way whatever it looks likeyou know and you're just making
people's lives, whether it'syour staff or volunteers.
You're making their lives somuch easier on both sides, like
the actual buying of things andthe reimbursement of those
(18:13):
things, as well as the staff,like the staff has to manage all
that.
Like you're just cutting outsteps and process and paperwork
and all that and making it waymore efficient.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
And keep and, and you know it's a more joyful
experience too, right for yourstaff, like they're just not I
mean, everyone hates expensemanagement, right?
So if you can remove stress,free up time to focus on the
mission, on their, you know is,yeah, I think it's, it's.
It's a great value to anyorganization but yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
well, I mean, you know, I guess we could talk tech
all day long cause we're bothgeeky that way Like, well, you
know, in wrapping, where canfolks go to check out the
product and learn more about youguys?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yes, so you can go to get clear cardcom.
You could book a demo.
We'd love to show it to you.
Um, you can go to clearcardcomtoo.
It'll kick out.
But you know, get clear card isour, our marketing site.
Yeah, um and uh, you can checkus out on linkedin.
You can check us out oninstagram clear with a k k l e r
(19:16):
.
Yeah, it's a, it's a funkyspelling.
You could ask me why is itcalled that um?
And you didn't, but I'll answeranyway.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Now I want to know.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I didn't think to ask , but it's the reason most
brands are what they are.
It was the URL available.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It was the domain available yeah, we own
tithelycom now, but we did notoriginally, so you know tithely
is the domain.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Right, right, right and what's ly.
What country is that?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Libya.
Libya, yeah, yeah we used toget so many back in the day.
We used to get very concernedpotential customers Like why are
you is?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
this a.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Libyan company.
Like what's going on.
You know we used to get a lotof that.
We don't very much anymore.
Like what's going on.
You know we used to get a lotof that.
We don't very much anymore, butback in the day that was a
thing.
Yes, yes, yes, for sure.
Um well, adam, this has beenawesome.
Man, everyone needs to go checkout clear card.
Get clear card with a Kcom.
Um, super cool.
Yep, and two E's Now gettingconfusing.
(20:20):
Yeah, yeah, super cool product.
I love that you are servingchurches with it.
Uh, growing up in the church,and that your second customer
was a church.
That's pretty cool.
Yes, and uh, yeah, man, we'llhave to have you back in a year
and just see how things aregoing.
Let's do it.
We'd love to.
Let's do it.
All right, man, yeah, yeah,thanks for watching y'all.
(20:48):
Uh, catch us next week and uh,we'll have another episode of
modern church leader, see ya.
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Modern Church
Leader.
I'm here with my new bud, adamAlfin.
This is Adam who started a newcompany, not the LinkedIn Adam,
whose profile picture I have,but Adam, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you, frank, so good to be with you, great,
great chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We've been chatting for like an hour already, so
yeah, now we have to come upwith new things to talk about,
but friends.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, we can rehash some of it yeah, we'll re-talk
about.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Um.
Well, man, you, you started apretty cool company like we were
kind of geeking out on onstartup and tech and all that
kind of stuff.
But uh, you started a businessthree years ago serving all
kinds of customers, but over thelast year you focused heavily
on the church and found like agreat fit there.
So I don't know, tell us just alittle bit of your backstory
and kind of your connection tothe church and then you can get
(00:52):
into the business side yeah,yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So yeah, I've spent my whole career sort of early
stage software with a, with afocus in this what I'll call
spend management space orexpense management space.
Just prior to this, I spent thelast six years at a company
called Coupa Software, siliconValley company primarily focused
on sort of the Fortune 2000building procurement and
invoicing and expense managementsolutions for some of the
(01:19):
world's largest brands.
Exciting stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh yes, procurement, yes, procurement, sign me up.
Oh yes.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yes, procurement, yeah, yeah, uh, everybody loves
a good e-procurement system.
Uh, so, uh, yeah, and at theend of that that time there I, I
led a product management for asuite of payment products and,
uh and so the initial vision waswe wanted to build really
(01:45):
simple, easy to use expensemanagement for middle America.
That was really the initialvision.
Uh, I launched the company withmy co-founder, owen Hill, and
cousin Owen Hill, so we grew uptogether Um, he lives in
Colorado, I live in Virginia,but certainly lots of history
(02:06):
and love and trust, and so it'sbeen a, it's been a great
co-founding situation.
And so, yeah, that was theinitial vision was just, let's,
let's build something for formiddle America a year or so to
get a product that, to you know,really, really formed to get
all of the uh, the financialoperations behind it that's
(02:29):
required to do something likethis where we offer credit to
organizations and uh and uh andand simplify their whole expense
management process.
Uh, and then, yeah, like yousaid to about a year ago, we
well, first of all, our secondcustomer ever was my local
church, nice, and some of ourother early employees, as any,
(02:51):
good founder would do yeah, yeah, exactly, you know.
Yeah, first customerbrother-in-law's construction
company.
Second customer my local church, right.
So like a good starting pointthere, and I wish I'd had the
foresight to say, oh, thisworked great for them, let's
(03:12):
just do that.
Uh, but it took us a littlewhile to figure all that out.
Um, and yeah, about a year agowe said, you know, this is
really, this is an opportunity.
There's some features that needto be built for for this, um,
for for churches and, and Iwould even say, schools, cause
so many many have schoolsassociated with them as well.
So, um, and that and thatnonprofit space in general.
So, um, yeah, that's where wewe started focusing about a year
(03:36):
ago and, um, we built someother partnerships with the
accounting systems that servethat world.
Yeah, it's integrations there,and so that's been.
That's really what we're after,and now, and we're we're going
hard at at trying to to help asmany churches and schools as
possible.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So it's really fun.
Yeah, that's awesome and you're.
So.
You're three years in, threeyears in, and it sounds like
it's been a fun ride.
Like what is, uh, expensemanagement?
Like you know, like I don'tknow who's going to be listening
.
There'll be a lot of pastors,um, there'll definitely be some
on the op side and the adminside of the finance side, but
not everybody's, I don't.
(04:13):
You know, when you thinkexpense management, like what is
that?
Um?
And then like what you know,what is it for churches that
you've seen?
And then maybe how does thesoftware come in and start
playing?
Because in my head I'm likeexpense management, I think
receipts and volunteers andreimbursements and getting paid
three months later and just allthis yeah.
Yeah, yeah, muzziness, but youknow, you obviously understand
(04:34):
that world a lot better than Ido.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So we think of it in like, there's three legs to the
stool, if you will Right.
The one is organizationalcredit cards and all of the
expense management stuff thatneeds to go with that, right
Capturing a receipt to atransaction, getting it coded
correctly, getting it approvedin some instances.
So that's one piece.
(04:58):
The second piece is what wecall bill pay, which is just
kind of your classic vendor billthat comes in and it needs to
be digitized, it needs to berouted for approval and then
ultimately paid.
And the third leg isreimbursements.
You mentioned that, so giving areally easy way for both staff
and non-staff.
So this is what's unique aboutchurches and nonprofits in
(05:20):
general is that there's a lot ofvolunteer management, so they
may not all be users in yoursystem.
So how do you maybe get a cardto them in a good, secure way to
go buy, you know, to go buymeals for your Wednesday night
meal at your church, right?
Or if you're a youth volunteer,for a youth event and so so,
(05:42):
yeah, so I think those are thethree legs, right?
The cards and expensemanagement, bill pay,
reimbursement that's how wethink about it.
Um and, and I would say um theum.
So the management of volunteersis a big one, and then
integration back into sort offund accounting based processes,
which a lot of these churchescare about, and so those are
(06:04):
some of the key differentiatorsin the way we do it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
What do people do today, like without you guys?
Most churches like how do theyhandle this stuff now?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, so it's a mixed bag.
Yeah, so it's a mixed bag.
I mean, I think um, some areusing um, using something like
expense to fi or something likethat, and those are like the
more advanced ones right, wheremaybe there are um they're
they've got some process butthey're paying a subscription
for it and maybe they've got um,some piece of software they're
(06:37):
using.
Most are you doing a verymanual process, right, and then
ultimately keying that into anaccounting system.
So that means your staff haveto get receipts.
They may give that to someonein the office, right, an
accounting person, right?
Right, they may give thereceipts to an accounting person
(06:58):
but then upload some stuff anda spreadsheet gets circled
around, or a Google sheetperhaps, gets circled around.
They need to say what it wasfor and justify it and things
like that.
So in most of our new customers,it's those type of manual
processes that we're replacing.
Perhaps they use a local bankcard, right, so it's often a
(07:19):
local bank, that they're usingsome type of credit card from a
local bank, and so and I'll alsosay that the card and expense
piece of our product is wheremost churches start that's often
like a clear pain point tostart, and it'll grow, because
most people are.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's your first part of it.
Most people are like volunteersout there.
They're buying, you know,supplies for the kids ministry
program and then they're comingto the administrative person or
the finance person at the churchwho might be a volunteer or
maybe they're part-time or, youknow, maybe they're full-time.
They hand them some receiptsand then somehow they get a
(07:59):
check back.
That's right.
That's right, one of the mostcommon scenarios.
And then maybe sometimes yousaid they have a local bank
where they're issuing a card andmaybe they say here's our card,
go buy.
It's like the one church cardor something like that.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And they're like you're volunteering to buy
People can check it out, maybethis, that maybe they've they
spun up different cards fordifferent staff, right, but
there's nothing that connectsthat with their internal
processes, right, and that'sreally what this core product
does.
It connects a card transactionto your core internal accounting
process.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
As a church.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So so instead of someone going out and buying the
stuff and then gettingreimbursed, or you having like
one or a couple of central cards, you made software where you
can take those, you know, createvirtual cards or issue cards to
staff and volunteers, yep, andthen now they have a physical
card.
So every week when you'rebuying kids, ministry supplies
(08:58):
or food or whatever, you justput it on the card.
That's right, and then you knownot coming off your personal
finances kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right, put it on the card, you get a real time push
notification to our mobile appthat you can take a picture,
capture the receipt.
You can code it right then, ifyou'd like, if you want to like,
assign it to the proper expenseaccount.
We also have a whole AI layernow that is doing that for you
(09:25):
right, so we'll learn who youare and it populates recommended
coding based on um, who you arein the church or your role.
Uh, and and data we're gettingfrom visa and we're giving you a
recommendation.
So we're eliminating a lot oferrors there and we're really
reducing friction to gettingthat receipt included, uh, in
total real time there.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
so, yeah, that's super smart.
So if you see like a commoncharge, you're like, oh, this,
maybe they tagged it once asthis.
Yeah, now it's always going toget tagged as that thing, or
it's probably smarter than thatbecause it's actual ai.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But like it's even smarter than that.
Yeah, it's smart, but wedefinitely learn, uh, your
patterns and like, if we getsomething wrong, you can change
it and we'll learn that and doit right next time, and um, and.
But we are actually, um, we areactually.
You know, I don't know hownerdy you want to get here, but
we are using the, uh, the.
We're using open ai to um tovectorize all the data, right, I
(10:17):
know me some vectorization sowe're putting that in a vector
database, right?
And then we're creating a wholeprobability algorithm based on
who you are, and we can waitdifferent data.
Uh, you know how we want and wecan um.
So, who you are as a cardholder, we can recommend your proper
coding, right.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
That's.
That's pretty cool, pretty cool.
So, um, so there's the cardside, managing expenses, and you
do the.
You said bill pay, bill pay,yep.
So you know, is that that'smainly paying church, paying the
vendors that they use thatright?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
upload a bill or have it emailed in.
We'll extract all the data foryou, create a digital line,
create all the line items, breakit all out, all your quantities
and unit prices, and againanother little AI layer that can
do all that for you.
And then you can you can havepredefined approval processes
and and route that for approvaland then ultimately pay the bill
right from within clear card.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's super cool.
So when you show it to churches, yeah, super cool.
So when you show it to churches, what do they say?
What are the aha moments or thecommon things you're hearing
from the church and you'redemoing the product?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, so many of these, right.
It's like we demo to someone inthe office, typically an
accounting person or anexecutive pastor.
They have the job of sortingall this out every month, right,
chasing receipts, gettingthings coded correctly, nagging
(11:48):
their staff, and so they are.
There's a lot of demos that endwith how do we start?
So I think that the aha momentsare showing the mobile app,
showing that, like the real-timenature, like you can get a
receipt in before you get anotification in, before you know
the.
You get a notification beforethe waiter gets back with your
(12:09):
sign.
You know your receipt, right.
So the reduction of friction ofgetting receipts is a big aha
moment, uh, and you knowreducing errors and getting it
coded.
And then, if they use anaccounting system, we have an
integration with.
That's like the.
You know the icing on the cake,right where they can be.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Like oh my gosh, yeah , yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, that's
pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So those are, those are fun ones when it's a like
it's a, it's a no-brainer andright.
And so we, you know, I wedidn't ask about this.
But I think the other big thing, they they ask because we don't
, it's free, so we don't chargechurches for this, so we make
our money and get a piece of the, the transaction fee, from visa
.
These are all visa cards um asum, as it's as it's um used, and
(12:58):
so we've we very intentionally,you know we don't charge a
subscription fee.
So many people are sayingwhat's, what's the catch?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So there's a little bit of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, um true.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's pretty good, though, but you found a way like
you can uh, I mean, it'sbrilliant.
You can offer it to churches.
Um, because you're making yourmoney to build the business and
build great software and hireemployees and do all the things,
but you're making it via therelationship with Visa, not via
the church.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Correct, and it's not like the church is paying a
markup or something either,right?
So this comes out of where allthey're using the cards at all
the coffee shops and Walmart andCostco, right, they're eating a
small percentage of the fee toaccept that card payment.
Um, and then, as the issue ofthe cards, we get a chunk of
that and that's yeah, that's howwe're, that's how we're staying
(13:53):
, uh, keeping the lights on.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, I love it.
What's, uh, what's next for youguys?
Like, what else are you guystrying to do to kind of keep
improving it for churches?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, great question.
Um, yeah, we've got, um, uh, abunch of stuff.
So we've got uh.
So one of the things, the otherunique thing about churches is,
uh, there's this when you, whenyou talk to all these people in
the office, there's, because ofthe nature of churches, uh,
there and I understandably right, like, right, like uh, people
don't want to nag people about aprocess right, like it's sort
(14:32):
of like this grace needs to bein everything, and so there's
like more than sort of like yourother industries, where you
know you can just you can justbe very, uh, right, maybe overly
direct and blunt with people.
I think that's harder sometimesin a church office from what
we've seen.
So I think features that helpaccounting folks, keep staff
(14:58):
accountable but keep a distancefor, like, let the technology
keep them accountable is aparticular value in the church
space.
And so that makes sense to meyeah, so we've got this sort of
auto nagging feature where, like, if you can configure policies
and if you've not doneeverything on a transaction you
need to, we will send you adaily reminder, right, and so,
(15:19):
um, that is another one of thoseaha moments in a demo where we
show the that, um, we are, weare enhancing that to um, after
a certain amount of time haspassed, your card may not work
anymore, right, and that will bea system driven.
That will be driven by a systemdriven policy, and once you've
done the things you need to, itwill work again.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So that's eventually you'll integrate with like
payroll and their paycheck willstop happening.
Yeah, I don't know about allthat.
I don't know it's, I don't know, it's a little farther.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
That's a little.
That might be a little far.
It might be a little far.
Yeah, yeah, I'm hopeful, but um, the card, just um, just
working uh, will do it for me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So yeah, that's pretty cool are you guys doing
the virtual card thing too?
Absolutely yeah, so people canjust buy things online and not
even get a physical card issuedto them, kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Absolutely yeah, yeah , so you can we issue physical
cards, obviously virtual cards,if people that don't know what
that is, it's just like aphysical card, right?
16 digit, 16 digit visa number,expiration date, all that good
stuff.
It's just, it's just online andwe can.
You can go use that, not justonline.
Of our cards, both physical andvirtual, can be added to mobile
(16:28):
wallets, so, um, so they're allmobile wallet compliant, so you
can add them to your apple payor google pay and go use them at
a retail, as long as thatretailer accepts that.
Um, and the other thing we'vedone that's interesting is that
we can.
Actually we built this processwhere you can create a card and
share it externally with, like anon-clear card user, right.
(16:51):
So think volunteers again,where you can go share that with
a volunteer.
They could go add it to theirmobile wallet and go buy things
as needed, right.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, I love that.
What about, like spend limits?
Do you assign it to a volunteerand say you only have 100 bucks
to use on this card per month?
Yeah, so that, yeah, volunteercan't go crazy.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, great question.
Yes, so we have a coupledifferent types of limits the
your classic sort of monthlylimit that you can set up, right
, based on a time period, andthen that will reset.
Uh, you know, if you've got twothousand dollars a month, that
will reset every month.
And then we just have what wecall a reloadable card, where
you can add dollars to a cardand you can just spend.
(17:34):
When that's gone, the cardstops working right, so you add
a thousand dollars to a card andit's not tied to any time.
Um, and then you can add morefunds or take funds away.
So, yes, we have a completely,and that can be via physical or
virtual right.
So you can add.
Those limit types can be foreither physical or virtual cards
.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I mean super smart.
I mean every church on theplanet should be using something
like this right, like it's justthey're doing this anyways in
some way whatever it looks likeyou know and you're just making
people's lives, whether it'syour staff or volunteers.
You're making their lives somuch easier on both sides, like
the actual buying of things andthe reimbursement of those
(18:13):
things, as well as the staff,like the staff has to manage all
that.
Like you're just cutting outsteps and process and paperwork
and all that and making it waymore efficient.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
And keep and, and you know it's a more joyful
experience too, right for yourstaff, like they're just not I
mean, everyone hates expensemanagement, right?
So if you can remove stress,free up time to focus on the
mission, on their, you know is,yeah, I think it's, it's.
It's a great value to anyorganization but yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
well, I mean, you know, I guess we could talk tech
all day long cause we're bothgeeky that way Like, well, you
know, in wrapping, where canfolks go to check out the
product and learn more about youguys?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yes, so you can go to get clear cardcom.
You could book a demo.
We'd love to show it to you.
Um, you can go to clearcardcomtoo.
It'll kick out.
But you know, get clear card isour, our marketing site.
Yeah, um and uh, you can checkus out on linkedin.
You can check us out oninstagram clear with a k k l e r
(19:16):
.
Yeah, it's a, it's a funkyspelling.
You could ask me why is itcalled that um?
And you didn't, but I'll answeranyway.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Now I want to know.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I didn't think to ask , but it's the reason most
brands are what they are.
It was the URL available.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It was the domain available yeah, we own
tithelycom now, but we did notoriginally, so you know tithely
is the domain.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Right, right, right and what's ly.
What country is that?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Libya.
Libya, yeah, yeah we used toget so many back in the day.
We used to get very concernedpotential customers Like why are
you is?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
this a.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Libyan company.
Like what's going on.
You know we used to get a lotof that.
We don't very much anymore.
Like what's going on.
You know we used to get a lotof that.
We don't very much anymore, butback in the day that was a
thing.
Yes, yes, yes, for sure.
Um well, adam, this has beenawesome.
Man, everyone needs to go checkout clear card.
Get clear card with a Kcom.
Um, super cool.
Yep, and two E's Now gettingconfusing.
(20:20):
Yeah, yeah, super cool product.
I love that you are servingchurches with it.
Uh, growing up in the church,and that your second customer
was a church.
That's pretty cool.
Yes, and uh, yeah, man, we'llhave to have you back in a year
and just see how things aregoing.
Let's do it.
We'd love to.
Let's do it.
All right, man, yeah, yeah,thanks for watching y'all.
(20:48):
Uh, catch us next week and uh,we'll have another episode of
modern church leader, see ya.
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