The rise of coffee culture in Cape Town is no joke. For any coffee connoisseur, hipster, addict or just a simple coffee lover the choice is vast. Lucky for us Capetonians, we happen to have the world’s best coffee shop (as listed by the Telegraph UK) in our buzzing city.
Truth Coffee, founded by David Donde, has without a doubt left it’s coffee stain on all our hearts. David started the business as a way to let his inner ‘coffee geek’ out, as well as to fuel his entrepreneurial spirit. To put it simply Truth Coffee makes and sells coffee. They target their products to people who enjoy the finer luxuries in life like slow roasted coffee, and who treat their coffee drinking as a religion.
How does a coffee shop become the best in the world? We can’t reveal all their trade secrets. But one thing we can tell you is it involves absolute dedication to their customers and suppliers. As a small business, your customers are everything. Making their experience memorable, easy and seamless is essential. Especially when it comes to payments. Nobody wants the payment process to be difficult to use and track. David Donde knew this was an important aspect for his business.
Enter Xero
Xero, the beautiful accounting system used mostly by small and micro businesses. Xero launched in South Africa in May 2016 and PayFast added it as one of its many integration platforms. With the integration, merchants can now add a ‘Pay Now’ link to all their invoices, therefore offering a convenient way to settle their accounts. Invoices that are paid via PayFast automatically reflect as paid in Xero.
Why was all this important for David at Truth? Well, this system offered a seamless process for his clients and in turn allowed him to get paid faster and not have to chase people up for payment.
Prior to implementing this system, Truth Coffee was using EFT and credit card payments in-house. Truth has an annual growth of 40% per year. Their clients range from large to small and David knew he had to look after each and every single one of them. He states:
“I chose to use the Xero and PayFast integration because it was the quickest integration and I needed a more seamless payment option for the fast expanding business.”
Now that they have been using it for some time they have found their smaller clients are able to make payment more easily and quickly, which for any entrepreneurial business big or small is essential.
Looking to the Future
Truth has many goals of growth and expansion for the business. Roslyn Lavery, Business Development Manager at PayFast, added that “with the addition of ‘Pay Now’ links on invoices, clients are encouraged to settle accounts quicker. This is especially important for high-growth companies and has been key in enabling Truth to accomplish their goals.”
With all this in place, Truth stays focused on making and selling mind blowing coffee.
