Company Profiles: Spotlight on Travel and Tech

Searching for some great listening material to motivate, inspire and help take your life to the next level? Looking to improve your life, boost your finances or find your next adventure on those boring commutes? Look no further than an app called Otto Radio.

The company’s mission is to help fill your commute and other activities with bold, fresh and new ideas by providing easy access to the podcasts and audio news that matters most to its users. After all, it’s possible to turn downtime into valuable time that can change your life for the better.

“You should always have the opportunity to have something great to teach you, make you laugh or simply add value to your life,” said Saulo Marti, vice president of marketing at Otto Radio, who spoke to RewardExpert.

Many of us want to take part in that great American dream of home ownership, but we never take the first step toward purchasing a home. Maybe we are afraid our credit isn’t good enough, or perhaps the thought of coming up with a sizable down payment stops us in our tracks.

Businesses no longer have to depend on HR and payroll staff to collect invoices, thanks to companies like InvoiceSherpa. For the past two years, InvoiceSherpa has been automating the payments process for companies, optimizing cash flow and allowing them to get paid faster and more efficiently.

InvoiceSherpa Founder, Shaun Clark, started the company after noticing that cash flow is often restricted by unnecessary customer debt and unpaid invoices, exposing the need for more efficient payouts. And the idea has quickly caught on. The company now manages over $1 billion in receivables each year, with its primary client base being small businesses.

If you’re like most people, you look at prices before purchasing. Sometimes money can be tight and higher priced items can scare you so you decide not to make a purchase. You don’t necessarily want to do layaway because you probably would like to get the product now.

With Splitit, you can divide your payment into monthly installments and still get the item from the store that same day with no waiting period. CEO and Co-Founder of Splitit, Gil Don, spoke with RewardExpert about why Splitit is a great choice for both businesses and consumers.

Has past money mismanagement or just plain bad luck tarnished your credit history? Have retailers, banks and other lenders denied you leases, loans and credit cards as a result? If so, you’re not alone. According to Kelly Davies, Chief Communications Officer at Amigo Loans, a UK company offering guarantor loans for people with poor or no credit, 12 million consumers are unable to borrow from banks because of their credit score.

It’s just as common these days to call an Uber or Lyft as it is to vacation in somebody else’s home. More specifically, that means staying in an Airbnb.

To say our world is increasingly digital would be an understatement. Today, roughly nine in ten American adults regularly use the internet, according to Pew Research Center data. Among adults that are from 18 to 49 years old, internet usage is almost universal, with over 97 percent regularly going online to do everything from sending email, using social media and reading the news to making travel arrangements, buying products and banking.

For parents, it’s usually a challenging, nerve-racking and expensive proposition when it comes to finding proper care for their children. Whether it’s for a night on the town, a short vacation or a long-term nanny job, finding a person you can trust is an absolute necessity. Fortunately, companies like UrbanSitter are helping parents do just that by making the babysitting process easier and more efficient.

Even Financial has a pithy but straightforward tagline: Powering Financial Services Online. The platform matches qualified consumers with online financial products and services in real time, providing data and insight that allow for marketing institutions and other partners to increase monetization and reduce the cost of acquisition.

For the first time in history, the average national credit score reached 700 last year according to FICO. On the upper end of FICO’s 300 to 850 credit score range, consumers with a score of 700 are rated as ‘very good’ credit risks. However, according to Experian, which looked at VantageScore credit score data, 21 percent of U.S. consumers had deep-subprime scores below 600. Poor and subprime credit ratings cost the consumers who carry them thousands of dollars in higher interest rates on loans and revolving credit, as well as higher premiums on auto and other insurance products.

Are the free product samples your favorite part of any Sephora order you place? Do you love discovering new makeup brands at the Nordstrom beauty counter? Or noshing on complimentary snacks as you cruise the aisles at Costco or Sam’s Club? How about the excitement of opening a box when you have no idea what it contains? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you will probably enjoy the subscription box experience.

While the heart of the Midwest may not be everybody’s first choice as a travel destination, Columbus, Ohio, is a wonderful place to vacation in the spring and summer. With a wealth of festivals, activities and sporting events, coupled with easy access, Ohio’s capital city is perfect for families and solo travelers alike. Traveling to Columbus can also be done rather cheaply when redeeming points or miles for travel.

Real estate is one of the most popular alternative investments. But what if you don’t have the time or capital to buy and sell physical property? And what if the public REIT (real estate investment trust) offerings are less than attractive? That’s where private real estate investments, which are investments in real estate assets not tradable on a public exchange, find their niche.

The average American consumer carried $6,354 in credit card debt in 2017, a nearly 3 percent increase over the previous year according to Experian’s State of Credit survey. Though consumers are only utilizing an average of 30 percent of their available revolving credit, 43 percent are carrying a balance every month—a practice which can easily add up to thousands of dollars in high-interest charges each year.

It’s a different day and age in the world of finance and accounting, and there are many companies that are here to help. BlackLine is one of them, providing cloud-based solution that are transforming the financing and accounting industry.

This is done via automating, centralizing and streamlining financial close operations, intercompany accounting processes and other processes for large and midsize organizations. It is designed to complement financial systems like SAP, Oracle and NetSuite.

Many small business owners struggle to find the money to grow their business, boost pay for their employees and become an even bigger asset to their community. Many even struggle to pay their bills each month, living in an endless paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. There’s a California-based organization called Opportunity Fund who’s mission is to invest in those without adequate financial resources in order to better their lives.

In today’s data-driven environment, companies are sitting on a treasure trove of information. However, many are failing to turn that data into tangible benefits for their business, missing out on opportunities to boost revenue and profit. A North Carolina-based company called Automated Insights offers a solution to the data dilemma, promising to revolutionize business in the process.

A home is more than just the biggest purchase most consumers ever make. It’s also a place they fill with memories, gather with family and friends, and a source of both psychological and physical safety. Though debt-to-income, interest rates, closing costs, and other financial factors must come into play once a property is chosen, the actual process of finding the right home is an emotionally stressful one for most consumers. Fortunately, real estate agents and brokers can alleviate that stress as well as many other potential distractions if they use RealScout.

Going on vacation can be fun and relaxing, but it can also be expensive. What do you do something comes up that prevents you from taking your trip at the last minute? What if there’s a medical emergency, a significant flight delay or your luggage is lost? That’s where travel insurance can help protect travelers and the money they invest in their vacation.

Managing your family finances is something that should be of the utmost importance. But with jobs, kids, mortgages and life in general getting in the way, financial discussions are often left on the back burner. Plus, many people in their 20s, 30s and even 40s ignore their finances and don’t start financial planning until it’s too late.