How Rundoo Delivers ROI

The number one question we always get is: why switch? Once people feel good about this, the number two question is: all right, how does the switching actually work? That's a different discussion (and we've written about it in detail). For this one, I want to focus on the decision itself: what makes it worth it.

We did an analysis of stores that switched to Rundoo. We took their go-live date, looked at the year before and the year after, and measured what changed. On average, we saw:

1. 17% increase in revenue
2. 25% reduction in receivables
3. 2% increase in gross margin

I want to have a caveat up front: I'm not going to sit here and say you're going to grow 17%. There is definitely some selection bias in this metric. People who invest in growth tend to see more of it. We have one client that's gone from one to five locations, and they're going to pull that average up. But even looking at the median, the numbers are still well above inflation.

The other two, especially the receivables reduction, I actually do think we're consistently driving. So let's dig into each.

ROI: Revenue, Outstanding, Improve Margin

I'm a sucker for a memorable acronym, so I turned these three into ROI: return on investment.

1. 📈 Revenue (+17%): Grow your top line
2. 💳 Outstanding (-25%): Get paid faster
3. ✏️ Improve Margin (+2%): Keep more of what you make

For each of these, there's a how and a feature that drives it.

Revenue (+17%)

We typically see revenue growth driven by increased share of wallet with existing large customers. Revenue can grow in a whole bunch of ways: higher base prices, new customers from a great Facebook campaign. But what we usually see as the primary cause is your largest customers, the top 50, spending more with you.

Why? A lot of it comes down to a better customer experience. They walk into the store, there's a nice card reader, they've got better insight into everything they're doing. And in particular, we hear very positive feedback on the customer app. Contractors can see their quotes, will calls, pay down their bills, and check their prices all in one place. At this point, we have over 5,000 users on the app.

The key with any app is that it's useless if no one's using it. So how do they get on? If they have a phone number in your system, they put in that number, get a text, and they're logged on. How do they learn it exists? There's a QR code on all your receipts. When you send out statements, that's usually when we see people convert: "hey, if you want to pay your bill, scan it here and pay in the app."

Outstanding (-25%)

The thing I tell people all the time: 90% of your customers want to pay you. The 10% that don't, you can't do anything about. Those are going to be an absolute pain regardless. But for that 90%, just make it really easy to get paid.

With Rundoo, when customers get their statements, they can go in the app, hook up a credit card or a bank account for ACH with lower fees, and set up autopay. Sometimes on go-live day, the owner is in the store saying "hey, you should check out this app, want to set up autopay?" And they're just getting everyone enrolled.

If you have a back office person who's calling people to collect anyway, part of their routine becomes: every time you call someone, ask them to set up autopay. We see a spike in payments on the first of every month at 2 AM. That's all the autopays running. Card saving is fully PCI compliant. You can't see the details. We actually can't even see the details.

Improve Margin (+2%)

This is where I've actually seen AI operate best. You can ask it things like: where can I improve my margin? What am I selling too high or too low? What special prices do I have that I set up with a contractor three years ago and haven't updated?

Oftentimes with margin, you can have five conversations with AI in 30 minutes and come out with ideas to change pricing. It can work the price side or the cost side. If you get the same product from two vendors, you can tell it to always order from the lower-cost source.

One of our clients discovered through the Daily AI Summary that a contractor had been buying a product at cost for ten weeks because of a mis-entered custom price. The contractor acknowledged the mistake, and the store recovered over $4,200 in lost margin. These are the quiet leaks that are nearly impossible to find in reports but exactly the kind of thing AI surfaces.

What next?

The framing is simple: switching to a modern POS should deliver real ROI. Revenue growth, Outstanding reduction, and Improved margins.