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Where do you turn when cash flow is tight? Here's how embedded finance, working capital, and instant payouts help growing businesses close funding gaps.
Picture a bakery owner on a Friday afternoon. Her flour supplier just called with a bulk discount on next quarter’s order, but the offer only stands if she can pay by Monday. The money technically exists — some of it is sitting in the weekend’s card sales, still waiting to settle. The rest depends on a bank loan application she submitted three weeks ago. The discount won’t wait for either one.
Most business owners know some version of this moment. In a 2025 Goldman Sachs survey, 81% of small business owners said they found it difficult to access affordable capital, and the Federal Reserve’s latest Small Business Credit Survey found that about a third of small employer firms faced a funding gap even after applying for financing.
Traditional lending, with its credit checks, collateral requirements, and weeks of waiting, wasn’t built for businesses that need to move quickly.
The good news? There’s a funding source many owners never think to check: their payment provider. The same platform that processes your card sales can now put cash in your hands, sometimes within minutes.
Let’s break down what embedded finance is, how working capital and instant payouts work, and how to tell which one is right for your business.
Embedded finance is the integration of financial services, like funding and payouts, directly into software that isn’t a bank. Instead of visiting a branch or applying through a separate lender, businesses access these services inside the platforms they already use every day, like their payment dashboard.
You’ve probably used embedded finance without realizing it. Booking sites that offer trip insurance at checkout, rideshare apps that pay drivers instantly, and payment platforms that extend funding offers to merchants are all examples of embedded finance.
For most small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the most useful embedded finance tools include lending and payouts: funding options built on your real sales data instead of a paper application.
The model is growing fast. Some research projects that the global embedded finance market will reach $588 billion by 2030, growing at nearly 33% annually. Merchants are a big reason why, with nine in 10 SMBs now considering embedded financial services essential to daily operations.
Your payment provider holds something a bank doesn’t: a complete, real-time picture of your revenue. Every transaction you process shows how much you sell, how consistently you sell it, and how your sales shift from season to season.
That data changes the funding equation. Instead of judging your business on a credit score or collateral, providers can base eligibility on actual sales performance. That means there’s no lengthy application to submit and no waiting weeks for an underwriter’s answer. Pre-approved offers often appear right in your dashboard, so you can access funds whenever you need them.
Embedded finance generally comes in two forms: working capital and instant payouts.
Working capital provides flexible funding that you repay over time, while instant payouts speed up access to revenue you’ve already earned. They solve different problems, so it’s worth understanding both.
Working capital is financing. You receive a lump sum to put toward your business, then repay your loan over time, typically through a fixed percentage of your daily sales plus a one-time fee disclosed upfront.
Instant payouts involve no borrowing at all. With this feature, you can access revenue you’ve already earned faster, shrinking the standard two-to-three-day card settlement time to minutes. There’s no interest and no repayment schedule because the money is already yours.
The distinction matters more than it might seem. Research shows that 77% of SMBs operate with barely enough cash to meet day-to-day needs, and the culprit is often timing rather than performance.
Working capital closes a funding gap. Instant payouts close a timing gap.
Working capital solutions, sometimes called revenue-based financing, flip the traditional borrowing process. Instead of applying for a bank loan and hoping you’ll be approved, you receive a pre-approved offer in your payment dashboard. Just adjust the loan amount, accept the terms, and funds will arrive within one to two business days.
Repayment is where things really start to differ from a bank loan. Instead of paying interest, you’ll be shown a pre-set fee that you’ll repay over time — so you know exactly how much the loan will cost before you accept it. Because pricing is fixed, you never have to worry about compounding interest.
After accepting your loan, a small, fixed percentage of your daily sales will automatically go toward your balance. That means you’ll pay more during strong weeks and less on slow ones.
That kind of accessibility fills a real gap. Studies show that only 39% of SMBs have access to financing sources like business credit cards and working capital loans, even though funds like these routinely go toward inventory, equipment upgrades, new hires, and marketing pushes. Our own data found that 54% of business owners have used personal savings or credit cards to cover business expenses — something that no operator should have to resort to.
When a customer taps their card, the money doesn’t reach your bank account right away. Settlement — the behind-the-scenes handoff between card networks, banks, and processors — usually takes two to three business days. Instant payouts eliminate that wait entirely, allowing you to access revenue you’ve already earned immediately, without having to wait for the traditional settlement time.
Here’s how it works:
Because the service lives inside your payment platform, it works around the clock, including weekends and holidays, when banks are closed. Your standard payout schedule continues as normal; you’re just accessing a portion of your earnings early.
The demand for that speed is striking. In our recent survey, 52% of operators said that instant or same-day funding would help their businesses become more profitable or efficient. When payroll hits Monday morning and the weekend rush hasn’t settled yet, the math is easy.
Start with the problem sitting in front of you. If you need more money than you’ve earned so far, working capital is the better fit. If you need faster access to money you’ve already earned, instant payouts will get you there.
As you consider your options, ask yourself:
Cash flow pressure doesn’t mean something is wrong with your business; it usually means your funding options haven’t caught up to how you actually earn. Embedded finance fixes that by putting capital and instant funding where your revenue already lives: inside your payment platform.
At Flute, we built our embedded finance suite around both halves of that equation.
If you’re already a Flute customer, both options are waiting in your dashboard. Log in to check your eligibility. New to Flute? Reach out to our team to find out what embedded financing could look like for your business.
