Understanding Signals

A healthy small business banking program supports a healthy Autobooks program. Signals help your FI Admin and frontline bankers divide and prioritize outreach across your teams so you can show up for your small business customers with the right conversation at the right time.

Signals give your financial institution a real-time view of meaningful small business activity so your team can act on opportunities, address risks, and support your customers at the right moment.

What are Signals?

Signals are a curated list of notable transaction activity and trends drawn from the core banking data Autobooks receives daily from your institution. Rather than requiring your team to dig through raw transaction data, Signals surface the most relevant small business indicators in one place, all organized and ready for action.

How your team can use Signals to grow your program

Identify & Prioritize Customers

• Identify high-potential business customers based on payment activity, cash flow patterns, or invoicing needs, then prioritize outreach to those most likely to benefit from Autobooks.
• Spot businesses still relying on checks, manual invoicing, or external payment apps, and position Autobooks as a simpler way to get paid and keep funds within the financial institution.
• Identify customers with recurring payment activity or strong invoice volume and target them with campaigns that promote deeper Autobooks adoption and more consistent usage.

Segment & Target with Better Marketing

• Use transaction and deposit data to segment customers by business type, size, and payment behavior so marketing messages can be more relevant and conversion-focused.
• Use invoicing and payment usage data to identify customers ready for expanded solutions such as digital payments, Tap to Pay on iPhone, or accounting and reporting tools.
• Equip relationship managers and branch teams with data-driven talking points so they can have more relevant conversations with small business customers about payment acceptance, invoicing, and cash flow management.

Improve Onboarding, Activation & Retention

• Use engagement data to determine when businesses may need education, onboarding support, or feature awareness campaigns to improve activation and long-term retention.
• Track where customers drop off in the enrollment or activation process, then improve onboarding, training, and follow-up efforts to increase conversion rates.
• Monitor adoption trends to understand which customer segments enroll fastest, then replicate that strategy across similar portfolios, branches, or markets.

Measure & Demonstrate Program Performance

• Track deposit growth tied to Autobooks usage to show how embedded payments can help strengthen primary account relationships and reduce wallet leakage to third-party platforms.
• Analyze revenue performance by customer segment, product usage, or enrollment channel to refine program strategy and focus on the highest-return growth opportunities.
• Use program performance data to demonstrate internal ROI, including non-interest income potential, deposit retention, and digital relationship growth, which can help build support for broader Autobooks promotion.

Understanding the Signal tab

Signal reads the last 60 days of transactions, recognizes the outside companies your businesses are paying and being paid by, and sorts what it finds into categories you can act on (deposits leaving to a competitor, card volume settling through another processor, payroll running through a third party, a business showing cash-flow stress).

Signal has four views, and each answers a different question:

Signal Feed opens by default. Everything you see is scoped to your institution, and to the integrations you have selected.

Each row in Signal Feed represents a notable event for one of your small business customers. Here's what each column means:

When — The date and timestamp of the transaction, or when a transaction trend was identified.

SMB — The small business name. Click the name to open the detailed SMB record.

Activity — The specific activity that triggered the signal.

Action — The recommended next step your team can take based on the activity.

Signal — The type of signal generated. Categories include: Opportunity, Risk, Notable, and Milestone.

Category — The general topic the activity and signal relate to.

Counterparty — If the activity involves a third party that may affect the health of the customer's business banking relationship (for example, PayPal or a card processor), that party is listed here. If the specific name isn't identifiable in the core data, a generic label is used.

Amount — The dollar amount of the transaction, or the total across multiple transactions if the signal reflects a trend.

Industry — The small business's industry, based on their NAICS code.

SMB ID — The Autobooks customer identifier for that small business.

Signal Summary

The Summary rolls signals up by category, so you can see where the volume sits before you decide you plan of action. One row per category, twenty-one categories, grouped by signal type (Opportunity, Risk, Milestone, Notable) and sorted by highest volume within each group.

Four cards across the top count the signals of each type and show what share of your businesses have this signal The breakdown below has the following columns of data:

Use the Summary to decide where to spend on a campaign. A large annualized figure under Processing is card volume settling somewhere other than your institution. A large figure under Deposit flight is money moving to a named competitor. Both are worth an outreach campaign; the Summary tells you which is bigger in your book.

Export the Summary as CSV or PDF from the buttons above the table. Both respect the filters you have applied.

Top Counterparties

Top Counterparties names the outside companies on the other side of your customers' transactions. Where the Summary tells you a category is large, this tells you who specifically is taking the business.

Counterparties are organized into five groups, each a different sales motion:

Within each group, counterparties are ranked by reach - the number of your businesses that transact with them - rather than by dollars. A processor used by forty of your businesses is a better campaign than one used by two, even if the second moves more money. Each group shows its top entries with a Show all to expand, and any row opens the businesses behind it.

Rows shown in grey italic with an asterisk are unrecognized counterparties. These are not a single company. When a transaction clearly belongs to a category but the specific company can't be identified, it is grouped into one row for that category; for example, "a card processor." 

Export as CSV or PDF from the buttons above the list.

Signal Leads

Signal Leads is your outreach call list. One row per business, with the categories that business has signals in, its largest signal over the 60 days, and the annualized sizing of it.

Filter by category to build a targeted list then search within the results by business name. Selecting a category here keeps that selection when you move between the Signal tabs.

The CSV export includes contact name, contact email and external ID alongside the signal data, so the file is ready to hand to whoever is running the outreach.

Clicking a business name opens its SMB Detail page, where you can see that business' own signal history.

Signals in the SMB Detail View

In addition to the main Signal Feed table, signals are also surfaced within each individual SMB's Detail View, which is visible to all user types.

The SMB Detail View shows all signals for that business over the most recent 90 days (rolling). This includes a breakdown of each signal event, additional context, and recommended actions your team can take.