Arteastiq Group was founded in 2010 with a vision to bring together lifestyle dining and artistic experiences. As Kian Fei, Head of Operations, recalls it started as Arteastiq Boutique Tea House in Singapore’s Mandarin Gallery, a concept that combined premium tea offerings with art jamming sessions in a luxurious setting.
Since then, the brand has grown into a multi-brand F&B group operating 10 different restaurant concepts, spanning modern Asian-European fusion cuisine, contemporary Chinese dining, creative bars, and more. Today the company is looking to expand its presence beyond Singapore in regional markets.
Managing multi-outlet, multi-brand operations presented Arteastiq with ongoing finance complexity. They addressed this through a partnership with ccMonet.ai, using their AI-powered solutions to enhance financial visibility and strengthen their strategic decision making.
SMEhorizon speaks with Kian Fei, Head of Operations, on Arteastiq’s foray into AI financial tools and how this has helped them streamline operations and meet business goals. Hua Mao, Founder of ccMonet.ai, also weighs in on developing fintech solutions with SME needs in mind, and how AI can help drive these developments.
Scaling potential and problems
Kian Fei shares that as Arteastiq scaled its operations across multiple brands and outlets, financial operations became increasingly complex. “Some of our key pain points included the need for manual invoice processing and reconciliation across brands, a lack of real-time financial insights for decision-making, and inefficiencies in expense reporting and claims.
“There was also a heavy reliance on manual bookkeeping that was prone to human error,” Kian Fei adds. “We were looking for a solution that could streamline these workflows, improve transparency, and give us timely, actionable data.”
Many SMEs, especially those in Southeast Asia, find themselves in similar situations leading to a finance gap. As Hua Mao explains, “the vast majority of SMEs in Southeast Asia run informally: they use WhatsApp for invoicing, paper receipts for expenses, and screenshots to track payments. Most don’t have full-time accountants or standardised processes.”
This makes, he continues, the fintech solutions designed for large enterprises irrelevant, as they are often, complex, expensive, and require financial expertise to operate. “Without foundational digital infrastructure and financial literacy, automation becomes irrelevant, it automates chaos rather than solving it,” he says.
Trust as a critical factor
In evaluating potential vendors, recalls Kian Fei, Arteastiq looked out for factors such as its ability to support mutiple brands and entity structures, the reliability and speed of their AI data capture, and their cost-effectiveness and ability to scale. What also proved important was that the solution was easy to use and required minimal training, as well as came with a responsive support team with strong local expertise. “The main challenge was change management,” shares Kian Fei. “Some team members were skeptical about automation and unsure if AI could truly deliver accuracy and compliance.”
Indeed, as Hua Mao learned the hard way while developing ccMonet.ai, automation without clarity often erodes trust. “SME owners want to stay in control,” he explained, “especially when it comes to money. If they can’t understand where a number came from or verify an AI’s decision, they won’t adopt it, no matter how efficient it is.
“One early customer in Malaysia was exactly the kind of business we hoped to serve: tech-savvy, eager to modernise, and drowning in receipts. We rolled out our full automation stack, invoice scanning, automatic categorisation, real-time reports. In theory, they just needed to upload documents and everything else would “magically” happen.
“But what actually happened? They kept manually double-checking every result. One misclassified transaction shook their confidence. Their reaction: “This feels like an impossible mission, to trust something I don’t understand with something as sensitive as money.”
“That sentence stuck with us. It was the best feedback we ever received, because it showed us that trust, not just technology, is the core problem.
“We realised we weren’t just solving accounting, we were solving for peace of mind. That required rethinking our entire product design, from adding conversational explanations for every number, to integrating human experts directly into the workflow.”
“Automation is necessary, but it must be paired with explanation, human touch, and a deep respect for how SMEs actually operate.”
These insights led to ccMonet.ai’s current model which combines AI automation with expert-backed support. “Our platform automates the tedious: invoice reading, classification, reconciliation, and reporting. But instead of replacing humans, we complement our AI with a dedicated “expert chat group” model, every business gets access to real humans who understand local tax, accounting, and legal issues.
“This model has transformed adoption rates, especially among SMEs that are skeptical of “black-box” tools. By giving users both clarity and control, and letting them talk to someone when it matters, we reduce the anxiety that often blocks digital transformation.
This novel approach won over Arteastiq, who appreciated that they had a complete financial operations solution with both automation and expert support. The rewards have been significant: some of the tangible results Kian Fei shared include a shorter monthly closing cycle reduced from 12–15 days to 6–8 days, greatly reduced need for manual checks, and streamlined claims and payment approval processes, improving internal satisfaction. They also received automatic weekly business summary reports, meaning that, Kian Fei says, “our finance team can now focus more on strategic analysis rather than day-to-day data entry.”
The future of SME finance tools
Kian Fei shares three key pieces of advice for other SMEs looking to explore AI solutions:
- Don’t wait until things break down – Adopt AI tools early to prevent bottlenecks and build scalable operations.
- Choose a partner, not just a platform – The people behind the product matter. ccMonet understood our needs from day one.
- Start small, scale fast – Begin with one outlet or process, learn from it, and expand gradually.
“AI isn’t just about automation,” Kian Fei says. “It’s a way to unlock clarity, speed, and confidence in how you run your business.”
Hua Mao is excited about the future of SME finance tools in Southeast Asia, outlining four pillars that will underpin its future:
- Hyper-localisation. With dozens of languages, tax regimes, and business customs across the region, there is no “one-size-fits-all.” Tools must adapt to local payments (like PayNow or GoPay), documents (handwritten, crumpled, photographed), and workflows (WhatsApp-based operations, mobile-first behavior).
- Human-in-the-loop intelligence. AI will power the back end, but humans will remain in the loop, especially for strategic decisions, regulatory interpretation, and trust-building. The best tools will blend automation with real experts, not try to replace them.
- Clarity over complexity. Dashboards and spreadsheets aren’t going away, but they will no longer be the primary interface. Instead, we’ll see more tools focused on clarity, showing business owners what they need to know, when they need to know it, in a format they understand.
- Ecosystem-native integration. Finance tools will evolve from standalone apps to ecosystem-native services, embedded in the tools SMEs already use: e-commerce platforms, banks, CRMs, messaging apps. The winning solutions will integrate invisibly, not ask users to switch contexts.
“Southeast Asia is not just a challenging region,” he concludes. “It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvent SME finance in a way that’s flexible, inclusive, and built for the messy beauty of real businesses.”
