Success Story: How Raff Automated Payments and Scaled Faster with Wafeq

Sometimes, the strongest ideas are born from observing a need repeated across conversations. Business owners, especially brand founders, face a common challenge, which is the dream of seeing their products in as many stores as possible, across neighborhoods, cities, and even borders. But the path is often manual, slow, and costly. This repeated frustration inspired the creation of Raf, a platform designed to accelerate how brands connect with offline points of sale. By automating the most time-consuming steps in expansion and finance, Raf made it possible for businesses to scale faster without expanding their teams or resources.

This is the story of a platform built on insight and powered by technology, where accounting automation and smart integrations, like Wafeq, aren’t just support tools, but drivers of real growth and market access.

A Market Need Observed First-Hand

Understanding the needs of business owners often comes not from data, but from listening. In Raff’s case, the idea for the platform didn’t begin with a business plan. It started with conversations. Direct contact with merchants across years of working in eCommerce highlighted a recurring frustration: the difficulty of reaching offline points of sale efficiently.

This is where the Raff platform found its purpose. Raff was created to connect brands directly to offline points of sale and enable rapid, low-cost geographic expansion from wherever the brand is based. The platform wasn’t just about technology. It was about solving a deep operational bottleneck and empowering businesses to grow without repetitive effort.

Hear directly from Raff’s Founder and CEO as he shares the challenges, solutions, and the real impact of smart automation on business growth.

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The Real Challenge: Accessing Offline Retail Locations

Despite the rise of online sales, many brand owners still face a persistent challenge: reaching offline points of sale efficiently. The typical journey starts manually, from visiting one store, introducing the product, and then repeating the same process 20, 30, or even 40 times, depending on the brand’s ambition. This fragmented process is time-consuming and unsustainable for any business looking to grow quickly. It slows down expansion, increases operational cost, and limits how fast a brand can scale. That’s the exact gap Raff set out to fill: enabling offline retail expansion without repeated manual effort, making growth smoother, faster, and far more scalable.

Raff’s Vision: Connecting Brands to Retail Through Automation

Raff focused on creating an intelligent technological solution to bridge the gap between brands and offline retail points. The platform’s goal is to accelerate the process of getting products onto traditional retail shelves by simplifying and automating the time-consuming steps involved.

By connecting brands directly with points of sale, business owners can rapidly and efficiently expand their geographic reach without repeated travel or manual outreach to every single retail location. Raff leverages financial and operational automation to save valuable time and reduce errors, enabling brands to concentrate on growing their business and increasing market share.

Raff’s Regional Growth: From One Store to Nine Countries

Raff achieved rapid regional expansion due to a robust infrastructure and smart partnerships. The journey started by serving brands and points of sale within Saudi Arabia and eventually expanded to nine countries across the region.

This growth was no accident; it was a result of unifying the user experience across different locations and relying on an integrated system that includes shipping, payment gateways, and accounting solutions. This integration enabled Raff to deliver a consistent experience for all clients, whether in Riyadh, Dubai, or any other city, helping to build trust and attract more brands and retail outlets.

Why Raff Chose Wafeq for Financial Automation?

Raff chose Wafeq as a strategic partner to automate its financial operations for many reasons, among the most important are:

1. Strong technical integration with Saudi banks, enabling direct and fast transfers from Raff’s accounts.
2. Fully integrated Arabic user interfaces that simplify work for accounting and finance teams.
3. Unlimited technical support from the Wafeq team, accelerating and facilitating integration and operations.
4. High compliance with local accounting and tax regulations, enhancing system reliability and security.

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The Three Phases of Integration with Wafeq

The integration process between Raff’s platform and Wafeq’s system was executed in three key phases:

• Phase One: Automated Invoice Issuance Connecting Raff’s systems with Wafeq to speed up invoice issuance, allowing for faster and more efficient processing than traditional methods.
• Phase Two: Automated Financial Transfers Automating payment transfers based on issued invoices saves significant time and effort for finance teams while reducing manual errors.
• Phase Three: Invoice Upload and Tracking via Platform Enabling clients to upload invoices directly on Raff’s platform that automatically syncs with Wafeq’s system, reduces manual follow-ups, and improves financial transparency.

The impact of the Raff x Wafeq partnership on operational efficiency at Raff and with its customers

Through integration with Wafeq and automation of financial processes, Raff has realized numerous benefits that directly improved workflow and client performance:

• Time and effort savings from manual work and financial follow-ups dropped from over 40–50 hours monthly to a single centralized system.
• Increased efficiency and Finance teams can now process a higher volume of invoices and transactions faster and with higher accuracy.
• Error reduction because Automation minimized manual mistakes in invoicing and payment transfers, reducing financial risks.
• Improved user experience and delivering a unified and seamless experience for all clients across different geographic regions.
• Enhanced compliance and full adherence to local accounting and tax regulations reduce the likelihood of financial penalties and violations.

Strategic Vision: Raff and Wafeq’s Partnership for Scalable Growth

The partnership between Raff and Wafeq goes beyond technical integration; it reflects a strategic vision for smart, scalable growth. While Raff empowers brands to expand rapidly in the retail market, Wafeq ensures that such growth is executed with operational efficiency, financial compliance, and minimal overhead.

Together, they’ve built a powerful financial backbone capable of handling thousands of transactions monthly, smoothly and reliably. One of the key success indicators, as both teams measure it, is the system’s ability to process high transaction volumes with minimal errors and maximum effectiveness. Thanks to this infrastructure, Raff can continue attracting new clients, both brands and retail outlets, without letting growth compromise financial clarity or control.

Read Also about: Lean x Wafeq: A Fintech Success Story (5 entities in 5 months)

Raff’s story demonstrates how repeated operational challenges can evolve into effective solutions by leveraging technology and building the right partnerships, such as with Wafeq. Automation, system integration, and accounting compliance created a solid foundation that enabled Raff to serve brands and retailers with major speed and precision.

The streamlined operations between Raff and Wafeq led to reduced manual workload, fewer errors, and improved performance. This case highlights the importance of having a reliable financial infrastructure as a core driver for stable and scalable growth.