Aridscape Utah is a leading landscaping company that provides design, installation, and maintenance services for residential, commercial, and development projects statewide. The company works directly with homeowners, businesses, developers, and property managers to tailor each project to local soil, climate, and water conditions. Its expertise is reflected in durable, well-crafted landscapes that balance sustainability with aesthetics.
After nearly a decade in business, new ownership acquired Aridscape and re-envisioned it as less dependent on seasonal work and more stable year-round. It expanded into new markets across Utah and broadened its offerings. As the business grew, the new owners needed a system that could scale with operations. The ability to easily manage, automate, and track cash flow and spending had become non-negotiable, and traditional banks simply weren't delivering.
Before Relay: a running list of painful moments
When serial entrepreneur Adam Gee took ownership of Aridscape Utah, the biggest challenge was maintaining financial discipline as spending increased across crews, jobs, and locations. With roughly 30 employees needing to make daily purchases, small decisions added up quickly and made it difficult to keep pace.
Most spending ran through employee credit cards. While that made buying convenient, it often meant dealing with unexpected expenses. Larger charges discovered after the fact pulled Gee from other priorities to ensure obligations were still taken care of.
“I can remember many painful moments,” he reflects. “In particular, a delivery driver purchased $3,000 worth of material that you didn’t know about, and now you’ve got to figure out a way to fit that in your cash flow model.”
Keeping up with expenses across departments and teams was also a challenge. Receipts came in inconsistently, and the details often had to be pieced together manually. That got in the way of seeing the true impact of costs as money moved through the business.
The more Aridscape scaled, the more unavoidable reality became: The company needed a system to streamline day-to-day operations and simplify the financial picture. In addition, it needed tools that established expectations and made following company policies easy.
The solution: a system that serves how the business actually runs
Relay checked all of the boxes that Gee was looking for. He first heard about the platform when a company setting up an LLC for another of his ventures recommended that he look into it. What stood out was how seamless Relay made managing, automating, and tracking cash flow and spending. It could support Aridscape Utah in ways traditional banking doesn't measure up to—or even offer.
With Relay offering up to 20 checking accounts, Aridscape set up accounts for different purposes and automatically allocated funds across overhead, savings, taxes, materials, fuel, and accounts receivable.
From there, Aridscape took control of spending at the point of purchase by issuing debit cards2, requiring approval for purchases over $500. This removed the need to hand out credit cards and the pressure of lump-sum bills coming due all at once alongside other obligations. In the future, Gee anticipates taking advantage of other options Relay offers, such as vendor and category restrictions.
Across the entire business, Aridscape leverages Relay to stay ahead of expenses. Team members can upload receipts directly in the app at the time of purchase, while transactions flow automatically into QuickBooks for admins to categorize. And the platform's dashboard provides a unified, real-time view into activity across accounts, showing where money is going, when it's leaving, and how it affects cash flow.
2The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.
The impact: smoother operations, stronger leadership
There wasn't a single turning point in how Aridscape Utah began scaling operations with Relay. It was a series of shifts that removed the day-to-day friction that made managing the business harder than it needed to be.
Relay offered visibility into what was affecting Aridscape's bottom line, making it easy to understand how direct expenses affected gross profit or how selling, general, and administrative expenses affected net profit. Now, Aridscape has the data it needs to guide financial decisions, such as investing marketing and sales dollars where they'll have the greatest impact.
“We have the infrastructure in place. We have the right people in place. We have everything that’s necessary to grow while maintaining and even expanding margin,” highlights Gee.
As for Gee personally, Relay has transformed how he operates and shows up as a business owner—giving him peace of mind and more confidence not only in the financials but also in Aridscape's next phase of growth.
Relay: giving small businesses more freedom
When asked what he'd share with other self-made entrepreneurs considering Relay, Gee highlighted the payoff of looking beyond the familiar.
“A lot of small business owners tend to stick to their neighborhood branch,” he says. “I would encourage them to really expand their mind to the fintech that Relay offers. It’s not necessarily taking a risk; it’s opening your mind to new technology. And what Relay offers is significantly better than other banks I’ve been with in terms of how cash flows, how expenses are managed, and the freedom you have over different parts of your financial model.”
2The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.
