CashOnTime Allocation has met all its objectives! The productivity gains are real and significant. We have considerably reduced the cost of processing a cash receipt.
An international group
Founded in 1996, UPERGY (formerly VDI Group) specializes in the trading of essential and non-strategic consumables in two areas:
- Health and Safety (health articles, 1st aid, protection for people at work…)
- Batteries
Positioned in two high-potential markets, the listed group employs over 300 people in 8 countries (France including La Réunion, England, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, China and Tunisia).
Its 6,500 product references are aimed at companies, professionals, local authorities and private individuals.
Particularly strong growth
UPERGY has been a CashOnTime customer for 10 years, using the solution since 2011.
Over the years, the group has expanded significantly through both organic growth and acquisitions. In 2011, UPERGY generated sales of 53.4 million euros. “Between 2002 and 2011, our sales rose from €15.8 million to €53.4 million, a more than 3-fold increase,” explains UPERGY’s Deputy CFO.
This strong growth was logically accompanied by an increase in invoices and customer collections. In 2012, UPERGY counted 17,000 collections per month (+189% versus 2010!) for 9,000 customers. “We’re experiencing an explosion in the number of incoming payments, and these payments settle invoices representing small amounts (on average €500). It was therefore essential for our lettering to be inexpensive,” she explains.
c5.5 FTEs (Full Time Equivalent) are responsible for manually reconciling incoming cash receipts with open invoices: “with the increase in cash receipts, we couldn’t cope any more: processing customer cash receipts was falling behind schedule, the accounts were not up to date, and we were following up customers who had already paid their invoices”.
UPERGY has chosen to automate the processing of its customer cash receipts in order to meet 3 objectives:
- Increase productivity to support the Group’s development and absorb the volume linked to the business model,
- Free up accounts receivable accounting time for higher value-added analysis and control tasks,
- Improve the reliability of accounts receivable, and therefore the relevance of reminders.
The CashOnTime productivity suite
CashOnTime Allocation was quickly chosen to meet these 3 objectives.
Initially, UPERGY opted for CashOnTime Allocation to automatically process its 3,200 monthly transfers. Within 2 months, the solution was up and running. Interfaces with the Harmonie ERP (Agresso) and user training went smoothly.
“In the first few days, our automatic lettering rate was already 53%”, explains the Assistant CFO, “and today we’re up to 75%, thanks to the enrichment of third-party RIBs as we go along. Every day, CashOnTime Allocation receives transaction advices from our banks and automatically processes 75% of transfers. Processing the remaining 25% is greatly facilitated by the lettering assistance offered by the solution. The most complex cases are handled manually, by calling the customer”.
In a second phase, UPERGY opted for GEC Connect, a solution particularly suited to e-commerce stores. Between 2010 and 2012, UPERGY saw a 745% increase in online payments! GEC Connect proved indispensable for automatically recording these entries in UPERGY’s accounting system (Harmonie).
cSubstantial benefits thanks to the accounting lettering solution
The Assistant CFO concludes by pointing out that “GEC has met all its objectives! The productivity gains are real and significant. CashOnTime Allocation has made it possible to absorb the explosion in the number of invoices and payments. Now, 130 hours a month are enough to process all incoming transfers, which corresponds to less than one FTE! Our teams are much calmer when they follow up with their customers, because they can rely on reliable, up-to-date accounting data.
What’s more, users are delighted with the ease of use and ergonomic design. We have considerably reduced the cost of processing a collection. And to increase productivity still further, we ask our sales staff to encourage their customers to pay us by bank transfer.
In addition to automatically recording e-commerce payments in UPERGY’s accounting system, GEC Connect also enables all bank charges to be recorded, thus avoiding manual input and saving considerable time.
What next? What kind of automation?
cIn order to further improve efficiency in accounts receivable, UPERGY is considering extending the scope of GEC to automate the processing of transfers received from foreign banks and checks, which until now have been handled manually.
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